Kaj in action

Kaj Swift, Maya, on "Modeling Game Characters for Real-Time Environments"

A close-up for Chris Natsuume, just for fun

BoomZAP's Chris Natsuume, ex Crytek, on "Embracing Innovation in Production"

Flipside's Gabby Dizon on "Game development outsourcing to Asia"

Phoenix Games' Mike Ooi on "Micro Transaction based Business Models and its Impact on Game Development"

Day2>>Gameaxis' Jason Woo interviews Chris

Day2>>A rapt audience

A close-up of the man himself

Day2>>Chris Avellone presents, "How to find good game design applicants." Very insightful and entertaining!

More of the same

Looooong table of speakers and attendees, networking nicely

Darryl from Flyte, Hans and Yannis from Ksatria Gameworks

Day1>>From left: Rick from Dragonback; Robert Crouch and partner Lani from Dystopia, Australia; Gabby from Flipside; Luna from Master Games

Day1>>The party after. James from MDV talking to Yeong of Caveman (facing us), Alain (on the right) and I'm afraid I don't really know who the lady is with her back facing the camera. Someone, help!

Day1>>The party after: We had our Buka Puasa dinner at the spanking new Boulevard Hotel at Mid Valley City, Level 9. Very nice place by the pool. Food was okay and for the first timers to Malaysia, it was a good mix of both local and foreign cuisine. We ate until our bellies were full. We drank copious amounts of alcohol. And we networked - a fitting end to a memorable day.

Day1>>The panel up close: Hasnul from MDC Josh from Dragonback James from MDV Brett from Game Brains

Day1>>The first day ended with a round-table of experts moderated by MDC on the funding of game companies in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. On the panel were Josh Galloway, Dragonback Games, a newly set up game company in Malaysia, James Chong from Malaysia Debt Ventures, a financier and Brett from Game Brains, Malaysia's longest survivng game development company.

Day1>>Sarah Fay Krom from Ideaforia presents the Auteur theory to interactive storytelling

Day1>>IBM's Quentin Staes-Polet on On-Demand game platforms

Day1>>Brett on building games for multiple platforms

It's packed in here!

Day1>>Mike's session - standing room only!

Day 1>>Mike on Valve's Steam digital distribution strategy

Day 1>>Luna, GameMaster | Sunshine (Chris' better half) | Chris Avellone, Obsidian | Danien Chee, Cabal | Gabby Dizon, Flipside

Day 1>>Jason Woo, Ismet Bachtiar and Jennifer Tai, all from GameAxis!

Day 1>>The main man, Terence and Mike Dunkle, our first speaker, from Valve

Day 1>>Tom from Game Brains and Stephan from TAR College (our feedback guy!)

Day 1>>David Nalasco, ATI; Allan Simonsen, Paradise Isle; Our man Brett, Game Brains

Day 1>>Attendees tucking into the breakfast!

Day 1>>From left: Jenn doing what she does best - bossing people around.

Day 1>>From left: Key, Kwang and Hilmy - setting up the registration counter!

Welcome to the Asian Game Developers Summit blog!

Two days, over 100 attendees and 16 excellent speakers. Of course, the AGDS 2005 was more than this simple summary. Relationships were forged. Experiences shared. Frustrations voiced. All in all, it was a pretty damn good conference for a debut event few thought would be successful.

It took five months (yes, FIVE!) and six people to plan our first AGDS. We had our first meeting at The Curve, 6 May 2005 to set up the working committee and roles were identified. Terence, myself, Hasnul, Stephan, Hilmy and Azmir - this core group was how it all began. Our first worry? Money. We had none. How were we ever going to pull this off?

But as with all things in life, with enough determination, it worked out. And all thanks to the vision of one guy who really liked his game conferences.

We really had a lot of fun, and we hope to see all who attended AGDS'05 again next year!