GAMEPLANNER - Ontario Creates
GAMEPLANNER
INTRODUCTIONThere is an ever-expanding array of in-personevents, festivals and conferences a game creatorcan attend internationally. Gameplanner is anew resource intended to help indies plan theirexhibition and networking strategy based on theirgoals and their tendencies.The Gameplanner resource was created by JimMunroe of the Game Arts International Network.GAIN is a not-for-profit that serves game artsorganizers and curators in Los Angeles, Montreal,Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Madrid, Ottawa,Austin, Seattle, Tel Aviv, Halifax, New York, Berlin,Melbourne, Portland, Reykjavík, Pittsburgh,London, Boston, Copenhagen, Cape Town andToronto.Previous to starting GAIN, Jim Munroe spentclose to a decade founding and building up theHand Eye Society, the world’s first videogamearts organization. In this executive director rolehe ran large game curation events like the FancyVideogame Party at the AGO, focused festivals likeWordPlay, and established the Toronto VideogameEvents calendar. He also became aware of the needfor interconnections between regional groups,often facing the same problems and challengesalone, and started to reach out to peers and sharedmodels of programs to groups in Vancouver,Montreal and Portland.Gameplanner was created between January andSeptember 2019 with the input of 56 game creatorsacross Canada and over a dozen internationalgame curators through a series of one-on-oneinterviews and surveys. We would like to thank allthese respondents and the following for outreachassistance: Dr. Jennifer R. Whitson, Dr. Bart Simonand Dr. Felan Parker from Indie Interfaces; MauriceGrela from Full Indie; Jason Della Rocca fromGamePlaySpace; Tanya X. Short from Pixelles;Craig Pfau from Alberta Makes Games; & LoganFoster from GameCamp Edmonton.Gameplanner was made with the financial supportof the Canada Media Fund and Ontario Creates.The opinions, observations, conclusions, andrecommendations contained in this documentare those of the author and do not necessarilyreflect the views of Ontario Creates or the CanadaMedia Fund. The Canada Media Fund, OntarioCreates, the Governments of Canada and Ontarioand their agencies are in no way bound by therecommendations contained in this document.
MATCH YOUR GOALS WITH EVENTSAttending in-person events is a fun and useful activity for most game creators.But it can also be tiring and expensive, so it’s worth thinking through yourgameplan when it comes to choosing where to put your time and focus. Thisresource was created to help you craft your approach.Most people make games to be played by other people. Almost all of thesegoals are ways to connect with and build an audience: it makes creationmeaningful, and increases the economic and emotional reserves to continueto make games. But as there are direct and indirect ways to do this, it’s worthcovering each separately.BUILD AUDIENCEDIRECTLYGetting your game in frontof players and giving thema chance to try it is a timeintensive but effective way ofconnecting with an audience.This can happen anywhereyou can set up your game, butusually happens on showfloorsat game events. The top choiceby a mile for this is the PAXseries of events, mainly PAXPrime and East, with E3 being adistant second.GET MEDIAAND STREAMERCOVERAGEKeeping in mind that this ismostly an indirect way to buildaudience, it can be a timeeffective way to focus yourefforts if you have the kind ofgame that has a gonzo visualstyle that appeals to streamers,or if your game has aninteresting hook that would beappealing to write about. E3 andPAX E&W, are the top, with GDCand IndieCade getting honorablemention.NETWORKING WITHPEERSBeyond the fun of hanging withcool like-minded people, there’sa number of other benefits:potential future collaborations/employees; technical, creative,and business advice/feedback;co-promotion to fan bases. Lotsof indies enjoy including littlenods to other indie games viaskins and references, and thiscan often be a no-cash copromotion. It can lead to beinginvited to join an indie email listor conversations where you canlearn from their experiences ormistakes.For commercial game creators,GDC is the top pick, with PAX#2. For non-commercial, A MazeBerlin and IndieCade are highlyregarded.BUSINESS DEALSBy attending an event youare demonstrating yourinvestment in the community,but that’s rarely enough toland a publishing deal or getshowcased on a platform. Beingon the showfloor can allow repsto discover you and see playerresponse, and social events canbe a way to initiate or maintainrelationships. GDC is the top,followed by PAX, followed by E3.GET INSPIRED BYGAMES AND TALKSLearning something new aboutyour craft or seeing an amazingnew game can really keep youinspired during the long periodswhere you have your head downcreating your own work. It’s hardto quantify, and perhaps themost subjective, but GDC (andits IGF and Alt CTRL programs,now alongside Day of the Devs)rated the highest, with PAXbeing second.THERE’SMORE!
ALSO NOTABLEWhile it’s clear that GDC and PAX are the mosthighly valued events for most of the goals we’veoutlined, there are a number of others that areworth mentioning. BitSummit is a good all-round event in Japan GamesCom is the world’s biggest gamesconference and while it is expensive andexhausting, it is a good connection to theEuropean market EGX Rezzed in the UK has good playerattendance and media PSX is highly rated for the enthusiastic fanbase for those on the Sony platformHANDYCHART! Known for itMediaPeer NetworkingWORTH IT IF YOU’RE NEARBY Full Indie Summit in Vancouver is a one-dayconference with showcasing opportunities Montreal International Game Summit hasnetworking and business opportunities Comics X Games and WordPlay happen inToronto for those with comic-inspired art ornarratively focused games Esports games have had good response atEGLX in Toronto Somewhat known for itBusiness DealsPlayer ContactInspirationA Maze BerlinBitsummitE3EGX RezzedGamesComGDCIndieCadePAX EastPAX WestPSXThis top ten chart is based on 23 in-person interviews and 33 online surveys. The research wasconducted between June-August of 2019 and included game creators in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal,Edmonton, London, Varennes, Quebec City, New Westminster, Surrey, Calgary, and Gabriola Island.
PLAN YOUR ATTACKEvents tend to sneak up on you, especially in the fog of game development.Here is one set-it-and-forget-it approach that will help you get the jump on things.BECAREFUL!1. Make a list of events that you feel have value to you and best align with your goals.2. Set a recurring reminder in your calendar twice a year to PLAN GAME EVENTS. Once a year isn’tenough, because festivals and conferences often announce dates close to the event.3. When the reminder comes up, pick your date source to see what of your chosen events have datesannounced: EventsForGamers.com is the most comprehensive event calendar event we’ve found and hasrun for a decade. This site will allow you to import events directly into your calendar, which ishandy. Zuraida Buter curates a selection of playful events that have more of an arts slant at zo-ii.com. You can also refer to the event site itself and enter it manually.Either way, get the events into your calendar. Set a reminder for yourself six weeks before theevent about it.4. Now check the event site to see if there are any showcasing, award, or talk proposal deadlines. (Wecan call these multipliers as they increase an event’s value.) Create a reminder for yourself two-tothree weeks out from the deadline that says, say, IGF SUBMISSION DUE IN TWO WEEKS! If thereisn’t a deadline posted yet, subscribe to their newsletter. (You can also use deadlines like these tomotivate your team, in which case you might want to put the reminder a month or two out instead.An external deadline is always better than an internal milestone.)5. This is the best part: forget about it. You won’t book a camping trip that conflicts, though you canalways skip that event this year if a good opportunity comes up -- just not accidentally.6. When the reminder comes up for a multiplier like an award and your game is presentable, you cansubmit it unless you’ve decided in the interim that the event is off your list.7. When you get a reminder about the event in six weeks, it’s time to decide. Plane tickets are onlygoing up from here, and that lead time will allow you to reach out to people and book meetings.Assess the travel costs and the disruption to your development cycle and measure it against how ithelps you reach your goals.
CHOOSE YOUR STRATEGIESYour choice of strategies should take into account yourtemperament, abilities, and the type of game you have.DO YOU LOVE TALKING TOSTRANGERS AND SHOWINGTHEM YOUR GAME?what about.SHOWCASING YOUR GAMEThere’s lots of benefits toshowcasing your game. Prerelease you can get userfeedback and watch to seewhat’s working and not, as wellas build excitement. Post-releaseyou can engage with existingfans. But, it can be exhausting,especially for introverts. There’sminimal time to interact withpeers. It’s expensive to get yourequipment and rent the booth.Prep, attendance, and recoverytakes time out of development.Team Up: The Indie MegaBoothis a no-brainer if you can getin. We universally heard fromcreators that IMB offers bettertraffic, better media attentionand lower costs than runninga solo booth (though theMiniBooth got mixed reviews).The PAX 10 showcase offersfree booth space and the IndieArena at GamesCom is alsorecommended.Don’t Go Alone: Make sureyou have enough people withyou to have reasonable shifts.People involved with makingthe game are more exciting forplayers to meet and can answerquestions that potential businesspartners might have, but somepeople have limited socialenergy. Perhaps you can bringa younger developer from thecommunity along to apprenticein your booth?Merch Madness: Stickers,pins, shirts and stuffies basedon your game can offset boothcosts, enhance the booth decor,and promote your work, whendone well -- but it’s really hardto do well. Consult with otherpeople, make prototypes andshort runs and see what works atlocal events, and be careful withborder crossings as they cantrigger customs charges that killyour profit margin.Design Your Booth: You putthought into every aspect ofyour game: do the same withthe user experience of yourbooth! Mount a large screenhigh up so people can spectatewhen it’s busy. Dollar store blingcan give a little visual flare.Vertical banners are not hugelyexpensive, eyecatching, andeasy to transport. Always includean email list signup for whenpeople want to quietly indicatethey’re superfans.Photos or it Didn’t Happen:Get lots of photos of peoplehaving a blast with your game.They’ll come in handy fornewsletter updates or pitches.Level Up Regionally: If you’rein an area that has game events,take the opportunity to practiseshowcasing when stakes (andcosts and effort) are lower. Seewhat works, and iterate on it forlarger events.
DO YOU LOVE TALKING ABOUT YOURGAME, BUT NOT ALL THE TIME?DO YOU HAVE THE SAVVY TO PUTTOGETHER SOME PUNCHY COPY?try.New makes the News: Havingsomething new to announcesuch as a new feature or newcontent substantially increasesyour chances of gettingcoverage.show market potential to yourpotential partners. Yes, it can bechallenging to distill somethingyou’ve worked for years ondown to one line: rise to thischallenge.Refine Your Pitch: A oneline hook is useful to pull inplayers on the showfloor,intrigue peers at parties, andHire Some Guns: If you havean announcement and fewmedia contacts it might beworth considering hiring a PRMAKING MEDIA HAPPENcompany for a few months priorto the event to hook and bookmedia interviews for you. Agood PR company will have adeep knowledge of the mediaoutlets, writers and what they’relooking for.ARE YOU LOOKING FORBACKING TO DO SOMETHINGBIGGER THAN YOU COULDON YOUR OWN?you should be.DOING BUSINESS DEALSBook Early: Contact people you’dlike to meet with 3-4 weeksin advance, and if you havethe choice, book earlier in theevent while they’re still freshand haven’t had 4 solid days of16 meetings a day. Later in theevent when spots are runningscarce they might cancel yourmeeting entirely.Mentoring at Meetings: Havea junior member of the teamwith some promise? Bring themalong to the meeting so theycan see how things go down.Even if they take notes or justsit there and listen, it helpsreduce the mystique in a wayother training doesn’t.Be a Curious Cat: Althoughit can seem like you’re theless powerful entity in theconversation, having a fewquestions for your prospectivepartner -- good ones youcouldn’t just google -- can giveyou a better sense of who you’redealing with. Plus, if you tend toovertalk, this can break that up.Skip the GDC Meeting:If you’re already in contactwith them, some peoplehave suggested meeting withpartners at a less high-densityevent like IndieCade. Othershave said they like to visit keypartners in the off season intheir own office, where theyhave more time.
IF NETWORKING FEELS FAKE,FIND A GENUINE WAY TO CONNECTTHROUGH SHARED INTERESTSAND EXPERIENCES!here’s how to.CONNECTWITH PEERSPlay the Long Game: Theveterans we spoke to all spokeabout how their networkgrew slowly over a number ofyears, getting stronger withconversations and partieswhere common interests werediscovered and trust was built.Familiarity leads to getting ano quicker, and getting a yeseventually.Ask for Feedback: Peers oftenhave great feedback and canalso become advocates foryour game and signal boost itwhen it comes out. Even if theyhave smaller followings, it canboost your credibility with theirfollowers -- who sometimesare media people with biggerfollowings. Do you follow? Also,asking for small favours -- likebridging introductions -- isgenerally a good idea, becauseit opens the door for them toask you favours, and pretty soonit’s not a transactional thinganymore.they’re want to meet up. Somewill be too busy already, butsome will be free. Similarlya good way to keep low-keyinformed about someone youmet at an event is to follow themon social media.Take Notes: Because it’s oftenmonths or years betweenevents, it helps to jot downthings about people you connectwith to jog your memory nexttime, or when you’re looking fora certain type of contact in theinterim. You can be methodicalwithout being mechanical.Don’t Just Network Up: A lot ofpeople think they have to talk toimportant or influential peopleto succeed, but it’s often morenatural to build relationshipswith peers. A few years later,you have a real friendship and,what do you know, a lot of themwill have moved into decisionmaker roles.Facebook Friends to IRL Friends(and back): If you have time,reach out to people you followon social media and see ifNote: Unfortunately, networkingevents can be both exclusionaryand sites of harassment.
THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE AT EVENTS,AND IT DOESN’T HURT TO STAND OUT. THOSELOOKING TO BUILD ART CAREERS CAN BENEFITIN PARTICULAR FROM GETTING AWARDS ANDDOING TALKS TO PUT ON THEIR CVS.you can always.DISTINGUISH YOURSELFSubmit Your Game for Awards:Many creators were ambivalenttowards awards and saw onlyslight correlation between themand success. They help teammorale and raised reputationamong peers -- which couldlead to better collaborationsand partners. The laurels givepartners, press and potentialplayers another reason to look atit. If you are considering goingto an event, you should considersubmitting your game to theirawards or showcase. If theyaccept it, then you can attendwith some perks including freepasses or special networkingopportunities -- and yeah, maybea bit of an ego boost.Propose a Talk: Similar to theabove, if you are consideringgoing to an event that takes talkproposals, you might want tothink about submitting one ofyours if it’s the kind of thing youlike doing. If you hate publicspeaking and find creating talksexhausting, it’s unlikely to beworth the work. A self-promotingtalk is unlikely to be selected,but if you have something ofvalue you want to share -- atechnique or perspective ongame creation that you thinkwould be helpful -- go with thatenergy. It will almost certainlylead to interesting conversationsin the aftermath.Organize Something Cool: Manypeople love parties, but somepeople find it doesn’t work forthem: they don’t drink, they haveproblems with loud rooms, orother reasons. Why not createthe gatherings of type you wantwith the kinds of people youwant to socialize with? Perhapsit’s a small dinner with a handfulof narrative designers. Maybeit’s a gathering in the park wherefellow introverts can catch up onemail near each other. Maybeyou organize an outing to agallery or suggest a walk. If youwant to do it, it’s likely otherpeople will too!Fly Your Freak Flag: Feel like theonly musician in a roomful ofcoders? Cool, they need you tocompose some tunes! Aren’t awhite straight male in this stillhomogenous community? Great,there’s lots of teams who knowthey need your perspective.Are you more influenced byVictorian novels than Zelda? Youmight make the next innovativeinteractive fiction that peopleflock to. Being different can beuncomfortable, for sure, but ifyou stick it out you might find itto be your biggest asset.ANDDON’TFORGET!POST-MORTEMWhen you get home from the event, take ten minutes to write down the benefits of attending the event.Set a task for three months after the event assess any new benefits that have developed and take taketen minutes to review what you’d do differently.
APPENDIX
HOLLY GRAMAZIONOW PLAY THIS, UKFor the last five yearsI’ve directed Now PlayThis, which runs atSomerset House aspart of the LondonGames Festival. Eachyear I’ve worked withGeorge Buckenhamto select the work forthat -- generally a coreexhibition of around25-40 works, and thenother special events andsometimes showcasesaround that.What is the general processfollowed for each, ie how doyou find the games, who isinvolved with the selectionand how are they selected?Oh gosh, big question! We doa lot of different things: followinteresting people on itch.io and twitter and try to payattention to their work; lookat interesting itch galleries;read criticism; scoot throughrecommendation blogs;look at the lineups of otherfestivals and exhibitions; goto anything we can whereinteractive work is shown;sometimes just googlerandom phrases related tothemes we’re interested in,add the word “game”, andsee if anything comes up. Ifsomeone sends in a gamefor the festival one year andit isn’t quite right, but we’reinterested in their work, we’llpay attention to them fornext year. In fact, becausewe curate around themesrather than around recency ofwork, a couple of times we’veeven gone back to someonewho submitted a game ina previous year that didn’tquite make sense for us inthe context of the rest of theshow, and asked if we canshow it now.Plus a lot of friends andcolleagues know what we’relooking for and what ourthemes are in a given year,and send us links.We also run an opencall, inviting people withrelevant work (whether that’sreleased or in development)to send it in. We try to makethis a really simple process,with just a few questions,enough to give us an ideaof whether the work mightbe suitable, and if so we cango ahead and look into itin more detail. Our ideal isthat it shouldn’t take peoplemore than five minutes tofill in the form. It’s importantto us to keep it simple justbecause we take so few of thegames that come in throughthe open call -- most of thework we show has cometo us some other way, andwe might take three or fivegames from the open call inany given year. So we don’twant two hundred people tospend two hours each writingup their game, if we knowwe’re going to take maybeone or two percent of them!How many games do youreview and how many areselected? How many peopleget to see/play the game as aresult?Depending on the year andthe theme we might getanywhere between 120 and300 games sent into the
op
Gameplanner was made with the financial support of the Canada Media Fund and Ontario Creates. The opinions, observations, conclusions, and recommendations contained in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ontario Creates or the Canada Media Fund. The Canada Media Fund, Ontario
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources : Picton, Ontario : New York, New York ; Picton, Ontario : Bruce Morrison Tom Stewart Betsy Trometer Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Picton, Ontario Picton, Ontario Amherst, New York . Don Zelazny Tracey Tomajer
The Ontario Electrical Safety Authority came into being in 1999 with a mandate from the Ontario Government. The OESA make the laws in Ontario regarding electrical matters and decreed that the rules as laid out in the Canadian Electrical Code would be the law of the land in Ontario and called them the Ontario
VEX V5 Robotics Secondary/ Robotique VEX V5 - Secondaire 2022 Skills Ontario Competition Olympiades de Compétences Ontario Page 1 of / de 19 This document is to be used only in preparation for the Skills Ontario Competition. Ce document ne doit être utilisé que dans le cadre de la préparation aux Olympiades de Compétences Ontario.
COURSE CORRECTION: CHARTING A NEw ROAD MAP FOR ONTARIO 3 6 12 20 24 46 54 72 Foreword & Acknowledgements 4 CouRsE CoRRECTion: ChARTing A nEw RoAd mAP FoR onTARio onTARio’s innovATion And PRoduCTiviTy ConundRum ontario’s prosperity gap persists 13 raising productivity continues to be the key to closing ontario’s prosperity gap 15
RELEASED BY ONTARIO GOVERNMENT TO BLUMBERG SEGAL LLP By Mark Blumberg (March 20, 2014) In this PDF is a list of the Ontario non-profit corporations under the Ontario Corporations Act. There are 59,605 Ontario corporations on the list. The list is 1084 pages long. Some of the Ontari
Acadian Flycatcher have been reported at new locations in southern Ontario not contained in Ontario's Natural Heritage Information Centre database or identified as critical habitat. Ontario's Natural Heritage Information Centre has not yet processed these records, but there is a high probability they will become element occurrences in .
Ontario Building Code 2012 by Paperless O. Reg. 332/12, into force on January 1, 2014. Ontario Building Code 2012 by Paperless is over 800 pages of Code information economically priced to ensure that Code compliance stays within your budget. It contains the core of the objective based Code the Building Code Act, 1992 and Ontario Regulation 332/12.
Animal Fun Challenge Pack . Fold the paper plate in half. 2. Trace the elephant's outline on one side. 3. Colour or paint the elephant (not the tusk). 4. Cut out the elephant making sure not to cut the folded edge except for the shaping at each end. 5. Carefully cut out the paper plate section between the legs leaving the edge of the paper plate connecting the legs to make the rocker. (This .
