Canadian gaming conference gets name change, new venue

A town of 78,000 nestled between Lake Huron and Lake Superior with a traditional economic base of blue-collar manufacturing, Sault Ste Marie ON seems an unlikely birthplace for an internationally renowned conference on video games. However, FuturePlay - which runs this week from October 13 to 15 in East Lansing MI - is a creation of Algoma University College, a Sault Ste Marie-based institution. Unlike other gaming industry events, FuturePlay doesn’t focus exclusively on either lofty university lecture-style presentations or geek-driven cutting-edge industry hype. "There’s traditionally been a bit of a disjoint between the industry and the academics," says Glyn Heatley, conference manager, FuturePlay. "Our goal from the start has been to try to make a convergence between the two." Since starting out as the Computer Game Technology Conference in 2002, FuturePlay has grown to include academics and game designers from 33 different countries. The event hit a rough patch in 2003, when the second edition was cancelled due to the war in Iraq. It came roaring back in 2004, however, when it was held in Toronto, drawing 150 attendees for the main event as well as 65 younger delegates for a "mini-CGT" aimed at high school students. For this year’s installment, the venue was shifted to Michigan State University and the name was changed to FuturePlay to reflect a focus on trends and predictive analysis, rather than what is state-of-the-art today. FuturePlay 2005 features academics from Denmark, Finland and the U.K. as well as the U.S. and Canada, and covers such esoteric subject matter as economics in game worlds and the use of Nintendo’s handheld Game Boy platform to teach aboriginal languages. More industry-focused topics were also on the agenda, with sessions on quality of life among the members of the games industry workforce, intellectual property issues, and creating a game design and development curriculum for academic institutions. Capping off the conference was a peer-judged competition for the best game concept in three categories: future or experimental games, serious games, and student games. With recent headlines trumpeting sexism and excessive violence in electronic games, Heatley says the conference will also discuss such hot-button topics as censorship and gender portrayals within games. "We’re taking everything on head-on - we’re not trying to hide anything," he says. For instance, two panels in particular - dealing with sex and gender issues in games, and freedom of expression and ratings systems - will address not only what is and isn’t appropriate content for video games targeted at different age groups, but also appropriate legislation and government policy. "Developers don’t want to get into the incorrect hands, because they’re not stupid - most of them are parents," Heatley says. Algoma University College has estimated that FuturePlay 2005 might draw as many as 350 attendees, and Heatley says the event will now rotate annually between Canadian and American universities; the school is in talks with another Canadian university to have FuturePlay hosted there next year. Clearly, the conference is outgrowing its modest roots in a northern Ontario post-secondary institution of 1,200 students. But ask Heatley where the competency in game design and technology come from in the first place, and he’ll tell you that’s an even bigger story than the conference itself, the details of which might be made public in the near future. Stay tuned.

Canadian gaming conference gets name change, new venue

News | 10/14/2005 4:00 am EDT

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