The big 3

There are 3 big events that take place in 21st century South Africa:

EGE, rAge and AMAZE

There are a couple of cool events that happen once a year that provide some form of exposure to local games and their creators such as the EGE, Rage and a MAZE expos that happen in Cape town and Johannesburg.

EGE is the youngest of these three events and is aimed at gamer fanatics and the "geek" culture of Cape Town and hosts a couple of gaming tournaments and cosplay competitions.

rAge has been around for a few years and offers a big expo space for big companies such as Playstation/Nintendo/Xbox and local game stores to showcase the latest games and sell some merchandise to the local gaming folk.

A MAZE has been around for 5 years and is aimed at providing a space for game developers and artist to share their experiences in the art of game design. Over the span of a three days the participants get to learn from the best through a series of talks and workshops that are partly technical partly business and partly creative. This is my favourite event in South Africa because of it unites the local industries, provides both learning and networking opportunities and even brings in some international attendees.

These three events are diarised every year and should be on your watch list if you want to learn more about the local scene. I enjoy seeing the industry grow and being in the midst of the action, these are exciting times and there is so much potential to look out for.

INSERT RANT ABOUT LOCAL SCENE >>HERE<<

Today I was thinking about how these last years of working in the game's industry has changed from when I first joined the community and I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by a very talented group of game developers. The local industry is growing everyday and people like Nick Hall who deserve a special mention because without him the industry would take a huge plummet. He is putting his whole Energy and Heart into fighting for the Games coming out of South Africa to not be censored and it is vital that we maintain the freedom we have in publishing games and getting our scene on the world map. We have the talent and the eagerness to compete with the game market in Europe and the States but our government is making it harder by enforcing laws that are only put through in an attempt to prevent political hate speech.

Just as I updated this blog I saw a post on Twitter that the fairly new IESA (the corporate body of the local game industry) has managed to find funding to fly an entire array of local developers to the Paris Game Connection event. This really shows that the tide is turning and I wish the representatives the best of luck with their networking!