The 2008 ScreenBurn Festival
March 7 - 11, 2008
Austin, Texas

Get a load of these numbers from the ESA : 38% of game players are women, with women age 18 or older representing a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%). The report goes on to say that adult women play games 7.4 hours per week (an average of two hours more than a year ago), while the average adult man plays 7.6 hours per week. A whopping 42% of online game players are female. A CEA study found that women far outnumber men among game players between the ages of 25 and 34, with a 65% share. What does all this mean to the gaming industry? Female gamers are a serious economic force to be reckoned with.

While the female presence in the gaming world is at its highest level, women are no strangers to the game. Pioneer female developers like Dona Bailey (Centipede), Carol Shaw (River Raid), Carla Meninsky (Warlords and Star Raiders) and Anne Westfall (Archon), just to name a few, paved the way for future female designers and developers. We can’t forget Roberta Williams (King’s Quest) who’s final game Phantasmagoria broke new ground with mature content from an adult woman’s perspective. And while female gamers may not yet have the character choices available to their male counterparts, many games do offer strong female characters , from Chun-Li in Streetfighter II, one of the earliest prominent female action heroes in video games, to Princess Zelda, Jill Valentine and Lara Croft. There also seems to be no shortage of female-only game squads/clans like Girlz Clan, FragDolls, Army Op Girlz, Everground, ID.Femme, FinKL and Wonderland. Websites like ladygamers.com and WomenGamers.com offer a uniquely feminine perspective to the often male-oriented gaming world.

For an in depth look into the impact woman now have, have had, and will have on the gaming industry, be sure to join Sharon Wienbar for her 2008 SXSW Screenburn Panel The Female Takedown of Casual Gaming .

Last year, in what was thought to be the first real life law suite between two virtual characters, Stroker Serpentine (aka Kevin Alderman, pictured above) filed suite against an avatar named Volkov Catteneo, claiming that Catteneo copied and sold a product produced and marketed by Alderman’s company, Eros, in the online community Second Life. The case has prompted much debate on the subject on intellectual property rights within virtual worlds and could have far reaching implications for ownership rights everywhere online, web sites, digital music, even movies. And while the Eros case may be the first between two avatars, it’s certainly not the first over online property rights. In a law suit filed in Pennsylvania in May of 2006, Second Life resident Marc Bragg brought suite against Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, and CEO Philip Rosedale claiming the “breach of a virtual land auction contract, fraud, and violations of Pennsylvania trade practice and consumer protection laws.” With these examples as only the tip of the iceberg, it’s clear that the legal lines between online and offline worlds are rapidly disappearing into a digital haze.

In her 2008 SXSW Screenburn panel Human and Property Rights in Virtual Worlds, Susan Wu will delve into the complicated issue of online property rights and how digital goods are poised to shape the future of online experiences. She will also discuss how these concepts give rise to the larger issue of online human rights in virtual worlds. “SXSW is my favorite conference of the year,” she says. “It’s just a really cool mix of product oriented people: creative people who build stuff. These are the kinds of people I love to spend time with. Plus, it’s in Austin and Austin is a super fun town.”

On a side note, Kevin Alderman (mentioned above) will be joining Cory Silverberg at this year’s SXSW Interactive Festival in hosting a Core Conversation entitled Sexual Ethics, Interactivity and Virtual Worlds. For more info on all 2008 SXSW programming, see the Panels Page.

So long, Lolsecretz: The blog that merged two of the Internet’s most successful memes, PostSecret (where people anonymously confess their deepest, darkest secrets) and Lolcats, is no more. Intended as satire but surprisingly packed full of pathos and longing, Lolsecretz demonstrated that sometimes, a wistful-looking cat and a poorly spelled confession are all it takes to express our most naked and humbling emotions. This April, the Lolsecretz blogging team will appear as speakers on the “Lolpanel” at ROFLCon, Harvard’s internet-culture conference. Meanwhile, that other man-behind-the-meme, Frank Warren–sole founder and curator of the enduringly popular PostSecret project–will be a keynote speaker at SXSW Interactive Festival on Monday, March 10. Called “the most trusted stranger in America,” Warren receives between 100 and 200 postcards a day and has published two Times bestselling books culled from his archive of over 200,000 hilarious and heartbreaking secrets. His talk will be an invaluable insight into meme architecture and how his unique vision propelled the PostSecret project to success. Save the date, and don’t forget to register to attend SXSW Interactive Featival and experience the entire schedule of innovative speakers and programming.

Gaming revenues around the world are soaring to record levels, making the gaming industry a real economic force to be reckoned with… and a larger target for criticism. No stranger to attack from the conservative side of the fence, the gaming community is now in a position to take real action against its critics. The New York Times recently reported that the Entertainment Software Association, the trade association of the computer and video game industry, is gearing up to establish a political action committee” by March of this year and plans to donate $50,000 to $100,000 to pro-games industry politicians. ESA president Mike Gallagher told the paper that they are mobilizing the more than 100,000 gamers who have joined the association’s Video Game Voters Network. “If I can walk into the office of a member of Congress and tell them we have 20,000 voters in their state who are already signed up to write letters and act based on game-related issues that concern them, that’s powerful,” he said. This news was particularly disturbing to The Parents Television Council, who issued a statement last week denouncing the ESA’s plans as an attempt to “buy political influence.”

Video Games Live, the reigning titans of live symphonic videogame music, will be hitting the road again for a 2008 world tour. Veteran game composer Tommy Tallarico will lead his immersive multimedia spectacular through Brazil, Taiwan, China, and Germany, with stops at game conferences, on a cruise ship, and in a Mexican bullring. As always, the tour promises grand-scale graphics projections set to epic videogame hits from Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Sonic, Halo, World of Warcraft, Tetris, et al., as well as audience-interactive portions of the show in which attendees can win cash or prizes. Perpetually sold-out since the first historic VGL show at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005 and popular enough to spawn a Final Fantasy-themed competing concert from SquareSoft, Video Games Live remains a testament to gaming’s stronghold on pop culture.

This summer, Electronic Arts will introduce Battlefield Heroes, the latest installment in its popular Battlefield series and the company’s first free game, reports the New York Times . New EA CEO John Riccitiello promised to revitalize EA’s approach to game development, and Battlefield Heroes–to be offered as a free download–represents a bid for both the online gaming community and the casual gaming market, two of the largest growth sectors in the gaming industry. Electronic Arts has definitely done their research in the wildly successful Asian online gaming arena–in 2006, they debuted an experimental free online FIFA soccer game in South Korea which now boasts five million users and generates $1 million monthly in microtransactions. And if Asian gaming trends are any indication, you can expect more Western companies to take a cue from EA and start exploring platforms beyond the traditional $60 console-driven game.

With the last week’s release of the NPD Group report showing a more than 40% growth in the U.S. gaming industry over 2006, with overall revenues in excess of $17 billion — yes, that’s right… BILLION — it’s not surprising that even NASA would want to ante up to this high stakes table. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is exploring the possibility of developing its own MMORPG. The agency’s TL (Learning Technologies) Office posted a Request for Information (RFI) document on January 16th calling for developers to submit their ideas by February 15th. The request acknowledges that “the power of games as educational tools is rapidly gaining recognition,” and hopes to use that momentum to increase and enhance interest in the “STEM” fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.) The idea that video games can be used in more traditional applications will be the subject of several panels at ScreenBurn 2008. For instance, Patrick Sanchez of Enspire Learning will tackle this question in a session title Can Wii Learn? Using Wiimotes in E-Learning. Likewise, Michael Anderson, Course Technology team leader for the UT System TeleCampus, will also cover this topic in a panel titled Let’s Get Serious: Should Video Games Replace College?. One way or another, gaming is definitely not just for teenagers anymore!

The 2008 SXSW Interactive + ScreenBurn Festival needs a few ultra-organized, ultra-reliable volunteers to help coordinate hand-card distribution in several markets out of Austin. If you live in Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, or Houston and are interested in helping spread the good word about the event, please contact Lindsay. Depending on how many hours you put in on the distribution task, you can earn a FREE Interactive + ScreenBurn registration to the 2008 event.

As the writers’ strike drags into its third month, studios and the Writers Guild of America still haven’t made nice. In the meantime, the WGA and gaming are getting downright cozy with each other. Early on in the strike, Variety recommended game writing work to striking writers, and in October, the Writers Guild announced plans to honor videogame writing for the first time at the 2008 Writers Guild Awards in Los Angeles this February. “Writers are finally being recognised and valued in the videogame industry. Both artistically and financially, videogames matter - and videogame writers matter to the WGA,” said WGA-West New Media Caucus member Jay Lender. GamesIndustry.biz has a full list of the nominees, which include The Simpsons Game, Dead Head Fred, and Clash of the Titans. Among those nominated for writing excellence were Sande Chen and Anne Toole, who will lead a Core Conversation titled “Creating Passionate Games: A Multidisciplinary Approach” at the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival.

It’s been quite a crossover year for gamespeak. Miriam-Webster crowned “w00t” with the dubious honor of Word of the Year. Much digital ink was spilled over many, many a Lolcat. And the Halo book–completely lacking in 3D graphics and full of words printed on paper–even hung out on the Times bestseller list. Right now, a generation of cultural anthropologists are probably in the midst of churning out dissertations on the sociolinguistic nuances of World of Warcraft. Until then, EarthTimes.org features a no-nonsense crash course in MMO slanguage for the curious. If you don’t know the difference between HP, XP and NPC, the article could save you from coming across as hopelessly noob.