SXSW-2009
Latest
SXSW 2009: Datapop tuneage for your Tuesday
While we're scampering around GDC in the hunt for gaming goodness, we thought we'd drop a bootleg tune from last week's Datapop concert party at SXSW, which went exceedingly well. The venue was packed with sweaty chiptune lovers, and it actually rocked a lot more than we thought it would. Check out the gallery below from the event, and bounce along to the song from Sievert -- embedded at the bottom of the post.If you're itching for more tunes, hit up the 8bitpeoples site for a ton of free music from most of the artists at the show. Warning: listening is addictive. %Gallery-48344%
SXSW 2009: Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls Interested in Technology
The "Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls into Technology" panel at SXSW proved to be extremely interesting, and sparked quite a debate on Twitter during the talk. The panelists focused both on the increasing number of girls getting their game on and the ones that eventually become employed within the gaming industry.Ostensibly, they want to use gaming to get girls interested in the STEM career tracks, which are usually boy heavy: science, technology, engineering, and math. The panel was moderated by Dee Kapila of Girlstart, a non-profit organization aimed at getting girls interested in those fields. Kapila and the rest of the panel brought up some interesting points, and you can check out the highlights after the break.
SXSW 2009: EA Dead Space - A Deep Media Case Study
One of SXSW's panels that showed off the effects of Panelitis Fakeoutitis (where a panel sounds much better on paper than it actually is) was "EA Dead Space: A Deep Case Media Study," which sounded like it would be a dissection of the game and what went into creating it.A closer reading of the synopsis noted that it was all about "the method and the madness behind Electronic Arts' use of cross-platform marketing." Wait? What? Marketing?! Well, we went anyhow, and you can check out the highlights beyond the break.
SXSW 2009: iPhone: The New Gaming Platform
A group of iPhone game developers got together for an SXSW panel that might as well have been a prolonged high five. They like the platform, and they like all the money that they've gotten from early App Store adopters. ngmoco's Stephanie Morgan, iPhone Dev Camp's Raven Zachary, Aurora Feint's Danielle Cassley, and Pangea Software's Brian Greenstone highlighted the advantages of the platform, and talked about their own game development processes.
SXSW 2009: Free Datapop Gameboy chiptunes party open to the public
If you're interested in all 8-bit music and chiptunes, then you'll want to get yourself to the free Datapop party in Austin this Wednesday night, March 18th. It's free, open to everyone, and will be full of Gameboy music from people like Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, IAYD, Anamanaguchi, 8Bk OK, Graffiti Monsters, and Sievert. Free game-related music, free drinks, and free admission? Three of our favorite free things. We'll be there, and if you will be too then let us know and come say hi.
SXSW 2009: Being Indie and Successful in the Video Game Industry
There's a wealth of indie-related gaming panels and goings on at SXSW this year, ranging from the previous "Games By The People, For The People" panel, the GameSalad folks, and the retro-cool Get Outta My Face arcade cabinet. Heck, there's even a company that wants to bring back Hypercard stack games. So we went back for more indie gaming panel goodness, just because we could. This was a panel by the game developers this time, rather than the people who run the companies ... so what did we learn? A lot of the same from the previous panel. Sadly Jonathan Blow couldn't make it, and was replaced by the above inflatable doll with the Freddie Mercury mug. Although covering his absence nicely were panelists Kellee Santiago from thatgamecompany, John Baez of The Behemoth, Ron Carmel of 2D BOY, and Joel DeYoung from Hothead Games who moderated. Check out the highlights after the break.
SXSW 2009: Game Design Competition rewards elite game designs with Elite Xbox 360s
This year's SXSW ScreenBurn Festival was the first to hold a game design competition for amateur developers. The finals in the two categories, Casual and AAA, were held back-to-back, with the four finalists in each category presenting their designs to an audience whose applause would determine their fate, and a panel of judges who would ask questions about the concepts and the possible execution of the games.
Spotted @SXSW 2009: Jonathan Coulton in a giant fishbowl
Geek songster extraordinaire Jonathan Coulton was on-hand at SXSW, being interviewed in the aquariumrific Studio SX stage. You can watch the full interview at some point later on SXSW.com to hear Coulton talking about reaching his geeky audiences, how he crafts his songs, and why he loves audience misbehavior. He capped everything off with a live performance of the unofficial Portal anthem "Still Alive," which really doesn't get old no matter how many times you hear it.
SXSW 2009: That Doesn't Suck! Inspiring Creativity With Spore
Although Spore's ship date has come and gone, many people are still fervent about creating new creatures, vehicles, buildings, and more for the game, and they've chalked up over 86 million users creations and counting so far. This panel was about the the wealth user created content out there, and also served as a springboard for talking about the first full Spore expansion pack: Galactic Adventures. Caryl Shaw is a producer at Maxis, and she showed off the new expansion pack, and talked about the tools that Maxis and EA strive to give users so that they can create their own open-ended adventures, which is what Galactic Adventures promises to do. She tooled around inside the game for a bit, showing off the planet terraforming features and a combat-focused user created adventure. But what caught our eye most of all was the sheer amount of extremely creative user creations that just stagger the imagination.While Spore might have come out and disappointed some, this panel was enough to make us want to bust it out again when we get home and either get busy creating, or get busy exploring some of the jaw-dropping user content. Check out the highlights after the break.
SXSW 2009: GameSalad and the promise of iPhone game development for all
If the iPhone platform, which is already lauded for making it easier for small developers to create and publish games, isn't democratic enough for you, Gendai Games is attempting to open up iPhone game development (as well as development for other platforms like Facebook, and, in the future, game consoles like the Wii and DS) to everyone, whether you can program or not, with its GameSalad software. The free program allows users to create games using a visual, drag-and-drop interface, and easily move them to the iPhone for testing.I spoke with Gendai's Michael Agustin about the software, which just went into open beta, and how the development platform will develop in the future.
SXSW 2009: Indie meets arcade in Get Outta My Face
The secluded Snowrunner Productions booth in SXSW's ScreenBurn Arcade housed a rare sight: two actual arcade cabinets. Even rarer: the cabinets featured a new game: Will Brierly's Get Outta My Face: a jittery, slightly psychotic action game about a blue cube who has to dodge a rush of red cubes. It's not just a hobby project, either -- Brierly is planning to market Get Outta My Face to restaurants, clubs, and arcades, and it's already found a home in a few venues. After playing the bizarre novelty (in classic arcade fashion, I failed out of my first session within a minute), I spoke with Brierly about the crazy process of making your own arcade game.
SXSW 2009: Games By the People, For the People
So you enjoy playing video games, right? That's what probably brought you to Joystiq in the first place. But have you ever thought about making your own? Right now you're probably thinking, "But, Kevin... doesn't that take millions of dollars and a huge development team?" Well you happen to be in luck, because the answer is no. You can pretty much do it all on your own for pennies. But what's the secret to making it awesome? 5 out of 5 panelists agree: you need to have a good story, or a really interesting idea. Simple, right? Start thinking, and find out more after the break.
SXSW 2009: 'Funologists' and unorthodox research methods
In the panel "Funologists Live & In Person: Guerrilla Game Research," a group of experts took turns explaining methods for researching user experience in games that goes in some way beyond the normal focus groups and QA cycle. The often ad-hoc methods provide valuable data about gameplay at a fraction of the budget of most data gathering exercises. And sometimes they involve becoming a frog.
SXSW 2009: A lifetime of gaming in a single booth
It is not my intention to shill for a beverage, but Mountain Dew's installation in SXSW's ScreenBurn Arcade was too cool for me not to share. As I walked by, I noticed a cozy little setup with a couch, a vintage TV, an NES, an Atari 2600, and a pile of games; a booth employee was playing some Super Mario Bros. I looked around a bit and found that Mountain Dew's expansive booth featured separate areas dedicated to discrete eras of gaming.In addition to the early-mid '80s corner, the booth featured an SNES/Genesis shrine, a setup with a PlayStation, N64, and Xbox, and, of course, modern installations, one of which featured Wii Sports and the other Rock Band. The whole effect was more than nostalgic, it was soothing -- I can definitely imagine getting away from the stress and crowds by whiling away time in 1985. And more than that, it was like seeing my own life in distinct little pieces. That PlayStation/Xbox room might as well have been my dorm room -- except for the nice furniture and TV.As great as the booth was, it didn't necessarily make me crave any Mountain Dew, though the booth staff gave me some anyway. Kudos to the Dew for abandoning the "extreme" for a bit and doing something incredibly sweet.%Gallery-47701%
Joystiq invades SXSW 2009!
If you're in the vicinity of Austin, Texas, then you're probably in town for SXSW - the interactive, music, and film festival. We are too! Both myself and JC Fletcher will be here bringing updates from panels, attending the Screenburn Arcade, and checking out the gaming scene here at the festival. If you're in town, leave us a comment and say hi. Who knows, we might buy you a Shiner Bock. Stay tuned for more SXSW coverage, and check out years past right here.
