Check Out These Resources We Have For You!

Welcome to March! In this month's newsletter, we share details of the treasure trove of resources available to you via our YouTube channel, introduce Niantic's developer contest with $1M prize pool, announce UDEN's next meeting and highlight upcoming events this month! Read on!

We really enjoyed UDEN #21 two days ago at the Game Tyrant Gaming Center and would like to thank everyone that attended for their support, as well as the exhibitors and, of course, our friends at Game Tyrant for hosting us. We'll post video of the event soon on our YouTube channel.

This makes for a timely reminder; you know, we have filmed almost all of our events since we began four years ago, and they are gradually becoming a useful treasure trove of information and contacts you can use as a resource for your work; a collection of panels, keynotes and presentations from local industry leaders and experts on a broad range of topics that are educational and informative about key skills, local service companies, international and local issues affecting our sector. Below are a few highlights for you - but do check out the complete channel for so much more:

Panels:

Issues: Women In The Media, VR or Bust: Should Film and Games Adopt This Media? and How Hollywood became the center of the film industry (and how Utah could be for digital entertainment)
Technology: The state of VR and AR
You Tube: How To Start a You Tube Channel
Startups: Advice on How To Start A Digital Entertainment Company in Utah
Finance: Financing a Creative Business

Think Local, Hire Local - Utah Resources and Talent You Can Work With:

Meet local creators (with contact info): Meet & Greet
Film Services: Redman Movies & Stories
Education: Master Game Studio at the University of Utah, Spy Hop and Digital Media at Utah Valley University
Games: Utah Chapter - International Game Developers Association
Visual Effects: Schaffer Studios, Adam Sidwell and Big Red Meteor
Documentary Film Making: Issac Goeckeritz
State: Governor's Office of Economic Development
Music and Composition: Chance Thomas and Josh Sohn
Indie Film: Avrec Art House
Indie Games: Utah Indie Games Group, Dub Wars, Step Pets, Rogue Invader and Reload 360

Keynotes:

Innovation and Creativity: Donald Mustard (Epic, ChAIR, Fortnite)
Film: Interview with Bo Landin, Director of Toxic Puzzle Documentary and Virginia Pearce, Utah Film Commission
Games: John Blackburn on Disney Infinity, Steve Taylor (Wahoo, Ninja Bee) on Indie Development, Octothorpe's Top 5 VR Learnings from The Irregular and Nick Laing (Microsoft, EA) on Game Production
Education: Master Game Studios at the University of Utah and Ask Arthur: Using YouTube to Teach Science
Storytelling: Dustin Hansen on The Facets, Fibs & Facts of Storytelling and Stuart Edge on Storytelling Through Magic and YouTube
Audio: Josh Sohn - 5 Ways To Become A Better Composer and Owen Peterson - A Beginner's Guide to Audio for VR
Media: Rhett Wilkinson - Digital Press
Finance: Jen Jen Francis (Tiered World Studios) - Investing in Games
Streaming: Chris Holifield (I Am Salt Lake) - Podcasting 101
Business Development: Anthony Ambriz - How To Develop Your Video Content Strategy & Scale It and Chad Mustard - Social Media Strategy
Industry Data: Greg Jeffs (GOED) - How Hollywood became the center of the film industry (and how Utah could be for digital entertainment)
Location Based Entertainment: The VOID

Awards and Competitions:

Games: IGDA Choice Awards 2018 and Games4Health
Film: The Aurora Awards and Salt Flats Film Festival

Business Development

BEYOND REALITY DEVELOPER CONTEST

As we discussed at UDEN #21 this week, Niantic contacted us to ask if any Utah creators would be interested in taking part in their Beyond Reality Developer Contest. If you are, there is a prize pool of more than $1M dollars! The goal is for you to create an impactful geospatial Augmented Reality play experience with the Niantic Real World Platform – meaning you would be using their engine to create an app that uses the player's location in the real-world and combining augmented reality elements.

To participate, you need to be a team of at least five developers with Unity and Java Server experience. You need to complete an application form, including your team members names and experience, plus you’ll need to include a 5 minute video introducing your team. Also a product design brief, including core geospatial loop – eg how you’ll use the tenants of their AR platform.

You have until the end of this month to enter -- March 2019 -- after which time Niantic will choose 10 semi-finalists. Some of the prize funds will then be available to those finalists to build a working demo of their project, up to $50K. You'll travel to meet with Niantic in San Francisco and begin work on your project. There are set milestones you have to deliver against, including a polished game demo by end of September 2019. After you submit your final demo, Niantic will choose 3 wining teams. The winning team get $300K, 2nd and 3rd place get $100K each.

This is a great example of how you might get a project funded, and potentially even a publishing contract. There are a lot of rules and conditions to be aware of, so if this is of interest to you, go to the Niantic link here https://niantic.dev and get started.

And good luck! Wouldn’t it be great if a team from Utah was a finalist? We definitely have the talent and the creativity.

SAVE THE DATE! - UDEN #22 - April 24th

In keeping with our plan to hold more meetings this year, we're already planning the next UDEN meeting. Full details are coming but for now, RSVP here and save the date! It will be the usual networking mixer with Utah's finest creators of entertainment content and technology as well as whatever else we can come up with between now and then!

If you would like to sponsor this event, or host UDEN, please do get in contact! Email [email protected].

Keep an eye on our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook feeds for announcements!

UPCOMING EVENTS

Don't forget! The UDEN website contains links to lots of upcoming events that are of interest to the digital entertainment community here in Utah, so please do check them out - here: http://utahden.org/upevents.

REMEMBER: if you have an upcoming event you would like to share with UDEN members, you can add it to our website for FREE on the same page!