PORTLAND -- The Christian Game Developers Conference (http://www.cgdc.org) announced their third annual expo, to be held in Portland, Oregon, on July 30-31. The purpose of the event is to discuss the future of Christian game development and to bring Christian developers together for fellowship and for prayer for the industry.
Sponsors of the event include the Intel Bible-based Christian Network (IBCN) providing a 10 workstation PC lab, Micro Forté hosting the Saturday Dinner and Fellowship and Garage Games providing licenses to their Torque Gaming Engine.
Based on last year’s attendant’ responses, the 2004 conference will continue to hold feature discussion sessions but will integrate more hands-on workshops, exhibit areas and press conferences. Two Guys Software, developers of "Eternal War," voted Game of the Year at last year's CGDC will be holding a press conference and the announcement of a new Christian games association is also on the agenda.
Game developers are beginning to view the conference as an opportunity to announce projects and to discuss important Christian gaming issues. This year, industry leaders including Clay Stevens of Keystone Interactive, Jay Moore of Garage Games, David Koch of Seraphite Media and representatives from the independent game development community will be presenting discussions.
The expo also officially expands to include card, board and paper game developers along side interactive electronic entertainment. "This year's expo will more fully support developers targeting card, paper and board game markets," Emmerich said. "Last year, attendees from those entertainment forms resoundingly agreed to join the CGDC rather than try to set up a separate expo. In addition, we will discuss the goals of Christian gaming, what content we hope to provide and how to fund projects and publish them. We also plan to examine the variety of games currently on the market and successes in other media such as "The Passion of The Christ" and the "Left Behind" series, which proved that Bible-based products can do well in the market if they are well made."
