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After two virtual issues, SIGGRAPH went back to reality in Vancouver this year with a hybrid edition. The Vancouver event reconnected to the pre-pandemic traditional show formats. The online edition focused on the tracks with proven broadcast eligibility throughout the pandemic period. Especially, the immersive sections could refill the exposition and convention spaces with art installations, emerging tech demos and

Last year’s digital E3 accumulated a collection of streamed video game publications to conserve the annual presentation window through pandemic conditions. This year, the publisher streams spoke for themselves without the support of an overarching business platform. The promotion cycle could be maintained with a constant flow of game announcements for immediate summer release, previews for the holiday season

Berlin’s annual art festival for indie games and playful media came back in a triple package this year: lectures and workshops were accessible online in streams and on meeting platforms, the game exposition could be visited with your flamingo avatar in the multiplayer online world of A Maze Space, and an onsite event in Berlin featured a display of installations as well as a celebration party in real life. For

‘Fear of missing out’ is a habitual feeling at the annual Game Developer Conference, with all the many parallel tracks of exciting topics. But this year’s GDC was especially fearful due to the scheduling in a hybrid format. After last year’s digital edition, GDC 2022 went back to normal – somehow – by maintaining digital accessibility – somehow. Portal jumps between different

The Metaverse trope continues to keep online media conventions busy with mapping uncharted territories that lay mysteriously hidden beyond cryptic layers of clouds – mostly tag clouds, actually. The Digital Entertainment Week in Los Angeles assumed the next bold rush in the realms of Southern Californian preestablished media structures. The Northern Californian GamesBeat Summit: Into the Metaverse expected the

CES took place in Las Vegas again this year, although in a diminished form due to recurring pandemic conditions. The trade show was broadcasted online in a parallel streaming event. Daily b-roll videos documented the activities on the trade floor. But everything taking place at the trade event pointed to somewhere else. For a number of reasons, CES became a reference hub directing to different levels of hybridity. Of

This year’s SIGGRAPH Asia took place in Tokyo and online, adding a new program track for games to the scientific and cultural agenda. While the American mother event traditionally focuses heavily on CGI in film and screen productions, the Asian offspring now levels up CGI developments in interactive entertainment and installations. The Games track started with a historical journey through programming frameworks

After the fully virtual conference in 2020, VR Days Europe wanted to get a foot back into reality by organizing the 2021 edition as a hybrid experience on site in Amsterdam, online and in 20 international locations with satellite events. Right on the first day of the conference, the Netherlands needed to go into lockdown with curfew again. The convention went into revirtualization: in-person events could only take pl

The period of time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is a particularly busy one with media conferences: GamesBeat Summit Next, PocketGamersConnect, BeyondGames and WhiteNights Seattle followed each other in close succession. They all played tricks and treats with the season’s buzzwords ‘Metaverse’ and ‘NFT’, trying to nail jelly to trees while losing sight of the woods. The more stabs t