Thursday, February 01, 2007

2007 ScreenBurn Festival (March 10 - 13)

The ScreenBurn Festival, introduced at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival is returning in 2007, with an amazing line-up, content, and a chance for some quality free play.

The Sims creator Will Wright will be keynoting, and among the more than 130 SXSW Interactive panels, there will be 20 panels on video game topics ("Austin, Massively Multiplayer Game Development Capital of the West?"; "Getting Girls Into The Game: Designing and Marketing Games for Female Players"; "Serious Games: Can Learning Be Hard Fun?"; etc.).

Other speakers of note include Bioware's Gordon Walton, NCsoft's Linda Powers, and Sony Online Entertainment's John Blakely.

March 10 and 11 will also see the free-to-the-public ScreenBurn Arcade, "which will feature gaming tournaments, as well as new games and technologies not yet released in a free to play public setting". This'll be free and open at the Austin Convention Center.

I'm glad to see this doing so well, and not just because it's video game related. I've been attending SXSW Interactive, and I'd argue it was losing steam up until 2006, and I think the ScreenBurn Festival is a big part of the resurgence (or it's coincidental, but it's more fun to give props to people).

I'll probably be there this year -- hope you are, too.

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