Supporting the game development community of Western Australia
It’s On! Tonight 6-8pm @ Spacecubed.
Here’s a lightning blog post for a lightning event: What’s Up Pitches?! is on Tonight at spacecubed from 6-8pm. We are busy working out the latest little details but in the meantime here’s the link to the letsmakegames live stream that should be on during tonight’s event (fingers crossed!).
We have about 13 pitches prepared for your enjoyment tonight so come on down and bring your friends! We recommend having a bite to eat before coming 
Attention all Perth-based Pitchers!
If you were still not convinced that pitching would be a great opportunity for you, Spacecubed, our very generous venue sponsor, will be giving away 2 x 1-month unlimited Subscriptions to Perth-based Pitchers. This means that you get to use their great space for as much as you want for a whole month! This is great for indie developers or freelancers who want a great, quiet and spacious working space with high-speed internet and friendly neighbours; or maybe for businesses who want to trial the space for their side projects, functions or meetings! You can read more about their membership options over here.
The first prize will be awarded on the night by Spacecubed for best pitch of the night and the second prize will be awarded through a poll for most popular pitch on the LMG Facebook page following the event.
Spacecubed will be doing their Grand Opening on the 20th of June so put it in your calendars.
Photo courtesy of Spacecubed flickr stream.
1 Day left to register for a pitch
As a reminder, you have till tomorrow to register yourself or your team for a pitch(for FREE!) and have a chance to get your ideas out there and into the community as well as your chance to win a month’s worth of unlimited usage of Spacecubed!
To quote Nick on our event page:
We still have pitch places free and want to hear from a wide range of people: students, artists, programmers. Especially if this is your first event, don’t be shy!
Feel free to pitch esoteric things such as: preferred tools, programming languages, or libraries; under-utilised game design elements; workflow recommendations; game critiques; post-mortems; etc.
Send us an email at if you want more info! Attending the event is completely free so even if you’re not pitching we’d love to see you this Friday 25th of May!
What’s Up Pitches is Only 1 Week Away!
That’s right, as from today, our event is only one week away! We still have a few spots open for registration of a pitch so if you want in, send us an email now at events@letsmakegames.org. As a quick reminder:
Special thanks to our great sponsors:
“We create virtual worlds using gaming technology. This enables companies to visualise their data, create interactive and engaging training systems and add a whole new dimension to managing their operations remotely.”
Qantm College - “Qantm College has been at the forefront of digital media education in Australia training students for employment in one of the fastest growing sectors in the country”
and Spacecubed - “Spacecubed facilitates a community of changemakers in a 550sqm co-working, collaboration and innovation space located at Ground Floor rear, 45 St Georges Terrace, Perth. Spacecubed provides central access to hot desks, team working space, events, seminar and meeting space”
We’re very happy to announce our brand new Gold Sponsor for What’s Up Pitches?!
MVX by Sentient Computing
“We create virtual worlds using gaming technology. This enables companies to visualise their data, create interactive and engaging training systems and add a whole new dimension to managing their operations remotely.”
A short excerpt from their website:
Sentient Computing is a specialist software company developing automation and visualisation solutions for industrial markets. Our products combine real and virtual data allowing clients to visualise and understand their plant better to increase production, reduce downtime and improve safety. Our technology is unique and complimentary to traditional control and maintenance systems. We have a strong customer base within the coal, oil and gas, mining, production, transportation, environmental and power industries in Australia and around the world.
Check out their website for more information, videos, or interactive demos of their product.
We’ll be getting busy to make the best use of their very generous contribution! MVX have also registered for a pitching spot on the day entitled “Using Game Tech for Industry” so come on down to hear about the wider application of game technology in other industries. As a reminder, What’s Up Pitches?! is on Friday the 25th of May from 6pm till 8pm at Spacecubed.
If would also like to be a sponsor for What’s Up Pitches?! send us an email at and we’ll run you through our available options.
We’ve had a very positive response so far for pitching spots but if you’ve been wondering how to make the most of What’s Up Pitches or what value it can bring to your ideas and projects, here’s a quick list we have compiled about why we think you will want to put your hand up for one of our pitching spots:
1. Pitching helps you formalise your ideas. There’s something about having to stand up and talk about your ideas that forces you to sit down and really think them through. It helps you discover your core themes through the process of distilling your thoughts into words and images and makes it more likely to get the right idea across in a very short time.
2. What’s Up Pitches?! is a great opportunity to share your ideas across all the layers of game-related industries. It is an event that has generally crossed a lot more boundaries due to its nature and accessibility. It is a chance to talk about games in a much more varied context and application than just entertainment. Games can be about culture, education, industry, social change, communication and ecological purpose among many others. If you have an idea for what games can and should be about, reserve a spot and come tell us about it!
3. WUP is a networking event. It’s like mini TEDtalks where you get a chance to be on stage and then talk to the people that loved your idea after the event to make it a reality. It’s a lot about meeting people and discovering what people are working on, or would like to work on. It’s an event where you can get to ask “what if” to your audience and leave it there for them to fill in the blanks with you.
4. Deadlines are your friends. Not always the best of things but sometimes deadlines really help you make decisions about what to cut and what to keep. If you have a project that’s been living in your head for a while but you lacked the motivation to get it going, you can use What’s Up Pitches?! to really focus your creative juices.
5. Great Exposure. If you already have an idea you’ve been working on and been meaning to show off, WUP is the perfect place to get some great exposure. Not only do you get to talk to the attendees face-to-face and engage with all of Let’s Make Games local, national and international community but this year we will also be trying out a new livestreaming feature for all the talks which will allow even more people to see and hear what you have to say.
And 6. Unicorns! I’ll add an extra one to the lot, What’s Up Pitches is about having some fun, showing off some great or perhaps wacky ideas and seeing how people respond. I once read a quote that read “This matter is too important to be taken seriously” and sometimes that’s quite true. Bring your left and right brains and your good sense of humour and tell us a good story… about unicorns… fighting robots… to save the world… from greedy corporations!
photos courtesy of ben.snider and sweetenough via Creative Commons (flickr)
Hello all, we’ve been quite busy preparing for our next upcoming event, What’s Up Pitches?! As a reminder, WUP will be held on Friday 25th of May, that’s about 3 weeks away! Here’s 4 quick items that we’ve been working on:
1. NEW: Video Pitch!
We have now added the opportunity for people who live in remote regions, are from other states or are overseas but who still want to be able to pitch to the Perth game community to be able to register and send us a link to their video pitch. This can be sent to us to be played on the night or alternatively, uploaded to a website (such as YouTube/Vimeo/etc…) for us to access on the day. So now you have even less excuses to not participate! Please refer to the Pitching Companion for more info.
2. Registration for What’s Up Pitches?!
It seems people have been a bit shy about registering for a pitching spot so we thought we’d let you know just what you need to register. All you need at this stage is your name or team name, a way to contact you (email is good although we can try smoke signals) and a tentative name for your pitch. We already have our very own Nick registered for a spot with his pitch entitled “Why Everyone should Ludum Dare!”
3. Brand New Version of Pitching Companion
Also don’t forget to grab the latest up-to-date version of our Pitching Companion1.2! It contains most of the information such as deadlines etc.. that you will need. Wha’t s Up Pitches is only 3 Weeks away so send us your pitch registration as soon as possible! We have a cool blogpost coming up with 5 reasons we think you should be pitching at our next event so stay tuned.
4. Posing Problems to the Community
So you have this project and you’d love to know how can games be a good match for it? Send us an email at and we’ll present your query to the community. If anyone wants to pick up the challenge they may come forward and pitch an idea for it at the event! We recommend doing it fast and preferably before the end of this week so you are more likely to get responses!
Image courtesy of Morten Fauerby and leafar (flickr) via Creative Commons
Welcome back!
Hot on the heels of our very successful Independent Games Marketing Workshop, we are proud to announce that our 2012 edition of our lightning pitch presentations, What’s Up Pitches?!, has been announced for Friday the 25th of May, from 6pm till 8pm at Spacecubed with drinks and networking afterwards at the nearest bar!
Click on the image above to get a High Resolution version of the poster to print and pin at your workplace, uni or even the comfort of your home!
Brief Description
If you came to last year’s event, you’ll know what to expect but to serve as a refresher for veterans and an introduction to newcomers, here’s a quick breakdown of the event:
What’s Up Pitches?! is an evening of lightning pitches (3 minute so-called elevator pitch) presented by members of the community during which they pitch ideas for games, community initiatives, events or anything games related to their peers. Whether you’re pitching brain-teasers, food for thought or your idea of the world’s most epic game, we want to hear about it. Last year’s event attracted about 60 attendees from students to practicing professionals and we anticipate similar numbers this year. What’s Up Pitches?! will be hosted by our great sponsor, Spacecubed, a co-working innovation space located in the CBD. A short description from their website:
“Spacecubed facilitates a community of changemakers in a 550sqm co-working, collaboration and innovation space located at Ground Floor rear, 45 St Georges Terrace, Perth. Spacecubed provides central access to hot desks, team working space, events, seminar and meeting space.” – www.spacecubed.org
Time, Date and Registration
This year’s What’s Up Pitches?! event will be held on Friday 25th of May 2012, from 6pm till 8pm, followed by networking and debriefs. Participants may opt to pitch as individuals or as a team and the registration deadline for all presenters will be on Monday 21st of May 2012. Participant and attendee registration can be made via Facebook (Let’s Make Games, http://tinyurl.com/6o4t4el ), Twitter (@letsmakegames) or via e-mail (events@letsmakegames.org).
There’s 3 main ways to have your say at What’s Up Pitches?!
1. You can attend the event, hear other people’s pitches and discuss the ideas after the pitch during our breaks or the networking session.
2. If you already have a great idea and want to present it to your peers, register for a pitching spot now!
3. You can pose a problem to the community and have them pitch you their solutions on the day.
Check out our Pitching Companion for more info about deadlines and recommendations.
Sponsors
We’re always looking for awesome sponsors for our events to make them even better for our community so if you’re interested in sponsoring this event and having your name and logo added to our marketing materials, please send an e-mail to and we’ll gladly run you through our sponsorship options to see if there’s one that fits your budget.
So perhaps you’ve read the initial announcement about the Indie Games Marketing Course. Perhaps you’ve even read about our amazing guests.
Now you’d probably like to know what you’d get yourself into by attending our workshop. Lucky for you, we have some details right here!
The Indie Games Marketing Workshop
Tim Colwill: Approaching the Press
What does it take to catch an editor’s eye? How can you make your press release stand out from the other 6,000 that cross their desk every day? As editor-in-chief of the thriving game community games.on.net, Tim will give you first hand insight into what you can do to make your press materials attractive to even the most time-deficient editor.
Chris Wright: Indie Game Positioning Workshop
Chris will take you through his highly sought-after two hour interactive workshop on how to “position” your game. Using a variety of unique exercises, this Surprise Architect will get you thinking about your games’ hooks and themes, and how to emphasise these unique features within the global game market. Prepare to be delighted and astounded as you learn things about your game that you never knew (or perhaps were too humble to admit!), and how this information can boost your marketing efforts.
The Indie Games Marketing Workshop is being held on Thursday 26th April at the Piazza Community Building. Entry to this exclusive workshop is a measly $35. You can secure your ticket registration in the widget below, or directly from Eventbrite. It’s only two weeks until this great event, so make sure to get your tickets soon!
Let’s Make Games is proud to present the Indie Games Marketing Course!
Coming to help Perth game developers with their marketing and PR are Chris Wright [MELB], founder of Surprise Attack and game marketing specialist (with over 100 campaigns under his belt), and Tim Colwill [PER], editor-in-chief of Internode’s gaming portal Games.on.net. The IGMC is an intensive evening course that features an interactive 2-hour positioning workshop, plus talks and feedback on your marketing from our guests:
Tim Colwill: Approaching the Press
What does it take to catch an editor’s eye? How can you make your press release stand out from the other 6,000 that cross their desk every day? As editor-in-chief of the thriving game community games.on.net, Tim will give you first hand insight into what you can do to make your press materials attractive to even the most time-deficient editor.
Chris Wright: Indie Game Positioning Workshop
Chris will take you through a two hour interactive workshop on how to “position” your game. Using a variety of unique exercises, this Surprise Architect will get you thinking about your games’ hooks and themes, and how to emphasise these unique features within the global game market. Prepare to be delighted and astounded as you learn things about your game that you never knew (or perhaps were too humble to admit!), and how this information can boost your marketing efforts.
Bring your games, bring your plans and come for an evening of indie games marketing kung-fu. Tickets are only $35 for this valuable information-packed workshop that will get your game’s marketing on track. Book your ticket soon, as spaces are limited. Light refreshments will be included during a coffee break.
Details
The Indie Game Marketing Course is proudly sponsored by ScreenWest and City of Perth.
LMG BBQ 2012:
Thanks to everyone for coming down to our BBQ. It was quite nice to catch up with a lot of old friends as well as meeting a whole bunch of new people. We had a bit of trouble securing a gazebo this time around as it was quite crowded but we’ll strive to put down the LMG flag earlier next time. Here’s a couple of photos from the event and we hope to see you again sometime soon at our next events! Stay tuned for more info.
Related News:
We’ve changed our Facebook page so now everyone can post to our wall! Feel free to discuss upcoming events, post photos and video from previous events or just talk about games.
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