[games_access] GDC Booth

Wed Oct 24 22:41:04 EDT 2007

Hi everyone,

First, let me say great job to everyone who worked at the E for All booth, 
I think we did a really great job and got a lot of good press as a result.

That said, before we start fundraising like crazy for a booth at GDC, I'd 
like to ask exactly why we are doing this. Don't get me wrong, a booth 
would be a great idea if we had real funding and manpower, but as we don't 
I am not sure this makes tons of sense.

We are trying to get a booth so we can A) get press and thereby impress on 
people the need to make accessible games, and B) so we convince game 
developers that they should make games, right? However, if we have a small 
booth in a corner it will be hard to do either, and with stiffer (than E 
for All) competition from other booths we'll have trouble attracting 
attention. Furthermore, manning a booth will be very problematic, as we'll 
have to take time out of going to talks, which I know we all want to do.

I think a much better way to spend our time is the following:

1. We all attend and go to talks (like we want to), and simply chat up the 
accessibility angle as much as possible with people we meet. We'll actually 
end up talking to more people, and we'll be able to pick and choose who we 
talk to. Furthermore, we could make a slick website, print up some business 
cards with that site on it, and hand it out to attendees and press.

2. We give as many talks as possible. I know the deadline for submission 
has passed, but Ben Sawyer still hasn't finished putting together Serious 
Games, and I'm sure we can do something there. Talks are more valuable than 
booths because we can really state our case, and the people who attend 
those talks are much more likely to internalize what we're saying. Maybe we 
can also get a session like last time where we show off the different 
controllers.

3. As Eelke mentioned, I think an accessible game jam would be extremely 
valuable. We can do it as part of GDC where we do it for prestige, or we 
can just talk it up at GDC and have people do it afterwards, and offer some 
sort of cash award. It's cheaper, we'll get more attention, AND we'll get 
accessible games at it.

Whew. Ok, those are my thoughts. Feel free to try to convince me of 
otherwise, I welcome opposing opinions.

Cheers,
Eitan

At 10:23 PM 10/24/2007, Eelke Folmer wrote:
>Hi Michelle,
>
>I think we should start thinking about fundraising. 8000 dollars
>however, is a lot of money to raise. But we need structural funding if
>we want to continue doing what we did in the past. Maybe we should
>discuss some strategies. Do we need to decide on a booth before we get
>the acceptance/ rejection on our GDC proposals (when is that exactly)?
>
>I think we should start thinking about a worst case / best case
>scenario for this year's GDC. Worst case none of our proposals is
>accepted and we have no booth and hence no one get a pass. What can we
>still do in such a situation? (we could still hand out flyers for
>those that go anyway), maybe demo our stuff at another location close
>to GDC? We can still organize SIG meetings right? the location we were
>at last time e.g the Hall way in the north halls, those big tables
>would it be possible to demo some stuff there for lets say an hour? I
>think we should also start thinking about what I think Eitan suggested
>to organize an indie game competition with the sole focus on creating
>an accessible game. Maybe for next years GDC we could present these at
>Jonathan Blow's experimental game workshop?
>
>cheers Eelke
>
>
>
>On 10/24/07, hinn at uiuc.edu <hinn at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> > Ok...some really, really bad news.
> >
> > So we've already learned that a "free" booth at an expo only means the 
> physical space and that at the end of the whole thing we were talking 
> around $3000 for the additional costs (they kept building up all week). 
> But the "free" was a $5000 discount to put things into perspective.
> >
> > Now I hear from the GDC people...a 10x10 booth (note: this is half the 
> size we had at E for All but it was the original space we were supposed 
> to have -- thank you people who did not show up! :) ) runs $5400. And, 
> yes, that means ONLY the physical space. They are estimating a similar 
> number ($3000) in addition to the $5400 for a completed booth (which is 
> required and which is everything from carpet to insurance to electricity 
> ($$ by the voltage).
> >
> > Whoa. I threw back a question their way about the deadline for saying 
> "yes/no" so we know how much time we are talking about before major $$$ is due.
> >
> > If we are going to seriously pull this off? We need some people who 
> will seriously work with me to help raise this cash (not to mention 
> working the booth at the actual conference). This doesn't mean just 
> raising questions like "what about Microsoft?" -- this means actively 
> asking any/all contacts you have about major booth $$ sponsorship. 
> So...Not just me doing this. I still have money to raise to retrograde 
> sponsor us for last week and am dealing with a bad pneumonia and teaching 
> all at the same time.
> >
> > I know the booth sounded like a really good idea but now we need to 
> really think if this is a good enough idea that is worth raising around 
> $8000 for? I think $8000 is possible but we are going to need to work our 
> collective butts off for this.
> >
> > So much to think about...eee....
> >
> > Michelle
> > .......................................
> > these are mediocre times and people are
> > losing hope. it's hard for many people
> > to believe that there are extraordinary
> > things inside themselves, as well as
> > others. i hope you can keep an open
> > mind.
> >  -- "unbreakable"
> > .......................................
> > _______________________________________________
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> > games_access at igda.org
> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> >
>
>
>--
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Eelke Folmer                           Assistant Professor
>Department of CS&E/171
>University of Nevada              Reno, Nevada 89557
>Game interaction design        www.helpyouplay.com
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