Last year, Gendai Games brought GameSalad to SXSW and was a huge success. In fact, it went over so well, we’re currently being considered for TWO possible panels at SXSW 2011. And, guess what?
YOU can have a say!
Right now, you can vote at SXSW Panel Picker. You’ll need to create a login, but once you do, you can submit your vote for what panel you’d most like to see at SXSW 2011. One is on games as communication and a means for people to artistically express themselves. The other is about the day to day operation of GameSalad.
This is your chance to put the Gendai team on the stage and give yourself the opportunity to ask us the questions you’ve always wanted to ask. No more waiting around for a ‘yellow post’; this is your chance to make us sweat under the lights and put us on the spot. For more info on the two panels we’ve submitted, check out the details below:
Art, education, economics, propaganda. Games are arriving at the forefront of media to become an important way to engage entire generations of people. What’s different from before? Five billion people are replacing the most common communication device, the simple cell phone, with a full-fledged gaming system in their pocket. There are multiple ways to publish and distribute games over the Internet and to the masses. For many, game creation is becoming a regular activity, as tools become both easier to use and more powerful for people without programming knowledge. This panel will cover unique perspectives on how games are becoming more meaningful forms of expression and a significant tool for communicating ideas.
Games are a form of communication like literature, music, and art. Just like all those forms of communication, you must be literate in the form to participate in the conversation. Right now, there is a great wall dividing the few who can fully participate and the millions on the other side who would like to be part of the discussion. That great wall is Coding Knowledge. Right now, in order to make a game, you have to code. Until that wall is breached, the act of game creation will remain as a privilege for a limited few.
For hundred of years, the ability for printing was restricted to those who could work a printing press. As access to the process of printing expanded, literacy likewise expanded, and human communication soared to a new level. And so the question remains: how do we teach people to use the world’s newest printing press – the tools of game creation? Promising “game creation for the rest of us” is no short order. Delivering on that promise is even more of a feat. How does one company bring the complex behaviors and mathematical formulations involved in game creation to everyday users?
Over the course of this panel, the team behind GameSalad will show how they are bringing more than the tools of game design to creative professionals the world over, they’ll show how by eliminating the need for coding knowledge from game creation they have opened the door to a whole new form of human communication to millions all across the globe.
Voting is open now and closes at midnight on Friday, August 27th, 2010.
Wesley Campbell, also known as Weswog to fellow members of the GameSalad community, is a 13 year-old game developer. Recently, Wesley was invited as a guest on The SOS Computer Talk Show on 860AM WGUL, a Tampa Bay talk radio station.
