As if Edinburgh doesn’t have enough festivals the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is now well established being in it’s sixth year. Not just aimed at the industry there will be an opportunity for gamers to see and play the newest unseen games being developed.
This year however it will be moving to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Although only three days long running from Sunday 10th to Tuesday 12th August, it will showcase games from the likes of Sony, Nintendo and Codemasters.
Tickets are free and available from Gamestations stores across Scotland from the 29th of July. For more information go to – Edinburgh Interactive Festival website
I was watching playr last weekend and was amazed at the amount of high profile ads on the cars in Race Driver: Grid. Obviously Codemasters will be paid well for the display of these ads and need all the help they can get trying to beat Gran Turismo and Forza motorsport. It could be argued that it creates realism in a game which is a racing sim. On the other hand do gamers really care and is it necessary to plaster the cars in ads.
There is also the matter of the fact that ads are taking over everything. I’m sure in time if this blog is successful it will also carry ads it is inevitable. I wonder where it will end and can we expect to see ads for companies as the game is loading or maybe the next Tomb Raider will have Lara Croft swigging coke or Pepsi.
Gaming is no longer the preserve of so called serious gamers that are male and in their late teens early twenties. Female gamers have always been around but now the world of gaming has expanded to include any age or sex.
Partly this is due to the Wii, which despite not having the best graphics has still managed to out sell the serious consoles. This leads to the conclusion that fun is still the most important aspect of gaming and if the whole family can get involved even better.
It will be interesting to see if the Wii continues to out sell it’s competitors or becomes consigned to the cupboard, where all the other fads now reside or whether the other consoles decide to incorporate more of the Wii’s innovative remote control device into their own controllers. The PS3 has already taken steps in this direction with the wireless sixaxis but due to the fact that there aren’t many games out yet that use this, it is hard to tell how popular it will be.