GO 3

I got home from from GO3 early yesterday morning. I only got to spend Friday at the conference as I had a wedding to attend on Saturday. The wedding went really well - congratulations to Rob and Trudy!!! However the limited time I spent at GO3 was great fun. I got to meet Masaya Matsuura, Hideo Kojima and Tetsuya Mizuguchi who are all really nice guys and are true "rock stars" of the games industry. I wanted to speak with Goichi Suda, but unfortunately ran out of time. Suda-san gave a really cool talk about his Grasshoper Manufacture development company and showed some interesting stuff from his early games. I also missed out on Kojima-san's talk too as it was on Saturday... I was surprised at the lack of Australian East Coast game developers attending the conference - especially given the caliber of the speakers. As well as the top-notch Japanese developers the conference also had Harvey Smith (Midway) and Rod Ferguson (Gears of War). Some New Zealand developer friends were there and they made the most of being able to talk one-on-one with the attendees. If I wasn't already attending, I would have been there and used the opportunity to pick these guys brains about the business. Well, if you're a developer and you're reading this, then that's a top tip for next year. Apart from the speakers, I also met a lot of really cool local developers, including Michael and Jon from game.pride.id.au and Simon from ezone.com. These guys are all doing some neat stuff, and again, I only wish I had more time to meet everyone one else. I also got to meet PC Powerplay's Tim Best in person, which was nice as I've only ever exchanged emails with him. I was a bit worried that my talk about adapting Destroy All Humans! to the Japanese market might be a bit too technical, especially following Mizuguchi's awesome Inspiration Led Creativity talk - but people came up to me afterwards saying that the talk really resonated with them. That made me happy! I have to give a big thanks to Gary Ireland, the producer of the Japanese version of Destroy All Humans! for helping me write the talk. Now, I just have the Game On! talk at QUT to do as well as an appearance at Supanova and my speaking duties will be done for the year. In the meantime, I'll be taking my daughter to the Focus on Tezuka exhibition next week to check out Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. She's only two but already appreciates Mario and Star Wars. Being a dad is the best job in the world!