ZOMG, CHRIS AVELLONE IS COMING

Thought I’d do a shameless plug here for a game developers conference I’m helping (or rather, Gameaxis is helping) to organise.

Check it out (a press release we sent out last month):

MALAYSIA HOSTS INAUGURAL REGIONAL GAME DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

Speakers from Valve, Obsidian headline the Asian Game Developers Summit

The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC) and GameAxis Unwired Malaysia, announced that the inaugural Asian Game Development Summit (AGDS), a grassroots game development event brand, will be hosted in Kuala Lumpur.

Held on 11-12 October 2005 at the Cititel Hotel in Mid Valley City, the AGDS is the first regional game development conference to be held in Malaysia that is endorsed by the International Game Developers Association and the Malaysian government, and is aimed at promoting game development in the Southeast Asian region.

“This collaboration is a significant milestone for the game development industry in this region,” says Terence Tan, the Event Producer of the AGDS.

“This is the first time the government, corporate entities such as ATI and Alias, and game developers from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines as well as even from the US, are coming together to network and create business opportunities that will no doubt kickstart a very valuable industry,” adds Tan.

The AGDS features speakers from some of the biggest names in the international games business, such as Valve (the creators of Half Life) and Obsidian Entertainment (developers of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Neverwinter Nights 2), and will feature ‘Tier One’ topics, comprising novice to intermediate level technical and business for a fairly new industry.

Some of the topics include Finetuning the Development Pipeline, Developing Cross-platform Games for Mobile Devices, Programming Stickiness in Games, Game development outsourcing to Asia and more.

“The Malaysian government recognises and appreciates the significance of the games business, and hopefully through the AGDS, we can stimulate interest and seed some commitment to this industry that will no doubt help us achieve our vision of a knowledge-based economy,” says Kamil Othman, Vice President of Creative Multimedia Department, Industry Development Division, MDC.

The AGDS is open to game developers and those interested in the computer games business in the region. Registration for the conference is priced at US$60. There is a special early-bird 10 per cent discount (to US54) for those who register before September 30th 2005.

More details can be found at the AGDS website, at www.agdsummit.com.

ALSO, just in is news that Tak Ogawa, the sound guy behind Metal Gear Solid, is also coming, plus IBM has also just agreed to sponsor the event. Hey, this is a non-profit event so we need every cent we can get! I mean, cmon, just check out our speakers’ list.

For USD60, not bad ok!?

Anyway, let me know what y’all think so far!