Last night’s plenary session seemed to set the benchmark for talking about the state of the videogame industry more broadly, but also in the state of GA. In part, that is what has made the conference so far a particularly interesting one it demonstrates the kinds of intersections that occur between local activity and creative industries more broadly. But back to the Friday night plenary…
The first plenary session opened a bit slow, but I’ve decided that it had more to do with the frigid temperatures in the pavilion, rather than any particular fault of the speakers. Rich Taylor of the ESA, Asante Bradford (who also doubled as MC for the panel) of the GA Department of Economic Development, and Blake Lewin of Turner R&D brought together a panel that at first seemed a bit disjointed, but ultimately came together quite nicely.
I think ultimately it was Blake Lewin who hit the nail on the head. Though I’m not quoting him, he seemed to identify how particularly important the balance between the rights of users and developers/publishers is going to be to the future of the videogame industry. At several points the recording industry’s lack of capability to work within and around these changes brought laughs from the crowd. But really, it is just as important for the videogame industry, perhaps even more important.
I have to wonder that if the game industry does not tackle these big issues, DRM, Region Lockout, Format Wars, System Lock-in, and the list goes on, they’re not going to be able to meet the call that many are making, that games will characterize media for the next century just as radio and television characterized media in the previous century. It’s not a problem that is going to get solved here in Atlanta this weekend, but it’s going to be felt most acutely in places like this, where burgeoning industries are attempting to evolve.