Rob Fearon has just said some lovely things over on GameCity.org about our work which has reminded me why we are bothering to continue to turn up…

“I like that if GameCity were a text adventure it wouldn’t be “You are in a dank, sweaty hall. To the left is a stinky man, to the right is a stinky man”. It would be “You are in a massive open city. As Frankie Goes To Hollywood once said, the world is your oyster. Go forth and play, my friend. To the north, lego. To the south you see a windy path with a man dressed as a hedgehog, to the west you see a conference hall and to the east you see someone dancing on a mat”. You see a sign and it reads “Everyone welcome”. You smile.”

It matters because the more we contain games in a nerdhole, the more of a narrow path we carve out. The less we get as a whole. The less progress we make and the less fun everyone gets to have.”

Pretty much sums it up.

It seems I’ve spent more time than I realised over the last month talking about Plants Versus Zombies with Andy Robertson of the rapidly growing GamePeople. It’s part of the new series of podcasts that Andy has recently instigated which are shaping up really well. I’m always a little suspicious of the ‘bunch of people gather round and have a chat about some stuff’ format, but I think these are pretty interesting. Also, GamesTM this month has a group interview/ feature looking at family gaming that I’m a part of. Apparently…

We’re very much heads down into development on the next nights gig and festival at the moment and are hoping to have some very excellent and very new ideas to announce in the next month of so.

Keef has just posted an interview with Ray MacGuire and Ian Livingstone up on the games blog which reminds me that I really must get those notes from the vision statement last year written up.

So why aren’t we seeing games on the Culture Show?

RM: I think that’s a discussion to be had with the media channels! But the experience of gaming is personal and it’s difficult to replicate that kind of emotional connection via TV. It has also been difficult to create news stories around the industry that capture the public’s imagination. With movies, half the attention is about the star, not about their performance, we don’t have that within our industry.
IL: Our heroes are virtual!

Earlier this week (and following on from some of the Livingstone-Hope review directives) I was at a strategy meeting aimed at getting more young people interested in STEM subjects. The more I think about this the more I see the two issues as being indivisible. The more I hear from the games industry illuminati, the less I think they believe that too.

Bafta, games and Britain: Ray Maguire and Ian Livingstone on the UK industry – part one | Technology | guardian.co.uk: “”