Has London Games Festival – kicking off later this month – got it right now?
Take Video Games Live – a performance of video game music by co-creators Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, and the English Chamber Orchestra. That’s proper, real life classical musicians right there. It’s at the Royal Festival Hall, but tickets are distinctly London prices, and it’s not the first such performance by any means, yet it’s selling well nonetheless. There are clearly a lot of people who like video game music. They’re releasing a CD of the stuff too.
There are loads of other events. Eurogamer Expo 2008 clearly isn’t going to be as big as the Games Convention in Leipzig, but it’s good that there’s a standard public event of some sort.
Less obvious events include LittleBigPlanet in Covent Garden, offering the chance to play the game, but also arts and crafts workshops based around the game.
Then there are the tedious sounding industry gatherings, some moderately interesting sounding fringe events, a careers fair, and established events like the Golden Joysticks and London MCM Expo – perhaps, one could argue, too many events to easily convey to the public. But maybe the public are more intrepid than I give them credit for.