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 events@letsmakegames.org 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!

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:

1. Pitches are 3-minutes long (we will time them!)
2. We will have a Projector and Microphone available at the venue. For any other extra requirements, please contact us!
3. Registration deadline is Tuesday 22nd of May
4. We would prefer to have a copy of your presentation by Thursday 24th of May
5. To register, we will need a name, a title for your presentation and a way to contact you (e-mail is fine).

Special thanks to our great sponsors:

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.”

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 happy to announce that Melbourne-based filmmaker Lester Francois from Studio Bento will be coming to our What’s Up Pitches?! event to gather some content for his short documentary in the making.  This is what he had to say about the project:

“I am developing a short documentary on the new wave of independent game developers/studios. In the wake of the iOS app store/Unity/UDK  there has been a surge of DIY game developers in Australia. The film aims to highlight this trend and promote the cottage industry.”

On top of our live stream of the event, this will be a great opportunity to get your story heard.  As a reminder, What’s Up Pitches?! is on Friday the 25th of May, from 6pm-8pm.  Attending the event and registering for a pitch is completely FREE!  We still have some spots available to pitch so contact us via events@letsmakegames.org or check out those links below for more info:

What’s is What’s Up Pitches?!, our limited Video Pitch Option and 5 reasons you should be pitching at WUP?!

New Sponsor!

We are very proud to announce Qantm College as one of our Silver Sponsors for What’s Up Pitches?!

“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. Qantm College offers specialised industry-focused courses in 2D and 3D animation, games design, games programming, interactive digital media, and graphic design – all aligned with emerging industry trends and technologies. Students are taught by passionate, industry-experienced professionals who are dedicated to providing high quality practical learning, inspiring creative confidence and preparing graduates with the applicable skills and knowledge needed for immediate entry into the workforce.”

They will also be doing a pitch on the night entitled “Sourcing skills in games design”.

You can also find Tim’s presentation and Chris’ presentation on our YouTube channel.

Big thanks to our videography team for creating these fantastic videos, and to our guest speakers Tim and Chris!

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 events@letsmakegames.org 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 events@letsmakegames.org 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

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 sponsor@letsmakegames.org and we’ll gladly run you through our sponsorship options to see if there’s one that fits your budget.

This informative evening will be valuable to anyone who has a game out in market, about to release their game, or is even at the early research and development stage for their project. Here’s some further information about who and what you can expect from the evening.

This is a limited event, so hurry up and get your tickets if you haven’t already!

• When: 6:00pm – 9:00pm, Thursday April 26th
• Where: Northbridge Piazza Community Building, cnr Lake St. and James St. (entrance is beneath the big screen)
• Tickets: $35, available from Eventbrite or the order form below!
• Event Page: Facebook
• Refreshments? Provided!

Thanks to our sponsors ScreenWest and City of Perth for helping us bring this workshop to Perth.

There’s only one week left to go before our Indie Games Marketing Course kicks off and it’s not too late to get a ticket!

Just as a reminder, the workshop is being held on Thursday 26th April at the Piazza Community Building (that’s the building right behind that awesome big screen at the Northbridge Piazza) from 6pm till 9pm.  That’s $35 dollars + Booking Fee for 2Hrs+ of marketing workshop and all the best tips to get your PR releases noticed. All of this brought to you by our two amazing speakers.  Tickets available in the widget below, or directly from Eventbrite!