Day one of Game Connect Asia Pacific is now behind us, and the event is proving every bit as vital for local companies as it was last year.
While the focus is very much on development, with a design master class being taught by Chris Avallone (Obsidian) and workshops for UDK and Unity attracting significant AIE and Qantm students (to name just a few) to the event, but the lessons for marketers and those running small local business can't be missed.
While Windows 8 Phone was being pushed as an intuitive cross-platform tool (allowing easy transitions to other Microsoft platforms including Xbox), talks by sponsors TapJoy and iDreamSky on user acquisition for mobile titles (a huge need in Australia right now) and understanding the Chinese market respectively were highly illuminating for our cadre of mobile devs.
The morning address was given by Robin Hunicke (pictured), producer of the legendary Journey, and on her experiences of changing and shaping games throughout the design process in order to find the feeling which will ignite players.
Local players Halfbrick and The Voxel Agents gave packed out talks to budding developers as well, with Luke Muscat and Simon Joslin giving design fundamentals and design as communication talks as well.
Antony Reed, CEO of the GDAA, welcomed the crowd of hundreds by explaining that the event's official theme of 'inspire' was more about how the Australian development community has inspired him and will continue to do so, while the afterparty for the first day was hosted at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, with developers having one last change to check out Game Masters before the exhibition moves to New Zealand.
Thanks to @elroyonline for the image!
To register for the MCV Pacific News Digest, head to the registration page: http://www.mcvpacific.com/user/index/register/journey/register
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