Nov 15
Government Round Table
Game Connect Asia Pacific, Melbourne Convention Centre
A look at the need for support of a diverse maker community that exists in games – just as it exists in other creative industries.
Nov 15
The Assessment Panel
Game Connect Asia Pacific, Melbourne Convention Centre
Submissions to any funding agency go through a process of assessment and evaluation that involves those administering the funds and outside experts who bring a range of experiences and lenses through which to view the applications. This panel brings together assessors who have worked for state and federal agencies, including Film Victoria, Screen Australia, and Industry and Investment NSW to share what they look for in an application, what works and doesn’t work, and how to make your submission stand out.
Nov 15
Turning Off Our Screens
Game Connect Asia Pacific, Melbourne Convention Centre
With so much of our development and playtime devoted to screens and technology, it’s easy to think that videogames are a screen medium with the same, or at least similar enough, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for storytelling, or that they’re a technology industry trying to build better, faster, smarter, widgets or tools for creating widgets. Anyone working in games has, at some point, suspected if not outright known that this isn’t the case. This talk looks at other lenses through which to view games, and along the way wonders aloud what it might look like if we broke away from the reliance on screen culture and the surrounding dialogue – and also what we might need to start telling ourselves and others as part of that shift.
Nov 08
Systems as Art
PauseFest, Melbourne Central
The aim of any art form is to create and communicate experience – and games are no different. Paul Callaghan talks about the restrictions games face in creating these experience and how looking at other creative forms can inspire and inform our exploration of systems as art.
Oct 06
Games Sector Summary
Digital Culture Public Sphere, Online
Talk on the games development sector from the Digital Culture Public Sphere Live Event, including summary of the wiki entry on game development and an assessment of games needs as they transition into a creative industry.
Aug 16
Australian Development and the Freeplay Festival
Games Program, Swinburne University
A rambling history of the changing shape of Australian game development, its evolution from a technology industry to a creative industry, and the place of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival in all of those changes.
Jul 27
The What, Why, and How of being a Games Writer
VITTA ICT Week
Exploring a winding career path, what a games writer actually does, why I moved from a technical role into a more creative one, how I made those decisions, and the future of Australian development.
Jul 19
The Need for Games Literacy
TedXMelbourne, State Library of Victoria
As videogames establish themselves as a dominant artform of the 21st century and other industries begin to explore their possibility in serious games, gamification, and games for change, the need for games literacy becomes greater than ever. In a world where not everybody means you well, what does that literacy look like and how can we begin the process of cultivating it in ourselves and the next generation of players?
Jul 14
Past, Present, and Future
Computer Games Boot Camp, Monash University
Casting an eye back into the past of videogame development and then on to the future to try and predict how things will evolve over the next year, 3 years, and 5 years for developers and players.
Jul 10
Teaching Games and Games Literacy
Screen Futures, ACMI
While videogames sit firmly in the limelight, there is a whole world of games out there that are more accessible, more easily read, and which teach tangible skills that can feed into digital games and interactive development.
Drawing from a recent Department of Education and Early Childhood Development research project into teaching games and games literacy, this session will look at games and design from physical and pervasive games, board games, improvisation, experimentation, and design exercises with the aim of separating out the creative skills from the technical and providing a base to support greater games literacy in the classroom – whether or not the final outcome is a digital game or something else.
Jun 13
Animation and Games
Melbourne International Animation Festival, ACMI
All gaming is animation but not all animation is gaming. The influences gaming has on auteur, indie animation are vast, pervasive (perhaps insidious) and fascinating. The ‘look’ of many short animated films obviously owes much to elements of gaming but perhaps less obvious are the cultural and narrative cross-pollinations such as the increasingly brittle relationship we have with words like ‘reality’ and ‘friend’. Using a collection of films from competition as examples, this talk will explore the soaring visions, the conceptual gymnastics and even the cultural toxins with which gaming irrigates the animation artform.
Jun 13
Panel: Computer Games & Storytelling
Continuum Pop Culture Convention
Which games do it well, which games do it badly and how much is it necessary (or even desireable) in a computer game anyway? Paul Callaghan, Ben McKenzie, Sam Mellor, Kirsty Sculler
Jun 01
Foreplay to Freeplay
IGDA Brisbane, QUT
Freeplay 2010 was fabulous, not a soul walked out of that glorious 2 days of indie meets industry meets art meets dreaming without knowing we needed to go home and make games! Join us to hear Paul talk about some of the big ideas behind the Freeplay concept and the Aussie game industry, bringing a little bit of the 2011 Melbourne Freeplay Festival to Brisbane.
May 10
Writing for Games
Writing Program, Swinburne University
Presentation on emerging creative opportunities for games writers including locative and pervasive games and technology.
Apr 28
Videogames and the real world
eLearning Breakfast
In a very short time, videogames have become both a cultural and economic powerhouse, but the defining feature of their emergence isn’t necessarily that more people are engaged in their creation & consumption, it is that more people than at any other point in our history are thinking seriously about play. Drawing from his experience as a writer, designer, and teacher on projects ranging from locative storytelling to AAA console blockbusters, Paul Callaghan will explore and highlight some of the ways to engage with videogames and play, as well as highlighting some of the challenges and issues found in the rush to adopt game mechanics into the real world.
Mar 17
Game Development
Bachelor of Illustration, Melbourne Polytechnic
Presented to the Bachelor of Illustration, this talk looks at the history of game development, my career, and the current state and future of Australian game development.
Feb 17
Are you Game? : Writing for Games
National Screenwriters' Conference
Are you an x-box? Or more of an Atari? Do you even know the difference? If you do, then this session’s for you. If you don’t, its time to update your knowledge and explore opportunities for writers’ and trends with games as the genre continues to grow quicker than any other form of entertainment. Speakers will present invaluable ‘how to’ tips as well as case studies on films and TV shows that have benefited from games and vice-versa.