Independent Games Summit (304) (Mon)

Speakers: Daniel James, Dave Grossman, David Jaffe, Derek Yu, Don Wurster, Eric Zimmerman, Greg Costikyan, Jacob Van Wingen, Jamie Cheng, Jason Holtman, Jenova Chen, John Baez, John Hight, Jon Mak, Jonathan Blow, Kellee Santiago, Kevin Bruner, Kim Pallister, Kim Swift, Kyle Gabler, Lloyd Melnick, Matthew Wegner, Russell Carroll, Ryan Clark, Sandy Resnick, Simon Carless, Steve Swink, Steve Taylor

Track: Tutorial: Game Design

Format: Tutorial

Experience Level: All

Description: [NOTE: This event is now SOLD OUT - no more tickets are available for it. Independent Games Summit Classic/Expo Pass holders should arrive early for seating for the sessions, since seats will be first-come, first-served.]

Featuring lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators around, including many of the Independent Games Festival finalists for this year, the 2007 Independent Games Summit seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from indie game distribution methods through game design topics, guerrilla marketing concepts, student indie game discussions, and much more.

2007 IGS - Confirmed Sessions - Monday, March 5th, 2007

Keynote: 25 Years Of Indie Power (Jeff Minter, Llamasoft)
Monday - 10.00am - 11.00am
In his keynote, indie guru Jeff Minter (Tempest 2000, Attack Of The Mutant Camels) makes an extremely rare North American appearance to talk both about his history as an independent developer (dating all the way back to 1980!), and his design philosophy and attitude to making great looking, original indie games, before explaining his latest in-development title, Space Giraffe for Xbox 360 Live Arcade.

[Coffee Break: 11.00am - 11.15am]

Console/PC Distribution Gatekeepers (Ross Erickson, Microsoft; Jason Holtman, Valve; John Hight, Sony; Sandy Resnick, GameTap; Moderator: Simon Carless, IGF)
Monday - 11.15am - 12.10pm
This vital panel talks to the employees who evaluate submissions for some of the major indie game distribution channels on both console and PC, talking about how to pitch your game to get on these services, exactly what the gatekeepers are looking for, approaches to royalties, and much more.

IGF Finalists Sneak Peek (Simon Carless, IGF Chairman)
Monday - 12.10pm - 12.30pm
Ahead of the Independent Games Festival Pavilion opening and the IGF Awards themselves, IGF Chairman and Game Developer/Gamasutra EIC Simon Carless will take you through some of the highlights of this year's IGF finalists, presenting gameplay and video showing off the best of this year's Independent Game Festival entries in a whirlwind fashion.

[Lunch: 12.30pm - 2.00pm]

Making An Indie MMO (Daniel James, Three Rings)
Monday - 2.00pm - 2.30pm
The business and creative mind behind games such as Puzzle Pirates and Bang! Howdy discusses the practical logistics of handling heavily invested online game players as an independent developer, discussing elements such as when and how to update content, community management and keeping players interested, how to approach Beta tests, technical support, and much more - a key hands-on lecture for all those considering making an indie online game.

Innovation in Indie Games (Kyle Gabler, Experimental Gameplay Project; Jenova Chen, ThatGameCompany; Jon Mak, Queasy Games; Jon Blow, Number-None; Moderator - Steve Swink, Flashbang Studios)
Monday - 2.30pm - 3.30pm
Join the luminary creators of the Experimental Gameplay Project at CMU, IGF-winning Braid, and the brilliant Everyday Shooter as they dissect innovation in indie games. How do we generate Earth-shattering ideas that will change the face of gaming? Can small teams innovate? Is 'innovation' really what we want?

Postmortem: Gastronaut Studios' Small Arms (Jacob Van Wingen, Don Wurster, Gastronaut)
Monday - 3.30pm - 4pm
The creators of Xbox 360 Live Arcade stand-out title Small Arms, previous veterans of XBLA from their work with Fuzzee Fever on the original Xbox Live Arcade, talk about what went right and what wrong during the development of the frenetic multiplayer shooter, giving plenty of insight into developing indie games on console.

[Coffee Break: 4.00pm - 4.15pm]

Episodic Gaming For Indies (Dave Grossman & Kevin Bruner, Telltale Games)
Monday - 4.15pm - 4.45pm
Telltale's CTO and design lead talk about their experiences as an indie developing the Sam & Max and Bone series as PC episodic titles, explaining what the company learnt and what other indies should know about the pros and cons of episodic gaming.

Idea Takeaway: The Indie MBA (John Baez, The Behemoth)
Monday - 4.45pm - 5.30pm
From the decidedly indie creators of Alien Hominid and the upcoming XBLA title Castle Crashers, a comprehensive and intensely practical guide to the business aspects of running an indie shop: contract negotiation, outsourcing, managing contract artists/programmers, funding opportunities, the pluses and minuses of doing contract work yourself to pay bills, and much more.

Our Journey From Narbacular Drop To Portal (Kim Swift, Valve)
Monday - 5.30pm - 6.00pm
In this lecture, the team which made IGF Student Showcase winner Narbacular Drop talk about the making of the innovative title, tips for student developers, how the entire team got picked up by Valve to make Portal using the Source Engine, and exactly how they've transitioned from student indie creators to continued innovation at the home of Half-Life.

2007 IGS - Confirmed Sessions - Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Indie Prototyping, Braid, & Making Innovative Games (Jonathan Blow, Number None)
Tuesday - 10.00am - 10.45am
Former Game Developer magazine code columnist and 2006 IGF Design Innovation winner Jonathan Blow, the creator of innovative time-manipulating platform title Braid, discusses the deliberate methodology behind his indie game prototyping. He shows how he conceives, develops, and tests out indie concepts in playable form, and discusses how you know when a prototype is working, and where to take it from there, demonstrating multiple in-development prototypes (including Braid) along the way.

The Indie Bootstrap Kit (Matt Wegner, Flashbang Studios)
Tuesday - 10.45am - 11.00am
In this whirlwind lecture, Wegner (IGF finalist with Glow Worm) will talk about everything you need to take a hobby or personal project and release it as a bona fide for-sale indie product. This includes elements such as company setup, installers, DRM, payment processing, website setup, and so on - the specific but sometimes tantalizingly hard to trace information on how you actually sell games online.

[Coffee Break: 11.00am - 11.15am]

Indie Retail Distribution (Lloyd Melnick, Merscom)
Tuesday - 11.15am - 11.45am
This session will cover getting indie titles into retail distribution from the point of view of the publisher, including who the major stores are, how you sell into them, what the process of getting paid is, how that whole chain works, and what indie games need to be like to get retail distribution - including how products should be pitched and presented for retail sale in the U.S, Europe, and worldwide.

Indie Development Logistics (Jamie Cheng, Klei Entertainment; Jacob Van Wingen, Gastronaut Studios; Steve Taylor, Wahoo Studios/NinjaBee; Ryan Clark, Grubby Games; Moderator: Brandon Sheffield, Game Developer Magazine)
Tuesday - 11.45am - 12.30pm
A bevy of business and creative folk for notable indie game companies get together to discuss multiple elements of how to function as an indie - from staffing levels through business practices through funding opportunities, alternative business models, and more.

[Lunch: 12.30pm - 2.00pm]

The Casual Cash Cow? (Eric Zimmerman, Gamelab)
Tuesday - 2.00pm - 2.45pm
The Gamelab co-founder (Diner Dash) talks about how the indie aesthetic/mentality interacts with the casual market (and vice versa), in the best talk on casual games outside of the Casual Games Summit, talking about some of the things that helped Gamelab stay focused and alive in the casual and indie games market, such as keeping a sharp company vision, being aggressive on deal negotiation, and being an 'honest hustler'.

Fostering an Experimental Student Project: How Cloud Got Made (Jenova Chen/Kellee Santiago, ThatGameCompany)
Tuesday - 2.45pm - 3.30pm
In this talk, you learn about the story behind multi-award winning student game Cloud, created by 6 USC Interactive Media MFA students. Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen share the lessons they learned through the intensive 8 months production, tricks on how to utilize the tools and resources in the school, and how to use your game as your industry calling card. More importantly, you learn how to focus the different creative desires among students to make an innovative yet still professionally directed and executed game.

Intended Audience: Marketing For Indies (Russell Carroll, Reflexive/GameTunnel)
Tuesday - 3.30pm - 4.00pm
Want your game to be the one everyone is talking about? Interested in increasing how many copies you've sold? Russell Carroll, who heads up marketing for Wik & The Fable Of Souls creator Reflexive, and also founded key indie game press site GameTunnel, discusses how to maximize your buzz and sales opportunities. Using and abusing the press and game portals, alternative marketing, viral marketing, press release tactics and an overview of brand design and development all will be discussed in a whirlwind thirty minute presentation that will forever change the way you market your games.

[Coffee Break: 4.00pm - 4.15pm]

Physics Games Go Indie (Matthew Wegner, Flashbang Studios) Tuesday - 4.15pm - 5.00pm Wegner, who is both an indie developer and runs the physics game blog Fun-Motion, explains why real-time physics are such a big part of many innovative independent games, with demonstrations and practical tips for developers wanting to use physics to make their games stand out.

Building The Future of Indie Games (Greg Costikyan, Manifesto Games; Mark Morris, Introversion; David Jaffe, SCEA; Derek Yu, Bit Blot; Moderator: Simon Carless, IGF)
Tuesday - 5.00pm - 6.00pm
In a much more wide-ranging discussion, we look at the next two, five, or even ten years for the independent games movement. How will the opportunities to make a living change? Where is the innovation going to come from, and how? And why is it a particularly good (or indeed, bad!) time to be an indie game creator? We've picked some leading lights and opinion-makers in or bordering the indie scene to discuss this in detail.