ScreenBurn: Day 1

Somewhere in the labyrinth that is the Austin Convention Center there is a third floor, but if you want to find it you’ll have to work for it.  Elevators that only go to floors 2 and 4, escalators that take you straight from the bottom to the top, and signs that point diagonally (just, you know...float up that way, dude) are not your friends, ScreenBurn attendees (all of the panels seem to take place on the third floor).

Somewhere far off GDC is still going on, which may be the reason why ScreenBurn’s halls were barren and the panelists were far from heavy hitters.  I’m just glad to be lectured about video games rather than being lectured about rock history, film, Japan, and the Internet at school, for a week—I get a sense that this reflects negatively on me on some level.

SXSW Interactive is a swell crowd filled with awkward geeks, attractive girls, and tech hipsters who are keeping on the lookout for a Facebook employee (Twitter feeds lit up around 2pm: FACEBOOK IS HIRING FOR AUSTIN CENTER!!!!!)  It’s awfully nice though to be away from the music & film crowd, and the wide hallways of the center make sure you won’t be annoyed at whoever you are stuck behind for too long.

Random observation: pregnant women + Twitter = slow, obnoxious person. 

You can read more about the panels I attended on the next couple pages, but here are a couple random highlights: spotted a hippie, had a chat about the woeful state of Jackie Chan’s career with a visual effects producer for Book of Eli, and ate some crepes.  Two, okay?  That’s not much in US-to-France food conversion.  Let me remind you: 3 crepes = 1 Chipotle burrito.

[Keep an eye on my soon to launch site, Playthroughs.com, for an expanded post that includes coverage of non-game related SXSWi coverage and a "Spotted @ SXSW" series where I talk to random tech and game icons about what they are looking forward to at SXSW.  Here's the bad news: site isn't launching until next week...so, BOOKMARK IT, DUMMY!]