Edinburgh Interactive Festival: On The Ground Report
SPOnG catches up with Ian Livingstone, Chris Deering and others
By Adam Hartley
SPOnG is a huge fan of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, which kicked off today at Edinburgh’s College of Physicians. The EIF just goes from strength to strength and, now in its fifth year, its garnering more mainstream media support than ever before – with a good smattering of tabloid and broadcast journalists in attendance as well as numerous TV crews.
For this, if nothing else, EIF is clearly 'A Good Thing' for the UK games industry. It's also a far more relaxed affair than the trade affairs at E3, Leipzig and Tokyo Games Show, with the focus far more on cerebral and creative matters, rather than pounds, dollars and yen.
“People who are competing in business for most of the year can come together at Edinburgh and discuss things in a relaxed atmosphere that they simply cannot do anywhere else,” Chris Deering, founder of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, informed SPOnG in an interview I just conducted.
“Plus, it has to be said, Edinburgh is just such a great place to be – what with everything else happening here such as the TV and film festivals, the book festivals, the fringe,” Deering informed me, also revealing that he’s already taken in six or seven festival shows and events himself since arriving here a few days ago.
As well as rattling on about how the industry is going to expand, Ubisoft chief, Yves Guillemot, explained about Ubisoft's plans to expand in China. He also detailed the rather intriguing ideas his company is pursuing relating to cross platform user-generated content.
Eidos' Ian Livingstone, shortly to give a talk about the importance of ‘character’ told SPOnG that, “Lara Croft really should be considered like James Bond. Sure, there may have been some dodgy James Bond films, but recently, with Casino Royale, that series [like Lara] is back on top form.”
Character it seems, for Livingstone at least, is key, who told us much more about the future of Tomb Raider, the forthcoming Hitman movie and, most tantalisingly, Eidos’ new ‘not so nice’ characters, Kane and Lynch (pictured) Watch out for that interview soon.
And while I get over my embarrassing faux pas of referring to Livingstone’s Final Fantasy books (they were called Fighting Fantasy!) I'm just off to catch up with Jamie MacDonald, head of worldwide studios for Sony, and his team, for a chinwag about Home, Singstar, Little Big Planet and more.
SPOnG will be bringing you more from Edinburgh tomorrow as well as the Deering, Livingstone and Sony interviews later this week.
But for today, we'll finish with Chris Deering's comment that, "The EIF is like (the) Sundance (film festival) to me", by which we're sure he means that it's like a festival of ideas and talent, rather than an ego-inflation exercise that takes over an entire town.
SPOnG is a huge fan of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, which kicked off today at Edinburgh’s College of Physicians. The EIF just goes from strength to strength and, now in its fifth year, its garnering more mainstream media support than ever before – with a good smattering of tabloid and broadcast journalists in attendance as well as numerous TV crews.
For this, if nothing else, EIF is clearly 'A Good Thing' for the UK games industry. It's also a far more relaxed affair than the trade affairs at E3, Leipzig and Tokyo Games Show, with the focus far more on cerebral and creative matters, rather than pounds, dollars and yen.
“People who are competing in business for most of the year can come together at Edinburgh and discuss things in a relaxed atmosphere that they simply cannot do anywhere else,” Chris Deering, founder of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, informed SPOnG in an interview I just conducted.
“Plus, it has to be said, Edinburgh is just such a great place to be – what with everything else happening here such as the TV and film festivals, the book festivals, the fringe,” Deering informed me, also revealing that he’s already taken in six or seven festival shows and events himself since arriving here a few days ago.
As well as rattling on about how the industry is going to expand, Ubisoft chief, Yves Guillemot, explained about Ubisoft's plans to expand in China. He also detailed the rather intriguing ideas his company is pursuing relating to cross platform user-generated content.
Eidos' Ian Livingstone, shortly to give a talk about the importance of ‘character’ told SPOnG that, “Lara Croft really should be considered like James Bond. Sure, there may have been some dodgy James Bond films, but recently, with Casino Royale, that series [like Lara] is back on top form.”
Character it seems, for Livingstone at least, is key, who told us much more about the future of Tomb Raider, the forthcoming Hitman movie and, most tantalisingly, Eidos’ new ‘not so nice’ characters, Kane and Lynch (pictured) Watch out for that interview soon.
And while I get over my embarrassing faux pas of referring to Livingstone’s Final Fantasy books (they were called Fighting Fantasy!) I'm just off to catch up with Jamie MacDonald, head of worldwide studios for Sony, and his team, for a chinwag about Home, Singstar, Little Big Planet and more.
SPOnG will be bringing you more from Edinburgh tomorrow as well as the Deering, Livingstone and Sony interviews later this week.
But for today, we'll finish with Chris Deering's comment that, "The EIF is like (the) Sundance (film festival) to me", by which we're sure he means that it's like a festival of ideas and talent, rather than an ego-inflation exercise that takes over an entire town.
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