Talk: What Australian gamemakers told me about making games in Australia

Speaker: Brendan Keogh

Since the beginning of 2018, Brendan Keogh has been funded by the Australian Research Council to investigate the state of game development in Australia. So far Keogh has conducted 150 interviews with gamemakers in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Tasmania; he also conducted a nationwide survey that attracted another 280 responses.

Across these interviews, Keogh identified a wide range of identities, challenges, and ambitions driving Australian gamemakers. Some of these were specific to different local contexts; others were felt similarly across the nation.

In this session, Keogh will report back to the community some of the preliminary findings of this ongoing research through directly drawing from quotations and statistics from this ongoing research.

The goal of this is to help individuals in the audience to better understand their own local and national context as game developers, ensuring that collective challenges they face are not felt as solely individual failings.

Further, by presenting this national and local snapshot of the experiences of Australian gamemakers, it is hoped this talk’s information will help local gamemaking communities consider collective responses and strategies to the near-ubiquitous feelings of precarity and instability observed in this study.

Also featuring final remarks from Sav Emmett Wolfe and the GDAA team.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Being A Game Design Tradie

Speaker: Nic Wechter

The study of "Game Theory" has developed massively as the industry has grown giving a huge well of knowledge to draw from as they slave away at trying to create the next breakout hit.

Over the years making games I've developed a unique approach to distilling ideas, mechanics and environments into gameplay that has more in common with artisan tradespeople such as carpenters and metal fabricators than it does with the more academic approach usually associated with game theory. This talk will explore these concepts.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Programming: The First Few Years

Speaker: Liam de Valmency

Getting a job as a programmer in the games industry for the first time can be overwhelming, especially if you haven’t worked on a larger team before.

This talk focuses on how to adjust and make the most of your early days in the industry; things to focus on, how to continue to grow, and why writing code is just a small part of working as a games programmer.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Divergent thinking and iteration process: a hands-on creativity workshop

Speaker: Elaine Gusella

Since grade school we are encouraged to proceed through a very narrow set of ways to achieve an expected result. By contrast, the iteration process - highly praised in game development - occurs in a non-linear, emergent process. This workshop will help you unlock your creativity by giving you tools for problem-solving, rapid prototyping, efficient collaboration and idea-generation.

Come play through this hands-on creativity workshop to learn different brainstorm strategies and renew with your productive creativity.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Don’t Get Shipwrecked - Production for Small Indies

Speaker: Matthew Dyet

There is a common misconception among many small independent studios that they simply are not big enough to require any sort of project management on their games. After all, why would you ever need project management when you only have a handful of people working on your small project? But this sort of thinking is a trap that result in overworked teams and the never-shipping game.

Whether you are a team of 10 working with a government grant or a solo indie creating your passion project, having a plan and a process is going to be an essential tool in ensuring you don’t overwork yourself and actually deliver a product at any point in the foreseeable future. But don’t go rushing out for that Agile certification just yet!

In this talk, Matthew Dyet will lay out the strategies and techniques that you can make use of in your small teams to implement some production process and maintain control of your projects, all without needing to go and hire somebody else to do it for you. It doesn’t need to be over-complicated!

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Why Fashion in (Most) Games Sucks, and Why You Should Care

Speaker: Victoria Tran

Fashion in games is one of the most downplayed parts of the medium; just like in real life, clothing is an outward expression of one's personality. A game's choice of dress or even the ability to HAVE different outfits (and not just color swaps) is both the gamers' expression of themselves and a way to create more diverse and interesting environments. Character customization, after all, could be considered another form of dress up.

Offensive or lackluster fashion can be a representation of the troubling perspective that games have no space for "feminine" interests. Some have captured fashion well (think 'Splatoon' and 'Persona 5'), but much of game development has to catch up on this, like the infamous Quiet outfit from 'Metal Gear Solid V' or the lackluster outfits from 'The Sims 3'.

The benefits to paying attention to style? Just think of the success of 'Overwatch' skins, as one example! This talk from Kitfox Games' Victoria Tran explores the recent history of fashion in games and provides multiple tips for success.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Changing your career in games without having an existential crisis

Speaker: Jo Lammert

Making the jump into a videogame career already comes with its moments of nerves, doubt, and imposter syndrome, but shifting into a new role in the same industry (or even considering shifting into a new role) can bring these feelings out all over again, sometimes even more so. As an indie, is it possible to apply for a job in AAA (or inversely, as a AAA dev, is it possible to run your own indie studio?)? After years as an artist, can you apply for a producer position? How do you apply for a job at a game publisher when you’ve only worked at a game developer?

This session will explore all of these questions in a variety of ways, from preparing your CV and portfolio appropriately for a new job opportunity, to managing the emotional challenges that accompany changing your career trajectory in the games industry. Jo Lammert's career has run the gamut in experiences, from librarianship to indie game dev to community organizing to government stewardship to freelance to currently publishing, and there's a lot of things she's learned over this past decade she wishes she could bestow onto her younger self- instead, you can reap the benefits from her past self-doubt, insecurities, and quarter-life crisis!

No matter how different your previous work seems, there’s always opportunity for those experiences to complement a brand-new role with new responsibilities.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Zen and the Art of Team Maintenance: A Producers Guide to Getting Sh!t Done

Speaker: Amy Dallas

As Producers, our jobs often revolve around expectations, whether it's setting them, managing them, or meeting them. That all sounds straightforward, until you start to factor in how the individual members of your team may respond to those expectations. Some people are going to be great at meeting deadlines on their own, while others may require more hand-holding and accountability.

Some will have no problem setting effective boundaries, while others might take on too much and burn out. Some are going to be happy carry out an assignment as requested, while others may need to understand the reasoning behind the request before they can truly engage. And, of course, some need to do things their way, or not at all.

In other words, there is no ""one-size-fits-all"" solution to ensure that the people on your team are meeting deadlines, doing great work and achieving project goals as well as their own. Which means, sometimes, we as Producers have to get a little creative, when it comes to getting sh!t done.

In this session, Amy will talk about how to apply Gretchen Rubin’s “Four Tendencies” framework to working with teams. Through it, you’ll better understand how your individual team members could respond to internal and external expectations, as well as some strategies to improve their efficiency and overall happiness, while reducing stress and burnout.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: What Unionism Adds To Your Workplace

Speakers: David Haidon & Morgan Little

Game Workers Unite presents a look at how collective bargaining builds a better workplace for everyone. Learn about the role of unions across history, how working together creates trust, improves standards, and builds a safe place for vulnerable people. Representatives from GWU Australia and from Australia’s trade union movement will answer questions on pay standards, worker co-operative ownership, and workplace health and safety issues.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au

Talk: Technical Direction for One

Speaker: Alex Holkner

Regardless of whether you’re the sole developer on an indie game, leading a small group of programmers, or the technical director overseeing multiple engineering departments, you will face the

same problems and decision points in the choice and use of technology on your projects.

By the time your game has shipped, you will have made hundreds of decisions around coding standards and best practices, use of testing and automation, continuous integration and deployment, release processes, client and server technology, and middleware selections. As the technical expert on the project you will likely have also had to make decisions around IT issues such as version control, backups, hardware and software purchases, and security.

Besides developing a game, you will find yourself building bespoke tools for engineers, designers, artists, producers, QA and customer support, and processes to go along with them.

If you’re a solo developer or head of a small team, ideally your decisions are setting up your studio for growth and sustainability; whereas if you’re already leading a large team you are already well aware of the difficulty in maintaining high productivity with so many hands on deck.

Drawing on his experience leading both large and small teams, Alex will explore these issues and provide guiding principles for technical directors at all levels of experience, with a particular focus on risk assessment and mitigation, and setting up processes and practices up-front that can scale as a team grows.

Game Connect Asia Pacific 2019: Lighting The Way

Game Connect Asia Pacific is Australia's premier games development conference and a part of Melbourne International Games Week.

Situated in Melbourne, Australia during October, GCAP is world-renowned for its talks, collaboration, expression, networking and inclusive environment.

Video courtesy of GCAP and the Game Developers' Association of Australia.

www.gcap.com.au