The second IGI Meetup this season was Thursday 25th of November. The event was held at sports bar Hvita Perlan, which former fame seemed distant and replaced by enthusiastic crowed of gamers (or at least partly).
The agenda had three talks, one from IGI and two from member startups. It may have not been intentional but there was a very important theme running through the evening. Mainly that the there is a lot of sharing of ideas and support within the gaming industry, not only for startups, but for anyone that wants the be part of the community.
First talk was by Ben Cockerill who was filling in for Eyjólfur Guðmundsson (Eyjó) member of IGI board and economist at CCP games (@ccpgames). Although he claimed otherwise, Eyjó was quite vocal at the sideline providing additional info to Ben’s talk. Ben had an interesting status report of the first year of the IGI. Formed just over a year ago, the list of accomplishments was impressive: IGI meetups, IGI Awards, Nordic Game and the IGI annual conference. Not so visual is IGI’s participation in the Association of Industry and speaking out for the gaming industry.
Deepa Iyengar of Mindgames (@MindGames) was next. She gave a passionate yet humorous talk about how to build a startup company. One of her key points was not to be afraid to share. Tell people about your ideas and your dreams. Don’t be afraid that they will steal it. People are too busy with their own ideas anyways. This was an interesting story about the fragility of small companies and how the passion for building something can be powerful. Mindgame’s latest game, Tug of Mind is an iPhone game where you try to calm your opponent down using your brainwaves. The game will be released late 2010.
Elli and Svenni of Fancy Pants Global (@FancyHQ) gave the last talk this evening. They told there story of how a group of guys got together and decided to create a game studio and “have a blast” while doing so. Among the stories was how the name of the company came about, apparently Elli mishearing something that came out as nonsense Fancy Pants Global. And the name stuck. Another interesting tale was how surprised they were by the way the IGI crowd welcomed them to the community on their first visit to an IGI meetup. This lead to joining IGI and participating the in Nordic Game. Not bad for a group of guys having a blast. Among FPG’s project is a game for Maximus Musicus, a musical concept that introduces the symphony to young audiences. Their latest game is Resolver, a very handy iPhone app that will help you make decisions. I just downloaded this game and it has already been useful.
(The picture above was taken on an iPhone 4. And now it’s official: it’s not so much the camera)