Tony Albrecht, Pandemic Studios programmer and long time AGDC/GCAP conference attendee and speaker has written a recap of Game Connect: Asia Pacific 2008 which was held just last week. At the Seven Degrees Of Freedom blog, Tony touches on some of the highlights and shortcomings of this year's GCAP, and offers some questions and thoughts on what is really needed to encourage much more delegates and to grow the conference...
(Tony) My advice? Drop the fluff – do we really need the bags? I know they are tradition, but so was the nerf battle and that was dropped years ago. I have all of the bags since ’99 and the only one I still use is the cloth bag from ’99 which I keep clothes pegs in. The free food is nice, sure, but most would be happy to be able to buy what they want from an on site café. What we need are some more big name speakers – many of the Aussie studios have OS counterparts...So, in a nutshell, GCAP needs to encourage local attendees, and to do that it needs to be seen to be providing content that is worthy of the price of entry....
Would a leaner GCAP with more international weight succeed? Or have Australian developers given up on GCAP as a lost cause? Time will tell, but for the first time in years I can see a glimmer of quality shining from the GCAP sessions. Hopefully this will grow and we can have a local conference that is worth attending.