| GameCity | |
|---|---|
GameCity Logo |
|
| Status | Active |
| Genre | Gaming |
| Location | Nottingham, England |
| Country | UK |
| First held | 2006 |
| Organizer | Nottingham Trent University |
| Official website | http://www.gamecity.org |
GameCity is an independent, annual videogame festival in Nottingham, England.[1] The festival is aimed at the general public, and many events allow members of the public to participate freely. The festival receives little funding from the commercial video game industry, and is concerned instead with exploring the ways in which videogame culture can be made more accessible. The festival is directed by Iain Simons of Nottingham Trent University. It has been described as the "Sundance of the video games world."[2]
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At the 2006 event, Lorne Lanning announced the production of his feature film Citizen Siege and Richard Jacques performed a candle-lit piano recital of hit SEGA tunes.
At the 2007 event the first playable prototype of Nobi Nobi Boy was shown by Keita Takahashi.
Gamecity 3 was held over Halloween 2008. To coincide with this, GameCity arranged a successful world record attempt at the largest number of people to dress as zombies in one place. The record was set to 1227 people, although even more 'unregistered zombies' were present at the attempt.[3] Also during the 2008 event, the National Videogame Archive for the UK was launched with the Save the Videogame campaign.[4][5] This was led by the recording of the first public Director Commentary event, with Martin Hollis and David Doak playing Goldeneye 64 live.
GameCity Squared took place from the 27th to the 31st of October, 2009.[6] Events in 2009 included: Brickstock (a LEGO Rock Band celebration); Elite: Paper Universe - which celebrated 25 years of Elite by bringing together David Braben, Ian Bell, Robert Holdstock and others involved in its creation; Crysis: LIVE - a large scale re-enactment of Crysis; and various industry talks from Jagex and Masaya Matsuura. The final location of the Keita Takahashi-designed playground was also revealed as being Woodthorpe Grange Park in Nottingham.[7]
GameCity 5 took place from the 26th to the 30th of October, 2010.
GameCity 6 will take place from the 26th to the 29th of October, 2011.
The GameCity Prize was announced on 15 September 2011.[8] It is awarded for a game's "accomplishments and contribution to popular culture".
Each year, GameCity hosts talks and presentations from leading individuals and companies working in the games industry. Previous events have included talks from Free Radical (now Crytek UK), Media Molecule, Bizarre Creations, TT Games, Splash Damage, Torpex Games, Harmonix Music Systems, Sony London Studio, Midway Newcastle, Anthill Games, Alexey Pajitnov, Amanita Design, David Braben, Martin Hollis, David Doak and Monumental Games.