Gameware Studio Diary

E3 - The aftermath

So we got back from the big, brash and (if you like that sort of thing) strangely beautiful video-game show of the year in the middle of last week. A few days later and the stacks of missed e-mails are back under control (kind of), and we�re properly into follow-up mode.

How did we find it? How did we get on? What did it tell us about where our next steps should be directed? Well, in some respects, these are questions which we, ourselves, will have to wait awhile to find the right answers to. There was a fair bit to take in, to be sure. But, we certainly came away from this, the tenth E3, with a good feeling about the products, plans and know-how that we have to offer�

If you want a blow-by-blow on the show, there are hundreds of web-sites and magazines which will be reporting on it for months to come, and most of which will gain you far more insight into what went on than I can muster here! The bare statistics, like over 60,000 visitors in 3 days, over 3,000 first public showings of products, at least a hundred companies that I�ve never heard of, a multitude of press pronouncements, product announcements, and, yes, scantily-clad booth-babes, don�t adequately portray how intense E3 can be to visit.

Thankfully, we formed part of the UK State of Play �stand� which acted as both a reliable meeting point and even a relatively quiet haven from time to time. Plenty of the great UK developers, like Kuju, Argonaut, Blitz, and Rebellion and more were also in the area. Our friends in Cambridge from Nicely Crafted and Just Add Monsters were also around much of the time. A very good crowd, you�d have to say!

I suppose we focused quite narrowly on the goals we had had in mind before the show started. For obvious reasons (hopefully), I cannot relay the specifics of our meetings and chance encounters - which are often the most fruitful moments of a show like that. However, highlights certainly included witnessing the generally gob-smacked amazement viewers showed at seeing extracts from the BAMZOOKi TV Show. The potential for BAMZOOKi is genuinely huge, by the way! Watch this space for an announcement in June about how we�re planning to spread the word.

Another highlight would be the response we received in talking about Creatures being re-released in the US with certain publishers. A deal for Albian Years, Exodus and Creatures Village should be done in time to ensure retail availability in North America this Autumn/Fall. I can�t comment here on the prospects for Creatures Mobile, but I can say that we remain very optimistic about the prospects we have for making it real.

Demonstrating our Living Pictures app on actual mobile camera-phones was also a big hit and always very funny to watch � the most serious of people tend to crack up when they see themselves animated and talking back at in words they never said�

Speaking of Living Pictures, our PC Beta program got underway whilst E3 was going on thanks to Jason, our lead architect and programmer on the project, David, our business-development wiz at Scene Machines and Lisa, here on the web-site, putting it all together! Actually the Living Pictures pages do look cool and show off the stuff pretty well. Fear not, Netscape-based browser users. Soon we will have the stuff properly viewable for you too. The Beta program is set to end soon, so look out over the next couple of weeks for PC Living Pictures to go to Master and become available for purchase from Gameware�s shop.

Away from the workplace of the show, I was lucky enough to be in LA at the same time as my son, Tom, who was there on one leg of his gap-year round the world trip, with a couple of good friends. Before the show (doing Hollywood and West LA) and after the show (doing Vegas - baby) we had some really great times. Being gamers from an early age, Tom and his mates ended up enthusiastically attending E3 all three days of the show (as Gameware�s guests) and were able to see far wider and more in depth than I was able to. They gave me some interesting reports and feedback on the titles on offer, the low-down on Sony PSP vs GameBoy DS, The Sims 2, Halo 2, and any number of other key new releases. But by far the most valuable thing they brought me, having queued up for two hours to get it, was a hardback edition of the first twelve episodes of SpiderMan, signed personally �To Ian, from, Stan Lee�. Fantastic, they got me my all-time literary hero�s autograph!

In summary, E3 was as good a forum and showcase for us as we could have expected. Suffice to say that we expect to be pretty busy these next few months and more. There�s plenty to be done, but plenty to play for too.

Cheers!

PS If you�re in Europe, look out for the new, XP-compatible C1 & C2 pack, Creatures � The Albian Years, published by Fusion Software, appearing in stores during July.