BC Business
External Development Summit 2013 | BCBusinessXDS 2013 is being held Sept. 3-5 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
Gaming industry professionals have descended upon the Vancouver Convention Centre this week for XDS (External Development Summit) 2013, an industry event focused on remote collaboration and outsourcing of art, animation and software engineering in the video gaming sector. Less Comic-Con, more trade show, the conference is focused on external development, or the outsourcing of gaming industry services, according to conference organizers. “We work with companies that are providing outsourced services for games, in-game services, services for marketing materials,” says Shea Wageman, an exhibitor at XDS and co-founder and CEO of ICON Creative Studio, a local visual effects company. “We compare approaches and cost structures, see if there’s a way to learn.” The event targets industry professionals, including service and technology providers, software engineers, marketers and animators, according to conference organizers, who chose Vancouver because of its status as a hub for the global video gaming industry. “[The XDS Advisory Team] did a survey of worldwide suppliers and Vancouve was the most popular choice,” says Phil Tran, CEO of Glass Egg, a Vietnam-based game developer and event sponsor.
“Vancouver’s a hub of gaming and computer animation and visual effects companies,” says Wageman. “It’s quite unique that we can put this together this event here with outsource vendors.”
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