In this presentation we look back at some pivotal moments in gaming from 2020, a year when a locked down population found more time to play.
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Synopsis
Whilst 2020 will quite rightly go down as an awful one the games industry provided some solace in these difficult times. In this presentation we look back at some pivotal moments in gaming from 2020, a year when a locked down population found more time to play and watch than ever. From the serenity and cultural impact of Animal Crossing to fast paced high end VR with Half Life: Alyx and Star Wars Rogue squadron to global tourism flying the world with Microsoft Flight Simulator, there has been a lot to play.
A new generation of consoles, VR headsets and corporate battles over micro transactions and cloud gaming also to talk about. Online virtual concerts and interactive music experiences filled our screens and esports also got a boost, F1 drivers in pro-celeb virtual races broadcast live on sky sports certainly made a difference.
How does this all hang together for the future? What impact does this have on not only our gaming lives but our working lives? Let’s shoot the breeze and find out.
About the speaker
Ian Hughes
Ian Hughes a.k.a epredator when online is Chair of the BCS Animation and Games Development Specialist Group.
He has been a gamer since 1970’s and this inspired him into a career as a software engineer, there is more on that in the BCS article Memoirs of bedroom coder. During a 20 year career at IBM, he worked on some of the earliest websites and stores in the late 90’s, including the Wimbledon tennis website for a decade. In 2006 he helped inspire colleagues and many companies into virtual worlds such as Second Life, officially becoming a metaverse evangelist, investigating and experiencing new and interesting ways to communicate online, many of which are having a resurgence now. The use of game technology continued when he set up Feeding Edge Ltd in 2009 building virtual training hospitals for major incidents and other educational applications.
He presented his own slot as resident super geek on ITV’s Saturday morning kids TV show The Cool Stuff Collective which ran for 39 episodes in 3 series 2010/11.
After many other public speaking and writing roles, he wrote and published two sci-fi novels detailing the adventures of a techie gamer, Roisin, who accidentally comes across a way to manipulate the physical world, as we do with the virtual. Reconfigure and the follow up Cont3xt have AR, VR, IoT and Quantum computing as a backdrop for adventure and lots of unusual situations.
He was amazed and delighted to be presented with an Honorary Doctor of Technology award from Southampton Solent University in 2018.
For the past 5 years he has worked as an industry analyst covering industrial IoT, AR, VR, Autonomous Robots and Games technology at 451 Research part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. He remains a keen gamer and observer of trends across all platforms and genres.
Our events are for adults aged 16 years and over.
This event is brought to you by: Animation and Games Development specialist group and BCS Sussex branch
