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IamA GAME Researcher at Science Gallery

IamA GAME Researcher at Science Gallery

My talk about what it's like being a GAME researcher at Science Gallery held at TOG Game talks on 10th January 2013.

whykay 🏳️‍🌈🦄

January 10, 2013
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  1. GAME 3 Saturday 12 January 13 - Running PythonIE since

    2005, now currently co-Chair/Treasurer of PythonIE - Co-organise cross-tech events like Ruby/PythonIE talks, Techie Pub Quizes, Geekslam!, initial Code Retreats, GameCraft and so on.
  2. Where, Why, What, How? GAME 4 Saturday 12 January 13

    - Always had an interest in the gaming industry for many years, and in Oct 2011, talked to people about Irish GDC. - Went to SG GAME Brainstorm in Feb 2012 as well as our first Dublin GameCraft. - Got approached by Science Gallery to be their GAME researcher.
  3. I Like Games Who else played with this awesome console?

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/onigiri_chang/6159213246/ GAME 5 Saturday 12 January 13 Although my big interest in gaming has to be because of my late father who bought my brother and I our first proper gaming console, the FAMICON from HK as a pressie in 1984. I've never looked back since.
  4. GAME 6 Saturday 12 January 13 - What is a

    researcher? Science Gallery, lots of scientists, but I'm not really one.
  5. Get go from Day 1 Learning to let go of

    being an organiser w/ OCD Exhibition vs Events GAME 8 Saturday 12 January 13 - I wanted to show people that gaming is not a waste of time, it's not a pimpled-face teenager sitting in front a tv in a dark room playing an FPS fragging people. - I wanted to show people that there's much more behind gaming - creative industry; it's not all about being a coder, people talk about STEM, I would talk about STEAM in this context as the arts is just as important as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. - problems with young people taking up tech and engineering course leading to problems with graduates we need for our general tech industry, and games falls under that umbrella. If I can get young peoples interested in this area, that would be awesome. - making games is a lot of hard work as well, why not show it, especially our growing Irish Indies games industry.
  6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaosphoenix/3019155080/ GAME 10 Saturday 12 January 13 Ok, not quite

    like that, but I'm on the laptop most of the time, aside from weekly meetings with the staff and programming team, it's mostly... interweb surfing, twitter lists & tweeting, FB'ing, watching videos and reading, lots of reading!
  7. GAME 13 Saturday 12 January 13 I did finish 2

    books and I highly recommend these two.
  8. GAME Seriously... 14 Saturday 12 January 13 I try and

    find ideas focussing on broad outlined themes set out by the brief. Game Technology from state of the art physics, graphics, animation and audio to augmented reality to cutting edge interfaces to neuro-gaming Game Design from the art of games, to the mechanics of games and game narratives and storytelling Games & Society from gamification to competitive games to the psychology of gaming and serious games to gaming as a professional sport to the opportunity for gaming to make us better History of Games from Spacewar! to the first home consoles to speculative pieces exploring the future of gaming Game production and the business of games – what do game designers consider in developing a new game, how do games make money and what are the new trends in this growing market? (Later, Game Culture was added)
  9. As easy as 1, 2, 3... Open Calls Post-Open Calls

    Run up to launch ...after a lot of blood, sweat and tears! GAME 17 Saturday 12 January 13 These were also the areas that were sent out in the open call at in June, and we only had one month to get as many peope submitting their ideas. I painstakingly went through the gallery's CRM, joined many linkedin groups, game forums, tweeted, facebooked, left comments on many tech sites, talked to anyone who would listen to me, and lots and lots of emails! We had nearly 200 submissions. My manager and I went through the first pass to pick ones to present to the curators. Spent one day with curators going though the open calls and pigeoning holing them into various categories and we whittled down to 30 submissions. I arranged skype meetings or physical meetings with the potential exhibitors to go into more details about their submissions. Once that was all done, it was more meetings with my manager and events manager to scale the numbers down to around 20. There were certain exhibits we are missing like a big sculptural interactive piece (which ended up to be Eric Zimmerman's Interference), and a Meta game, a game you can play withing GAME using Science Gallery as a platform. We confirmed with curators on our last selection of exhibits and I sent final confirmation to the successful canditates in the final round of post-open call process. I also met with the design/builders once to see what their ideas were, after that I concentrated on working with the production assistant making sure that artists confirmed their details coming to Dublin as well as logistics (if nec) or what to build for their exhibits. I also worked on pulling the events like workshops, speakers, evening events for the duration that GAME is on, and the events manager was a bit shocked on how many I fitted into the calendar, it was 3 times what they normally would have for their flagship exhibition. I was chuffed. Events: e.g. GameCityNightsAway, Phil Campbell/Eric Zimmerman/Games Music Ireland talks, Games Music Making workshop, 5 Friday night socials TTP/RPG, Irish Indies Games Evening, GAME:NEXT mini-exhibition, How to Babycastles 4-day workshop
  10. Trains, Planes & Automobiles http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyran2626/222077515/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/serenitbee/8231939504/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyboohh/6250396978/ GAME 18 Saturday

    12 January 13 In the meantime I did get to attend a Serious Game Conference in WIT in late May, CultureTech up in Derry in late August to promo GAME, and Hide&Seek in London in mid-Sept to check out the large scale pervasive games. My overall aim was to meet as many people as I can from production companies, creative and gaming industries, and other researchers to connect and exchange ideas (and business cards).
  11. Crazy about being organised Google Calendar, Site, Drive, Tasks Persistency

    And lots and lots of Post-it Notes GAME 19 Saturday 12 January 13 I kepts things organised and filed. - Google calandar, Sites and Drive was my friend. Had no issue tracker to use, but I keep track with Google Tasklists and lots of post-it notes. - I was very persistant on chasing down contacts, which is not much different to how I approach it as an event organiser.
  12. Highlights Launch! Learning new things Social Events GAME 21 Saturday

    12 January 13 Then... BOOM... it was the launch night, was so nervous. Just an hour before the launch, the printers weren't working. Then I initiated a queue of staff going to the water cooler. It was like the wedding jitters all over again. Fair play to the Science Gallery team having to do this 4-5 times a year. Learning - Serious Games - Edugames - Bio-feedback tech Contacts - Previously mentioned earlier - Game On organiser from Barbican - Games Music Ireland - - John McCormick and Aphra Kerr on the launch of the 2012 Games Industry independent report - got wide media attention (RTE, Irish Times, Silicon Republic, Gamasutra to name a few) (contd ->)
  13. Dinner with invited speakers & Irish Indies GAME 22 Saturday

    12 January 13 - Dinner Speakers like Phil Campbell & Eric Zimmerman with some Irish Indies (>>> PHOTO)
  14. GAME More details on the event at http://bit.ly/TDa3GP 23 Saturday

    12 January 13 - GameCity folks (Martin Hollis was head of s/w at Rare, director and producer of GoldenEye 007, went for a pint of Guinness at Mulligan’s) (>>> PHOTO)
  15. Irish Indies Evening 12.12.12 GAME 24 Saturday 12 January 13

    - Irish and Northern Irish Indies (>>> PHOTO) Successful evening of public and industry socialising and networking with each other.
  16. 18.12.12 - 21.12.12 GAME Video: http://bit.ly/UUhA5f 26 Saturday 12 January

    13 - Project Holodeck -- VIDEO >>> - Nathan Burba (Director) - James Iliff (Producer) - GAME:NEXT mini-exhibition in December - European Premiere
  17. Lessons Learnt GAME 27 Saturday 12 January 13 - Triple

    checking is not enough, check again, and get an extra pair of eyes (or three) - Letting go and let others do their job (that was the hardest first couple of weeks for me to do) - Emergency tax (not really game-related), but got stung for 2 months! - Not much else, just never give up chasing after people (only possibility of ending up in their spam folder!)
  18. References CultureTech http://www.culturetech.co/ Hide&Seek Weekender http://weekender.hideandseek.net/ Project Holodeck http://projectholodeck.com Neurosky

    http://www.neurosky.com GameCityNightsAway http://cityhall.gamecity.org/2012/09/30/ gamecitynightsaway/ Science Gallery’s Photos http://on.fb.me/XAIoMy Science Gallery’s Videos http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceGallery Evernote clippings http://bit.ly/ZcHscH Some videos I collated > http://www.youtube.com/playlist? list=PL7FBBD2D70806CF94 > http://vimeo.com/album/1958487 Photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/whykay/sets/ 72157632457808442/ GAME 29 Saturday 12 January 13
  19. Thank You! Vicky Lee [email protected] @whykay / @dublingamecraft Science Gallery

    [email protected] GAME n00b role player ex-World of Warcraft “addict” Exhibition ends: 20th January 2013 30 Saturday 12 January 13 - Contact SG or me! I’m still good for answering any GAME-related questions or anything to do with game (events). - Don't forget to follow dublingamecraft for upcoming game jams.