Pretty Shitty City

I first posted about the Women in Games conference wayback in December 2006, and it’s time has finally come around.

The event takes place at the University of Wales, Newport from the 19th April until 21st. There will be a range of speakers exploring this years theme of ‘Aesthetics in play: new platforms, new perspectives, new players‘ including Raina Lee who publishes a cool video game zine called 1-UP. ( I own 3 issues! )

The tickets are a little pricey at £175 for waged or £90 for students/unwaged, but surely worth it if your passionate about gaming and/or gender studies.

http://www.womeningames.com/

What? Haha! How’s This?

How is there someone from Swansea creating wierd (and good) pop music about Mario without me knowing? Maybe I created the track whilst sleep walking? (Although to be honest I’m more of a Luigi man myself).

Whatever the explanation, check out Tony Tapwater’s page on Myspace. The first track ‘Mario Take me Home’ craftily blends the Super Mario Land music with some lo-fi Grandaddy style indie. It made my day.

(Ok, sorry to stretch the “Swansea” theme a bit far here, but we don’t have much of a video game scene here that I know of).

Newport School of Art, Media & Design is set to host the 4th Annual Women in Games conference in April next year. The 3 day event, as the name suggests, is primarily concerned with analysing the role of females who play & make video games. However, it isn’t a girl-only event and all are welcome.

The lack of female influence in the video games industry is an issue, and probably one of the largest factors holding back the social acceptance of playing games.

Over the past 3 years, The Women in Games conference has become the European forum for women working in and around the computer games industry. The event is characterised by its mix of women from industry, the academy and other sectors of society united in their passion for games. WIG 2007 is interested in continuing this tradition and broadening the dialogue on games to a wider context by seeking contributions from more traditional media disciplines, gender studies and the ICT sector.

For anyone interested, the organisers are currently calling for papers.

Ping Wales reports that a series of Wi-Fi hotspots have been installed in Swansea city centre providing pay-as-you-go internet access.

The network comprises a series of almost continuous Wi-Fi hotspots from Wind Street to Castle Gardens and from Oxford Street to the Grand Theatre in Singleton Street.

The service is compatible with popular services such as BT Openzone, T-Mobile & The Cloud, which also means anyone with a Nintendo DS should might be able to get free access.