Montreal Tech Watch

In this article posted on the IGDA Montreal blog, Pierre Boudreau provides us with brief summaries of each of GameCamp’s 20 mini-presentations. It’s no substitute for attending the actual six minute talks, but is nonetheless a nice overview that shows those of us who were unable to attend what kind of event GameCamp is and what can be expected from the next one.

Interfaces Montreal has generously uploaded videos of the five speakers who presented at the demo-conference that took place two weeks ago. Each presentation lasts around 15-20 minutes, so you might want to first read Bart Simon’s write-up of the event before deciding which videos are worth committing the time to watching.

Simon’s own talk was fascinating, and probably the only one I would recommend watching in its entirety. He summarizes the ideas behind his research on the “physicality of Wii play,” or the Wii’s ability to shift the nature of video game boundaries in the living room. For such a potentially esoteric topic he was incredibly concise and clear. His side-by-side comparisons of advertisements for the PlayStation 3 and Wii were particularly effective at conveying the essence of his research — that the Wii has brought play into the physical space of the living room, and the players and space they occupy are beginning to become as much a part of the game experience as what occurs inside the television screen.

I have a couple of other general comments to add to Simon’s:

- The Army of Two co-op presentation was, as I had feared, not much more than an extended preview of the game (with no less than 6 gameplay trailers!).

- Phil Fish continues his impassioned crusade against the mainstream game industry and I have to ask: Why? I agree that there is incredible innovation and artistic style and opportunity for those choosing to follow the indie game aesthetic, but it’s also an aesthetic that easily promotes formulaic gameplay and ugly art. Both mainstream and indie games have their unique advantages and disadvantages and that seems like something Fish should have acknowledged. It’s unfair to judge AAA studios like Ubisoft so harshly when there has never been an indie action game with a world as vibrant or open as the one in Assassin’s Creed, for example.