Introduction | Topic 1 | Topic 2 | Topic 3 | Topic 4 | Topic 5 | Topic 6 | Topic 7 | Nvidia Award |

Article: Stuart "Veridian3" Davidson
Editor/Design: Allan "Zardon" Campbell

Edinburgh in August is one of the places to be for anyone interested in the arts; the Edinburgh Festival ( http://www.eif.co.uk/ ) has been running for over 50 years and is known throughout the world as a centre of entertainment excellence. There is something for everyone, whether you like Music, theatre, stand up comedy or film however in the past nothing has catered for the games enthusiast.

This year things changed as from August 11th- 18th Edinburgh became the place to be for any self respecting gamer. The reason? – The First Annual Edinburgh International Games Festival ( http://www.eigf.co.uk/siteContent/intro/welcome.jsp ). So, I hear you ask, why are the top industry bods heading to Edinburgh? Well, for those of you who are not aware Scotland has produced some of the biggest games of all time, from Lemmings to Grand Theft Auto – Vice City and has one of the healthiest infrastructures in the world in terms of game developer finance.

The EIGF was split into two sections, a public event at the Royal Museum running from August 11th to 17th called “Go Play Games”, and a 1 day industry seminar on August 18th at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre titled “The Future of Entertainment IS Interactive... be in control!”

Driverheaven was lucky enough to attend both events, read on for a taste of what it was all about.

"Go Play Games"
The public event gave festival go-ers the opportunity to sample the latest interactive entertainment and some upcoming titles. The hall included PC, PS2, X-Box and Gamecube systems running various games such as Enter The Matrix, Grand Tourismo 4 and Super Mario Sunshine, Nokia also chose the EIGF to preview their N-Gage console to the consumer for the first time in the UK.

“Go play games” was sold out every day that it was open and as well as playing games the visitors were able to attend a series of lectures and workshops. They also had the opportunity to participate in a vote. The vote was for Games Players Game Award 2003 and was won by Sony’s Eye Toy. ( http://www.eyetoy.com/english/index.html )

Industry Seminar
The one day seminar gave games industry leaders the opportunity to discuss and debate the present and future of interactive entertainment. It also gave guests the opportunity to question the panellists.

The event was hosted by Clive Tyldesley, famous to UK readers as a sports commentator.

Introduction | Topic 1 | Topic 2 | Topic 3 | Topic 4 | Topic 5 | Topic 6 | Topic 7 | Nvidia Award |