Ten days of gaming get-togethers are rapidly approaching here in Europe with the Edinburgh Interactive Festival in Scotland’s capital city, closely followed by GDC Europe and GamesCom in Cologne, Germany.
First up is the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, now in its seventh year, taking place at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange between the 13th and 14th of August. The event includes conferences with leading industry figures, screenings of future games and free play of soon to be released titles. Members of the public are invited to attend the Free Play Public Area to try out the latest and greatest from sponsors including Nintendo, Sony, EA, Eidos and Disney Interactive. With last year’s EIF bringing the first public plays of LittleBigPlanet, it’s exciting to think about what surprises lie in wait for us this year.
On Thursday, of EA Sports president Peter Moore will deliver the opening keynote speech of the festival’s conferences, addressing the challenges of reinventing the company’s branded sports games. Other notable contributors to the conference include head of Sony UK, Ray Maguire, and Eidos life president Ian Livingstone.
The Games Screening Sessions will run along side the Game Play Area, offering previews of this year’s biggest titles and the opportunity to meet the developers behind your favourite games. Local developers Realtime Worlds (Crackdown, APB) are one of the teams scheduled to appear.
It’s still not too late to pick up your ticket for the event! Check out www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com for more information.
Next, to the historic German city of Cologne, for GDC Europe (17th-19th August) and GamesCom (19th-23rd August). The European leg of the Game Developers Conference will host guest speakers including big names such as Quantic Dream’s David Cage and Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios. Cage will deliver his keynote on “Writing Interactive Narrative for a Mature Audience” and is sure to tie in closely to his company’s forthcoming PS3 title Heavy Rain. Molyneux’s speech is titled “Choice: The Ultimate Game Mechanic”; something that has been at the heart of Lionhead’s previous games, such as Black & White and Fable. The event will feature over 100 speakers representing industry leaders such as Sony, Microsoft, Konami, Capcom, Sega, Crytek, BioWare and Ubisoft.
Running in conjunction with GDC Europe is new kid on the block GamesCom. With the absence of the Leipzig Games Convention this year, GamesCom has to try and fill the void. Across 120,000 square metres of exhibition space, fans and gamers will have the opportunity to experience an E3-like showcase of upcoming products. The sheer scale of the event will make this Europe’s premier games convention, and one that will likely bring us lots of fresh information about new releases. The trade fair is being heavily supported by the big three platform owners, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, and there are bound to be some surprises up their collective sleeves. The Internet rumour mills are already in overdrive with possible announcements, but the fact is we won’t know what’s in store until the date arrives!
More info about the Cologne events is available on the official sites:
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