Showcase Your Game In Style!

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival is on the lookout for submissions from developers, publishers and film makers for this year's screenings programme.

The screenings programme is the consumer face of the Interactive Festival, giving gamers a rare opportunity to see the latest titles before they hit the market, meet the people behind some of the world's most popular games, find out more about games design and development and celebrate the creativity, culture and lifestyle of gaming.

The 2008 programme is now open for screening submissions from developers, publishers and game creators, who would like their content showcased as part of this year's event. The event offers 45 to 60 minute screening sessions in dedicated auditoriums seating 200 people. For the first time, the screenings programme will also feature game-related short films, machinima and animations, which will be shown between screenings. Film makers and animators are encouraged to submit their game-related short films to be included in this new strand of the festival.

The last three years of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival have seen exclusive UK consumer premieres of games including BioShock, Crackdown, Age Of Conan, Guitar Hero III – Legends of Rock, Haze, Colin McRae: DIRT and Crysis. These and other exclusive titles have been contributed over the previous years by some of the World’s leading developers and publishers, including Microsoft, Eidos, Activision and Ubisoft, to name but a few.

“The screenings are a hugely important and popular part of the whole Interactive Festival,” says Chris Deering, Chairman of the EIF. “It's one of the very few opportunities for members of the public in the UK to see some of the most anticipated games before they hit the high street. The number of screenings we have hosted and the audiences attending have grown every year since the festival began. The screenings have showcased some of the biggest games on the market and this year we are able to open this section of the Festival even further.”

“We try to offer a very broad range of games and topics,” says EIF Screenings Director, Brian Baglow. “Everything from the latest sports, racing and fighting games on console, through to the more complicated PC titles, handheld, mobile, online, casual and indie games. We want to showcase the best new games no matter which platform they appear on - and we want to hear from everyone with exciting new titles.”

“The new short film and machinima feature is something we previewed last year and it proved so popular with the audience, this year we want to expand it to offer new content on screen between every session. Again we want to hear from anyone with material they would like to showcase, ideally related to games, or which were created using game technology.”

Tickets for the Screenings will be made available to consumers free-of-charge, through branches of GameStation across central Scotland.

Developers, publishers, animators and film makers interested in submitting content to this year's EIF should contact Brian Baglow directly: [email protected]

Now celebrating its sixth year, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is powered up to showcase the continued popularity, growth and influence of video games. And this year, the Interactive Festival is more synchronised with the world famous Edinburgh Festival than ever, appealing to the press, public and professionals from film, television and interactive media backgrounds alike, offering a bigger event for delegates, more consumer focusing – an overall spectacle for all.

New to Interactive Festival 2008 will be Features, Exhibition and Recruitment areas specifically tailored to cater for the public - allowing them access to the latest games and job opportunities in games.

As ever, the three-day Interactive Festival wouldn’t be complete without the cornerstones of conferences, keynotes, panel sessions, debates, games screenings and even more people than ever jostling to get through the doors.

Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2008
Edinburgh International Conference Centre
150 Morrison Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EE
UK

Sunday 10th August
Game Screenings
Dare ProtoPlay
Public games area and retail site

Monday 11th August
EIF Conference
Game Screenings
Dare ProtoPlay
Public games area and retail site
Conference Networking event

Tuesday 12th August
EIF Conference
Game Screenings
Dare ProtoPlay
Public games area and retail site

Edinburgh Interactive Festival will also play host to the Digital Interactive Symposium, the games event aimed at academics and games industry professionals. It takes place on Wednesday 13th August.

To register, please visit EIF 2008.