Friday March 9th – Camaraderie with a Convict, a Conductor and a Flight Controller

What, the last day of the conference already? But it felt like we’d only just arrived in San Francisco! We had no time to waste. There were more cool presentations to go to.

Today’s talks covered how games get reviewed, marketing for indies, and for us the most interesting presentation of the day, “Awesome Video Game Data”.

The Awesome Video Game Data talk was given by Geoffrey Zatkin of video game research firm EEDAR. We were already familiar with this company as we’d seen presentations from them at the Game Connect Asia Pacific conferences in Australia over the last couple of years. These guys have teams of analysts constantly reviewing video game data from which they extrapolate key industry statistics. These aren’t just interesting facts and figures though. This stuff can help you plan your business strategy. They never fail to impress us with their in-depth knowledge of this huge industry. Here’s some of the awesome data we were presented with: (more…)

Well, how did that happen? It seemed like it was only yesterday we’d finished writing last year’s GDC Diaries. But when you’re constantly working against the clock to make games, months pass in the blink of an eye. A cough could be all that separates GDC in March from E3 in June. One major sneeze and suddenly it’s Thanksgiving. Fart and it’s Christmas…..OK, OK, you get the point, right? No wonder studios find it so hard to estimate when games will be finished. Game development years are way shorter than normal years. That’s a fact. Now the year had turned full circle and it was time to head off to San Francisco yet again for that electronic love-fest they call the Game Developers Conference. (more…)

Next up on the GDC interviews is Gamespot. They interviewed Nic on the final afternoon of GDC. We think he looks pretty fresh considering the hectic week he had at the conference. Have a look at our GDC Diaries for the full story but first check out the interview. (more…)

Friday March 4th – Interviews, Secret Talks & Pure Entertainment

Thankfully we had a quiet night on Thursday because Friday was a media onslaught with every interview on camera! First up was News 10 from the ABC network. They were meant to be doing 3 interviews over the course of an hour, but as the other devs didn’t show (not any of the guys mentioned in part 2 by the way), Nic had a full hour with them! Not only did he showcase escapeVektor and Spirit Hunters Inc, he did an additional interview on the madness of Australia not having an R18+ rating. We’re looking forward to that coming out! (more…)

NintendoLife reviewed myDiary and gave it a commendable 8 points out of 10! You can read the full review below or click here to go straight to the NintendoLife site.

Everyone, take note

Nnooo has seen a fair amount of success with DSiWare. Originally starting off with Pop+ Solo, the developer really began to make its mark on the DSi with the myLifeCollected series, a set of applications for the DSi that started with myNotebook. Since then, Nnooo has moved onto other applications such as myPostcards and myNotebook: Carbon, Pearl and Tan. Now we have myDiary, and it comes as a worthy addition to the series. (more…)