I’m up in Scotland for a couple of days feeding my brain with all things games-related at Edinburgh Interactive, a gaming conference all about creativity, technology and interactivity as well as sharing what’s going on in the industry.

First of all, the train ride up to Edinburgh was honestly stunning.

Some happenings/ideas that have stuck with me after Day 1:

• Chris Deering, chairman of Edinburgh Interactive, brought up that a big issue facing console-based video games is that the television plays less and less of a central role in the household.  Especially for kids, who increasingly get their fun/stories/games from handheld devices, online and other places.  The lines between media are all becoming blurred when it comes to games (and pretty much everything else) and the people who create them need to adapt and use everything that’s available to them.  Doing things the same way because it has worked in the past isn’t good enough.

• Ray Maguire from Sony said a lot of interesting things about 3D and games, but if I’m really honest, the main thing he mentioned that stuck with me is that people have been making 3D photos for well over a hundred years.  And now that I’ve found this, I’d like very much to go to the National Portrait Gallery to see it.

• Sean Drumgoole from Some Research and Game Vision touched on some interesting points about games as art and the importance of games in people’s lives.  He talked about his list of “Big Games”, the games that are important to him in some way; games that he associates with certain periods of his life.  I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a gamer, but when I stopped and thought about it I remembered several games that I really connect with periods of my life and I react emotionally from remembering them.  They’re not all video games, but some are, and I never realised the stories and memories those games carried with them.

• My highlight of the day was Igor Pusenjak’s talk on creating a successful mobile game.  The game he and his company created, Doodle Jump, has become massively successful, and the principle behind why is that it never stops evolving.  Because it’s an iPhone game, it can constantly be updated, so it’s never finished.  It’s like a living thing that reacts and changes according to what players respond to.  Igor’s philosophy is all about trying things, seeing if they stick and not being too precious.  I like that.

I’m looking forward to the full day of talks ahead tomorrow.  On my way in to the conference today I passed this in a nearby square:

And that’s where I’ll be headed to preview some Nintendo games.  A giant white bubble building.