[games_access] GDC Booth

[d. michelle hinn]

Yes, there's a lot to think about an here are my main reactions right now:

(1) We won't know how many or which talks are accepted until 
December. So that really sucks given that the conference is in 
February this year.

(2) Accessible game jam -- good idea but this is a GDC 2009 thing -- 
there's absolutely no way we could get this going in time and there's 
no way the GDC people could even help us promo it in time. This would 
be a "we'd do ONLY this" kind of thing for GDC 2008 and we needed to 
start a year ago. I mean don't get me wrong -- I really like the 
idea. It's just a "no way" thing given what I know about CMP and how 
many people from the SIG would actually be involved in the planning 
when push comes to shove. This doesn't mean we can't "announce" it at 
GDC 2008 for GDC 2009 -- that would be a really smart thing to do. A 
nice flier and talking it up would be ideal and DonationCoder that 
sponsored our last competition can probably provide the web hosting 
and game submissions system again for us.  If we could get it as even 
ONE decicated Indie Award for IGF, that would be cool too. Lots of 
variables.

(3) Indie Games Summit -- I am working on a proposal for this as well 
as the Serious Games stuff. The proposals deadlines have passed but 
Indie just contacted me yesterday to ask more info about the indie 
post mortem I wrote them about and I need to call Ben because this 
whole pneumonia/kidney crap hasn't made my life very easy lately! :)

(4) Passes: We have ONE roundtable and ONE meet and greet (the hour 
session near the IGDA booth). So that's where we are right now. This 
is what the IGDA could get for us (for all SIGs). Things are tight 
this year. So we are at TWO passes for the whole SIG at this moment 
(No...please don't ask me who gets the second pass -- one is given to 
SIG chairs -- the other I'm saving at the moment until we have a 
better idea of our proposal acceptances. Please NO campaigning right 
now -- I know EVERYONE wants to go but I can't promise out passes yet 
until we know what our true situation is)

(5) Booth alternatives -- I am doing a conference call tomorrow with 
CMP to talk about alternatives to the booth. Yeah, at $8000...yow. 
What was cool (for us) at E for All was that it was small and we were 
different and we could grab lots of people. The GDC booth is 
definitely a different story and a different audience. At tomorrow's 
conference call, we're going to talk about having a table somewhere 
for, say, one day and how much THAT would cost (we are still in the 
thousands). There are a few other options too. All isn't lost but 
yeah...we need to worry about manning the booth versus doing talks 
(keeping in mind that our talks have traditionally been VERY poorly 
attended)

Ok, that's all I can think of at the moment -- let's keep the 
conversation going!

Michelle

>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"
>>>  .......................................
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>  games_access mailing list
>>>  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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