Guildford learn to "Broaden Their Audience..."

Yet another busy night at The 3 Tuns in Guildford! Phd student and journalist Aleks Krotoski kicked off the evening with an engrossing talk on "Broadening the Audience with a few simple implementations; Character, Community & Co-operation", here's a summary;
While world domination at the hands of interactive entertainment beckons, the demographic of gamers is only slowly expanding. Aleks Krotoski argues that the continuing bullish trend of gaming will only continue by diversifying and embracing current videogame naysayers. This includes the elusive female audience and the 49% of UK men between 15-35 who refuse to pick up a controller. Three simple elements of content are explored, pinpointed through extensive interviewing with gamers and non-gamers alike: character, community and cooperation. Existing successful products that have already implemented these three are touched on, including The Sims, various MMOGs and Halo.
This then sparked a lively debate including questions raised by one of the last events guest speakers, Lionhead Studio's Adam Russell.
Patrick Greene and James Rogers from Softimage then took to the 'stage'. Not only did they, very generously, buy the drinks and pizzas all night but they also proved to be excellent last minute speakers and put on an amazing demo of XSI 5, the latest version in the XSI family. James is an XSI wizard and caused many jaws to drop with his interactive demo of what the software can do.
Big thanks to everyone who turned up on the night, especially Aleks, who faced a long drive back to Brighton after her talk, Patrick and James
- Cheers guys!! click here for more pics...