Arriving late, I managed to run into one of the organizers of #ToJam while going to the event this evening, and it was nice to catch up with a few old acquaintances.
The event itself featured some truly amazing speakers:
- Navid Khavri from Ubisoft Toronto
- Matt MacLennan, a tv script writer who is the screenwriter for Splinter Cell at Ubisoft
- Kan Gao, who made To The Moon, a smash indie hit.
- And Dan Vader, from Capybara Games, who made the also smash hit, Sword and Sworcery.
The panel was funny, the room was packed, and it was sweltering in there.
Three main takeaways:
- There were a lot of people wondering how to get jobs in the game industry as a writer. (This seemed odd to ask, since if you really love writing, you'll write your own game and find a programmer)
- There is often a gap in taste level versus what you're capable of writing
- Be prepared to meet some of the nicest people and some of the people with the worst egos. Generally, though, video game land has some really nice, friendly people.
In between this, there was a lot of humour (these people are writers, after all) and a lot of insight. Good event by IGDA Toronto...very enjoyable.
