= Summary of Game Developer Exchange Conference 2004 (GDXCON2004) =

On August 27, 2004, the Faculty of Science and Technology arranged the Game Developer Exchange Conference 2004 (GDXCON2004) at the Hall of Fame at Au – Hua Mak campus. The GDXCON2004 was arranged as a platform for local game developers to be able to exchange information, knowledge, and experience with each other and the audience that attended the seminar, to allow aspiring senior students, who are looking to join the game development industry, can meet face to face with leading game development companies and organizations and decide on their career track, and to keep the seminar attendees up to date with the trends in computer game development in Thailand.

The seminar started with an opening speech from Asst.Prof. Dr. Supavadee Nontakao, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology who introduced the audience to the objectives of the seminar. After that the, first keynote speaker to take the floor was Dr. Wiwat Wongwarawipat (Managing Director, DigiCraft Co. Ltd.), a leading game/multimedia company, started off the seminar with a discussion on Trends in Game Development in Thailand, in which he talked about numerous challenges in the game development industry in Thailand which is in its infancy, but there is much potential to growth and different areas of niche that are key areas in the future. After the first session, the second session was a long discussion on Mobile Phone Development trends in which 3 major companies in mobile game development came to exchange their viewpoints. The first speaker in the session was Mr. Samret Watchanasatien (Managing Director, Second Soft Co. Ltd.) who explained about the evolution of games on the mobile phone platform which is facing rapid changes. The second speaker was Mr. Suphot Sawattiwong (Developer, GameYuppie), who continued talking about the trends in mobile phone development by expanding into the Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) games on the mobile phone platform – in which GameYuppie is a leading innovator in Thailand. The last session was lead by Mr. Sittichai Theppiboonsup (Founding Member, Debuz Co. Ltd.) who talked about marketing potential of games for mobile phones in local and foreign markets – which drew a lot of interesting observations from this speaker about the state of the local industry.

After a short break the seminar continued with the topic of Art Design Concept which was presented by Mr. Viravut Takummee (Producer, Iyara Co. Ltd.) and Mr. Jade Jitayabandit (Create Director, Iyara Co. Ltd.) who talked about art and character design concepts and later shown numerous artwork from their latest PC games. The planned topic in the seminar was Experience in UbiSoft/Expectations of Thai Game Developers which was presented by Mr. Yan Marchal (Managing Director, Sanuk Software Co. Ltd.) who is a world-class game developer with multiple years of experience working at UbiSoft, who came to open his company in Thailand. He proceeded with a long, formal, and very professional presentation on initially his experience in working in UbiSoft, and later on the reasons why he decided to open a company in Thailand, and some of the difficulties he has faced in working in Thailand. As from a foreign perspective, Mr. Yan’s feedback on this issue shown a fresh outlook on local game developers and the audience spend a lot of time asking the guest speaker on various topics related with the presentation.

After Mr. Yan Marchal’s presentation, the seminar had a new adhoc topic on Future Cooperation Between Sectors in which A. Kasem (ICT Ministry), Mr. Bordin (TAMGA) had lead a special presentation addressing the need for the requirement for all sectors and industry to pool resources in development of the Animation/Computer Game Industry. After a long extension to the seminar, the GDXCON2004 was officially closed by A. Pisal Setthawong.

The seminar attracted over 200+ attendees, that came from many different organizations (government and local game companies) and educational institutes(a short selection include University of Texas at Austin, Chulalongkorn University, King Mongkut Institute of Technology, Rangsit University, Bangkok University, Ramkamhaeng University, and etc.) The seminar was coordinated by Mr. Pisal Setthawong, a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science (Assumption University); Mr. Wasin Pirom, a leading game development educator.

= Relevant Document =

Presentation Files:
▪ Documents Assembled by Organizers
(Organizers)
▪ แนวทางการพัฒนาเกมในเมืองไทย ประเด็นการพัฒนา การดำเนินธุรกิจ และการหาแนวร่วม
(ดร.วิวัฒน์ วงศ์วราวิภัทร์ - Digicrafts)
▪ แนวโน้มการพัฒนาเกมบนมือถือ
(คุณสำเร็จ วจนะเสถียร - Second Soft)
▪ Mobile Phone MMOG Game Trends
(คุณสุพจน์ สวัตติวงศ์ - Game Yuppie)
▪ Experience in Developing Games for Foreign Market
( คุณสิทธิชัย เทพไพฑูรย์ - Debuz)
▪ การออกแบบศิลป์ในเกม ให้โดนใจ
(คุณวชิราวุธ ถาคำมี, คุณเจต วิทยาบัณฑิต - Iyara)
▪ Experience in UbiSoft/Expectations of Thai Game Developers
(Mr. Yan Marchal - Sanuk Software)