Gamania Game Developers Exchange (GDEX) made its debut appearance in GHQ. Encompassing various topics and forums, GDEX consisted of 32 sharing sessions during the span of 9 days. Special guest, Dr. Won Lee, CEO of KOR R&D Company flew his way to Gamania to give a seminar speech. The topics covered by GDEX this year include, introduction on the latest technology and productions of game industry, R&D team experience sharing, promotion of development strategy and regulation, domestic and overseas game campaign sharing and feedbacks. One can say that the latest trend and technological information of the game industry worldwide was covered in GDEX.
▲Gamania invited a special guest, Dr. Won Lee, CEO of KOR R&D Company, who specializes in developing action games. He game a speech titled, Tips for Action Games and shared his R&D experience in KOG with Gamania R&Ders.
▲Seizing this rare opportunity, each Gamanian were all ears about Dr. Lee’s sharing.
In fact, starting in 2008, Group R&D center has been hosting internal sharing sessions that are similar to Game Developers Conference. The purpose is to have GDC colleagues share the latest information and knowledge with other R&Ders who couldn’t make it to the actual conference due to conflict of schedule, so they could still get up to speed with the latest game trend.
This year, to increase and encourage the knowledge exchange within Group R&Ders, the regular sharing sessions in the past were upgraded to a 2-week Exchange, officially named GDEX. Gamania hopes that all R&Ders could make full use of this time to recharge their battery and boost their R&D momentum so that Gamania’s R&D strength could grow exponentially.
The True Menaing of GDEX Lies in Knowledge Sharing
▲Alan Kuo, Gamania CRO
Why named it GDEX? Alan Kuo, CRO of Gamania said, “G represents Gamania and Game; D represents developers; EX is short for Exchange as well as Expo. We hope that GDEX could become one of the biggest and most significant R&D events in Gamania and share all kinds of new Game R&D technology and knowledge. ”
Alan’s thought on developing game, “This is a ‘knowledge-intensive’ work which incorporates various expertise and professional skills such as programming, planning or artistic direction etc. During the process of production, creativity, ideas, communication and experience all play into part, so to do this work well, it is important to have an attitude of sharing.”
During the first GDEX, Alan especially asked that R&D team, Market Research team or Technical Support team should contribute to GDEX, and share their valuable inputs on their past experiences. Alan emphasized, “Good creativity comes from past experience. Be it good experience or bad experience, it is essentially helpful to R&D personnel.”
A Passage of Knowledge and Technology
On the content of GDEX, Alan told G!Voice that, “80% of the content is about the latest technology and information which consists of the compiled report drafted by Gamanians who participated GDC; the remaining 20% is the experience sharing of internal R&D team. In addition, each year Gamania will invite external producers to give seminar speech, so adding all this together, you get an internal GDC event. A R&D gathering that allows everyone to exchange knowledge, information and creativity. “
When asked about if there’s any particular sharing session seems more important than other, Alan laughed and said, “Each session is important on its own!” and he carried on, “What I meant to say is, each topic is shared according to different R&D team: some are for programmers, some are for project planners, some are for art personnel. So for me, I think each sharing (session) is equally important.”
▲GHQ was occupied with 4-5 R&D sharing sessions everyday during the GDEX.
When asked about whether Alan was satisfied with the first GDEX, he said, “Overall, I think we did quite well. However, I think we experienced a bit of time strain during the preparation of GDEX therefore the way it was carried out seems a bit plain. I hope that the next GDEX could add more game element, for example, design some stickers for participants to collect. And say if you collect 20 stickers, you could exchange them for a T shirt, 30 stickers would mean you’ve participated 30 sessions and therefore you’ll be awarded with a special gift, something like that. So the whole event is like a treasure hunt or collection game.”
In addition, Alan expressed that he wishes next time R&D colleagues from overseas could also have a change to attend GDEX, “After all, this grand event belongs to all R&Der in the group.” Now that Alan had put it that way, next year’s GDEX may be more than just an internal GDC, it could be even bigger , more interesting and playful than the first one. R&Ders across Gamania, let’s look forward to the next GDEX!
▲The first GDEX invited 28 Gama-speakers and is said to be the biggest sharing event in the history of Gamania R&D.
▲Poster and Agenda for first Annual GDEX