After the break you can read the text of an email that was sent out to Clinton Lowe and the attendees of our first Athens GGDA/IGDA meeting. Overall the event was very successful. I think we came away with a core group of people interested in making the chapter a success. I think the chapter itself will also be an excellent starting point for independent game development efforts in the Athens area. GameJam time!
The text of the email:
First of all… Thank you to everyone who came for the inaugural Athens GGDA/IGDA chapter meeting. The event was quite a success. We had 14 people in attendance with a broad variety of interests and areas of expertise. The conversation that followed the introductory presentation was excellent and I think everyone came away excited about the event. Publicity around the event was kept to strictly the GGDA announcement and word of mouth. This created an excellent situation where many of our attendees were GGDA members and interested/committed to the local chapter. We’ll begin scaling the events up as our chapter activities increase.
A special thanks also goes to the folks at The Pub at Gameday who hosted our event free of charge and allowed us to make liberal use of their large HDTVs for presentation and subsequent Wii gameplay. Not to mention the exceptional beer selection that should draw future attendees event without the draw of game development talk.
Also thanks to the folks at Hi-Rez (Michal Adam and Stew Chisam in particular) for providing Global Agenda Alpha Testing Invitations which were distributed to several attendees.
The opening presentation centered largely around the role that the GGDA and the IGDA play in encouraging game development efforts and other larger industry issues. It also focused on how small independent game development communities can thrive given the right support structures like the GGDA and IGDA. Several examples which I have been a part of in the past were talked about.
Slides can be found here (To advance click on the little white border… Yes, super annoying…).
Based on this initial meeting, I have begun setting up an Athens GGDA website, list-serve, and GameJam Wiki. We have also been officially included in the Global Game Jam which will be January 30th from 5PM until February 1st at 5PM. The event will be held in the New Media Institute at the University of Georgia. Several subsequent GameJams will be arranged that draw on concepts developed on the Athens GGDA GameJam Wiki.
All in all is was an excellent beginning for a local chapter and I thank everyone who took the time to participate.
I’ll be in touch with everyone as I get our virtual coordination tools online.
Best.
Casey