Another one of the more interesting sessions at Develop was one to do with digital distribution and the music industry, delivered by Simon Watt, Vice President of technology for Universal Music.
I saw this at a time when I was starting to feel utterly burned out on music, and there’s a curious intersection between some of [...]

By far the best session I attended at Develop was the panel on Architecture and Games (some notes at Gamasutra, full audio at Edge), run by Alex Wiltshire from Edge, and featuring City 17 designer Victor Antonov, who trained as an industrial designer, Rory Olcayto of The Architect’s Journal, and Lionhead artist and trained architect [...]

Last week we were at Develop, running Games:EDU and Never Mind The Polygons.
It also represented a conclusion to X48, with winners Dan Fitchie and Jay Walton making full use of the prize that The University of Derby, specifically B-Block Studios, sponsored: Student passes to Develop, travel, and accommodation for the conference.
All events are struggling a [...]

I’m pleased to see that PEGI have redesigned their ratings logos with colour, making them much more obvious and identifiable for parents who are shopping for games. Cultural recognition is the only thing the BBFC really had over PEGI, and this is a major step toward building it for the latter.

A cautionary tale about Canadian tax breaks via Develop today. “Exodus” is quite an exaggeration, though I spoke to Prince Edward Island at GDC and their Developer community isn’t huge at all, with a headcount of around 100 in total IIRC, meaning that nearly a quarter of the game development workforce in the region might [...]

In an astounding piece of news, due to a loophole of China’s legal system, World of Warcraft just lost nearly half of its playerbase. The servers in China have been shut down for a month now, due to legal issues with former partner organisation The9. There’s no obvious end to the legal battle, and Chinese [...]

Among the most interesting things I’ve seen in recent weeks is this talk by Christopher R. Weingarten on music criticism. In his words, he’s going to be in a different job in a year, because magazines are going away, venues are drying up, and people like him are being replaced by publications that will hire [...]

The Australian Government have decided that the citizens of the country are no more developed than children and don’t need large swathes of what will be a big part of culture in this century: games with adult content will be banned outright (via No Tall Poppies).
They have no 18+ rating in Australia, the sternest rating [...]

Industry chuntering on tax breaks is seeming slightly less idealistic this week, with the past few including a mention in the Digital Britain report. Late last week, minister for culture Sion Simon wrote to the heads of ELSPA and TIGA asking them to justify tax breaks for the industry, reports, er, the Mirror. You can [...]