Screenburn (March 7 - 11) programming features four days of presentations on the newest developments in the gaming industry.
The Screenburn Arcade (March 8 - 9) is an open platform of exhibitors and tournaments — and is free and open to the public!
Interested in getting involved? Contact: Lindsay at sxsw dot com
ScreenBurn 2008 brought to you by:
After all of the bad holiday sweater parties, it’s time to settle into a classic sweater and get ready to ring in the New Year. The SXSW ScreenBurn blog will kick off new content starting Wednesday, January 2, 2008. Stay tuned to the latest developments in the game world and updates on the 2008 SXSW ScreenBurn festival and conference this coming March. We wish you a Happy Holiday and Happy New Year from all of the staff at SXSW ScreenBurn!
SXSW Interactive + ScreenBurn provides the prime opportunity to network with national and international digital media creatives. Start networking now by letting others know via your website or blog that you’re registered or plan to register soon to attend the 2008 SXSW Interactive + ScreenBurn conference and festival by posting a “Meet Me at SXSW” or “See Me Speak” button on your digs. Let the mingling begin!
MTV Networks have been making noise for a while now about their intentions to storm the videogame market, and now they’ve announced they’re bringing in a Hollywood heavy hitter to do just that, reports the New York Times. MTV tapped producer Jerry Bruckheimer to co-helm their as-yet unnamed new gaming studio, hoping the Midas touch he brought to “C.S.I.” and Pirates of the Caribbean will help make MTV a gaming power to be reckoned with. And no, Bruckheimer isn’t a gamer himself (though he cops to trying his hand at Halo a time or two), but his explosion-packed, often CGI-generated visions are sometimes as close to a video game as a movie can get. Meanwhile, in even further video game/big media symbiosis, Bruckheimer will be directing the new Prince of Persia movie, due out in 2009.
Image of Jerry Bruckheimer courtesy of Kotaku.
Halo 3: It’s an industry juggernaut, a marketing powerhouse, a box-office sales crusher, and a Times bestseller. And now, it’s also a virtual paintbrush. Peep the Halo-generated self-portrait above, created by ad agency art director Brock Davis. Using Halo’s map-customization tool Forge, Davis was able to pull together pieces of Halo miscellany like the Warthog, a drop pod, and a radio antenna to create a clever trompe l’oeil effect. Wired’s Game | Life recently posted a profile of Brock along with an illuminating step-by-step guide to designing your own art in Forge.
Say what you will about the Lolcats phenomenon–whether you hate LOLspeak for further degrading our already-ailing national diction or whether you love teh LOLz for infusing our lexicon with so much awsumz, you have to admit: the meme is tenacious. Also, it has always been full of gaming lingo and themes! Turns out the misspelled cat macros and attendant hax0r humor were perhaps a harbinger for a major cultural moment, because Miriam-Webster has gone and crowned the online utterance “w00t” its Word of 2007, calling it “a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness.” Miriam-Webster president John Morse lauded the choice for its blend of “technology and whimsy,” while the Associated Press actually posited that “hardcore online gamers” would “w00t” out loud when they learned the news. More predictably, those “hardcore gamers” have responded with utter derision. Painfully clunky attempts by traditional media to belatedly explain gaming lingo notwithstanding, it’s always interesting to see gaming culture creeping further into the mainstream.
Image courtesy of Worth1000.com.
As a robust year in gaming draws to a close, Nintendo of America announced yesterday that they’ve sold over 6 million units of the handheld Nintendo DS console in 2007. As Gamasutra reports, this year Nintendo beat their previous all-time record for Thanksgiving week sales, moving a very healthy 650,000 DS units. (In comparison, Nintendo’s previous record-holder Game Boy Advance sold 600,000 units during the 2005 Thanksgiving blitz week.) And in case the “6 million DS” figure might be a little difficult to wrap your mind around, Nintendo helpfully broke down the numbers: That amounts to one DS sold every five seconds in the U.S. in 2007. “There’s no letup in sight,” commented Nintendo marketing VP George Harrison. “Nintendo DS appeals strongly to both core and casual gamers, and its momentum is set to propel us into 2008.” Nintendo is predicting the DS will be the top-selling video game system of any kind in 2007.
We’d like to congratulate Juan Hernandez, the winner of the FREE 2008 Interactive + ScreenBurn registration, from the First Wednesday Seminars brought to you by the High Technology Institute at Austin Community College and SXSW ScreenBurn. ScreenBurn speaker, Rodney Gibbs, gave an excellent talk titled, “Not Your Grandson’s Playstation,” exploring how player demographics have evolved. Mark your calendar for the next Information Session event of the New Year, presented by ACC + SXSW ScreenBurn on Wednesday, January 9, 2008.
Photo of Rodney Gibb’s panel at SXSW ScreenBurn 2007
Another gaming-related show will be coming to your television screen in the next few weeks. Spike TV is set to launch the small-screen version of GameTrailers, which will include industry news, interviews and features. As noted by Mike Snider in the December 7 edition of USA TodayGeoff Keighley, whose current series, Game Head, will end its 2½-year Spike TV run; joining him on the new show will be Daniel Kayser and Amanda MacKay of GameTrailers.com. . . MTV Networks, which owns Spike TV, purchased GameTrailers.com two years ago. The site attracts a monthly audience of 9 million unique visitors.”
Got a burning question for the creative minds responsible for everyone’s favorite gaming franchise phenomenon? Now’s your chance to go ahead and ask that question, via the magical interwebs. Tomorrow (Friday, December 7th), Eurogamer will host an open LiveText interview with Bungie studios producer Jonty Barnes and lead Halo writer Frank O’Connor. LiveText enables readers to submit questions through a moderator and see their answers bounce back in real time. Previous Q&A sessions in Eurogamer’s LiveText interview booth have featured Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells and Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux. The chat will commence at 3 pm GMT, so all you non-Euro gamers should be sure to coordinate accordingly for your time zone, lest you miss this sure-to-be-illuminating look into the minds that brought Master Chief into this world.
Join us with Austin Community College’s High Technology Institute Wednesday, December 5 from 7:00-9:00pm, located in the Highland Business Center at 5900 Middle Fiskville Road in Austin, Texas, for the “Not Your Grandson’s Playstation” seminar lead by Rodney Gibbs of Amaze Entertainment. Hear the latest career-building tips in the gaming business from industry leaders and educators, and enter to win a FREE 2008 South By Southwest Interactive + ScreenBurn registration.
Photo of SXSW’s Get Into The Game Seminar with speaker, Rodney Gibbs.