Freeplay 2009 is on in Melbourne next week, Friday and Saturday Aug. 14 - 15 at the State Library. Anyone else from GameDev.net planning to attend? This is the first Freeplay I'll have attended and I've never been to one of the games festival things before, so I'm not sure what to expect. At a bare minimum I'm hoping for a general air of enthusiasm to help me get generally inspired to make good games; any other pointers or networking is a bonus.

Im considering it... I havent been before, either.

Although Im trying to cut down on non-essential costs at the moment and, ironically, Freeplay is not free to enter :P

Quote: Original post by caffiene
Im considering it... I havent been before, either.

Although Im trying to cut down on non-essential costs at the moment and, ironically, Freeplay is not free to enter :P

The cost of entry is a small $30 odd dollars for two days of talks, workshops and panels.

The big subject point for freeplay is indie games and indie development. If you're interested in the dynamics of small game studios, business and hearing from the experience of those who have done it all before then that's the point of freeplay.

There wont be much in the way of large scale studio promotion.

I'm unfortunately already booked out for those days, or I'd definitely be attending.

Quote: Original post by DesignerWatts
The cost of entry is a small $30 odd dollars for two days of talks, workshops and panels.

$24 in fact.

Im not saying its a bad price, and Im sure it goes toward worthy game-related causes. Ive just had a habit lately of "$10 here, $10 there, $10 the other... oh, where all my money go?" that Im trying to break, so it requires more thought than if there was no cost.

I'm pretty sure at that price it's to cover logistical expenses. It's pretty cheap for a two-day conference.

I'm a bit confused by the different tracks - there's panels and talks in the theaterette, and there's workshops. I hope you can swap between the two as there's good sessions in both, but unfortunately the timing is a bit off between the two. There's different lunch hours for a start, which makes me fear it's one or the other.

Quote: Original post by DesignerWatts
The cost of entry is a small $30 odd dollars for two days of talks, workshops and panels.

Heh, I misread that as "... two days of talks, worship, and panels."

It sounds kind of interesting. Is anyone going to be doing actual coverage of this for GDNet?

Quote: Original post by Moe

Quote: Original post by DesignerWatts
The cost of entry is a small $30 odd dollars for two days of talks, workshops and panels.

Heh, I misread that as "... two days of talks, worship, and panels."

It sounds kind of interesting. Is anyone going to be doing actual coverage of this for GDNet?

I'll be acting as camera-man for an aussie game industry website known as tsumea so given a few weeks after the presentation we should be able to upload some of the strongest presentations. :)

When tsumea does that, or if I get clearance to publicly upload them, I'll link it here.

I won't be there on the Friday due to work, but may turn up for the Saturday.

I might go, haven't decided yet. Some colleagues are giving talks that might be fun to watch.