06Aug

Designed in Devon and Plymouth Media Partnership present Extended Play, Plymouth’s first Games design event discussing the future of the games industry and the positive impact it can have on the region’s emerging and talented producers, artists and developers.

From console to phone, web to multiplatform, the games industry has become a dominant force in the media and design world. With the Southwest southwest traditionally being a fertile breeding ground for games developer talent, Extended Play looks to highlight the emerging games industry of in the region and uncovers what opportunities exist for graduates and companies.

With a strong academic presence in the region experimenting with new technologies, interfaces and methodologies the opportunity to seed a buoyant and sustainable games industry has never been so viable. Extended Play features a heavyweight line up of some of the Industries industry’s most innovative games development houses studios and developers from across the country, featuring support from the cities city’s cColleges and uUniversity.

Extended Play is proud to feature the British Council’s young interactive entrepreneur of the year, 26 year old Paul Croft, who will centre his talk around the ’origin point of success’, talking about his experiences in becoming such a recognised player in the iIndustry.

To compliment Paul’s keynote, we have selected a panel of various speakers from the UK to discuss the future of the games industry, along with the growth areas and opportunities available for Plymouth, to encourage growth for the games industry in Devon. With an outward view on the UK’s primary games development regions, the panel will discuss the key challenges and opportunities to create a viable industry here in the Southwest southwest and the benefits it can have to creative industries, looking specifically at academia, job creation, talent retention and economic growth.

Extended Play is an informal event that will leave ample time for networking and of course game play, along with a complimentary bar for those wanting to continue the discussion.

Keynote

Paul Croft, Co-founder and Director of Games, Mediatonic
www.mediatonic.co.uk
Paul has been designing, developing and producing online games for the past 8 years. Since co-founding Mediatonic 5 years ago he has helped grow the firm organically to a team of 25 full time staff based in Covent Garden. Traditionally Mediatonic has worked with major entertainment brands to being their content to the web in innovative new forms. Mediatonic clients include EA, SEGA, Disney, Nickelodeon, Pixar, Lego, Universal Pictures, Cartoon Network, Popcap and Namco. Key commercial projects include the official web games for the Beijing and Vancouver Olympics, an online Sonic level editor for SEGA and Amateur Surgeon for Adultswim. In the past six months Mediatonic has expanded into developing and publishing its own original content focusing on digitally distributed platforms such as social networks, PSP and iPhone. So far Mediatonic has developed and self-published several critically acclaimed titles including ‘MUST.EAT.BIRDS’ for iPhone and ‘Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess!’ for PSP Minis with several new social games launching over the next few months. At Mediatonic Paul’s role primarily involves managing the studio content pipeline, creative direction, marketing and business development. Paul turned 26 in May and was recently featured in Develop Magazines ‘30 under 30’ feature on rising stars in the video-game industry. In February he won the British Councils ‘Young Interactive Entrepreneur of the Year’ award. Paul has previously spoken about online games at the Develop conference, the iPhone developer summit, Flash on the Beach and regularly gives lectures at Universities. In total, he has been involved in the creation of over 100 games that have been played more than 300 million times across the world.

Panel

Neil Holmes, Producer, Blitz Game Studios
http://www.blitzgamesstudios.com
Neil Holmes is a game industry veteran, starting out 20 years ago as an artist working on conversions of early games for the Sam Coupe. From there he progressed to programming, working for companies such as Ocean, Vivid Image and Acclaim and on games such as Lemmings, Street Racer, Shadowman, Super Puzzle Fighter, Dragonball Z and Megaman. Two years ago he brought his wealth of experience to Blitz Games Studios where he heads up the Blitz 1UP initiative, which offers advice and support to help indie developers get their games to market.

Darrell Wilkins, Founder and Creative Director, Specialmoves
http://specialmoves.com
Darrell Wilkins is Founder and Creative Director at Special Moves which offers high-end production for the interactive industry. Special Moves has created everything from games for MTV’s the Osbournes to interactive experiences for Volkswagen, the Guardian and British Gas.

Ella Romanos, Owner and Managing Director of Remode
http://www.remodestudios.com
Ella graduated from University of Plymouth in 2008 with a first class honours degree in Digital Art & Technology BSc. She was awarded the iDAT ‘Being Digital’ award and won first prize in the Plymouth Business Ideas Challenge with her game prototype ‘Level Harmony’. She joined with two other graduates to form Remode, an independent software developer specialising in real-time 3D graphics and creative design. The company, based in Plymouth, makes games, simulations and visualisations through their own IP and commissioned work. Remode has recently released it’sits first game, Mole Control (digitally and at retail) and is currently porting the game to Xbox360 Live Arcade. As Managing Director of Remode, Ella’s aim is to develop the company into one of the UK’s leading studios for downloadable console games.

Dan Livingstone, Course Leader, BSc Computing and Games Development at University of Plymouth
http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/SOCCE/CRNS/index.html
Dan Livingstone’s research interests are adaptive sound systems, gesture capture and spatial tracking for conscious and subconscious interaction – identifying mental models for ‘perceptual constructs’ to develop interactive systems. He is developing software and methods to extend immersion by mapping interactions to real time synthesis and spatialisation of sound. He is a staff member of CRNS, Center for Robotics and Neural Systems and founded the Immersion Design Lab in 2006 securing Proof of Concept Funding to support related collaborative Research and Enterprise projects in Interactive Systems. He has published within the field of Computer Music, both at ICMC the International Computer Music Conference and at NIME, New Interfaces for Musical Expression contributing to the field of Tangible Interfaces with embedded or autonomous behaviours.

Moderator

Alex Tutty, solicitor at Sheridans Solicitors
http://www.sheridans.co.uk
Alex specialises in the creative sector with a focus on computer games, digital media and commercial IP issues. He provides advice in connection with the development and exploitation of traditional, social, casual and serious gaming, interactive software and media products. Alex has experience advising clients in relation to games development and publishing; website development, hosting and maintenance; the use of branded items and music in games; micro-transactions, virtual goods, ad-funded and sponsored games and other payment models; e-commerce and data protection legislation; and the creative use of technology in new media. His work covers the whole spectrum of games distribution methods including triple A games, XBLA and PSN games and Facebook and mobile apps. Clients include Blitz Game Studios, Remode, Slightly Mad Studios, Hello Games and Rocksteady Studios.

Supporters
South West Design Forum
http://www.swdf.co.uk
Plymouth City Council
http://www.plymouth.gov.uk
Tamar Science Park
http://www.tamarsciencepark.com
Formation Zone
http://www.formationzone.co.uk
Plymouth University
http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/SOCCE/CRNS/index.html
Plymouth College of Art
http://www.plymouthart.ac.uk
City College Plymouth
http://www.cityplym.ac.uk
Chew TV Network
http://www.chewtvnetwork.com
Real Ideas Organisation
http://realideas.org
Pyramid Presentations
http://www.pyramid-presentations.co.uk
Mutant Labs
http://www.mutantlabs.co.uk
Remode Studios
http://www.remodestudios.com

Event details

Devonport Guildhall
Ker Street
Devonport
PL1 4EL

Directions can be found here: http://www.designedindevon.co.uk/extendedplaydirections

Arrival – 6.30pm-7pm
Keynote – 7pm-7.30pm
Panel session – 7.45pm-8.45pm
Networking, game play and complimentary bar – 8.45 – 10ish

To Register for the event please go to : http://explay.eventbrite.com/
and to check out the website: http://explay.co.uk/

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06.00PM - 10:00PM