The 10th Annual International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC) was held October 5-8, 2011 in Vancouver. The conference program presented scientific, engineering, design and artistic ideas or improvements to existing techniques in the broad multi-disciplinary field of entertainment computing. 

Keynote speakers included Glenn Entis (Beyond Badges – Gamification for the Real World); Regan Mandryk (Playing Digital Games Will Make You a Better Human Being) and Chris Klug (who talked about how the entertainment technology industry says they love stories but the reality is otherwise). 

ICEC 2011 was co-chaired by GRAND researchers, Sidney Fels, University of British Columbia and Magy Seif El-Nasr, Northeastern University. GRAND was a proud sponsor. 

GRAND Master’s student Vincent Tsao (University of British Columbia) and Collaborating Network Investigator (formerly a PhD fellow with GRAND) Lennart Nacke attended the event.  GRAND Central had an opportunity to ask them a few questions about their participation in the event. 

"It's good to be here!"

Vincent Tsao
Master's student
University of British Columbia
ICEC Demo presenter, demo paper author and student volunteer

Q Is this your first time attending an ICEC conference? 
Yes

Q Describe one (or two) highlight(s) of your overall experience of the conference.
One talk I attended was on how gamers name their World of Warcraft characters.  I found it quite interesting that
research was done on that subject and glad that ICEC is a conference where work like that can be displayed and discussed.  The dinner at the Top of Vancouver’s revolving tower restaurant was also incredibly nice.

Q If a speaker, presenter, panelist, what did you learn from your experience?  
As a demo presenter I think we did well, but we should have created a poster or something so that people could read about what our demo was about without necessarily having to talk to us.  We felt that sometimes it was hard for people to notice our demo since our telepresence was usually elsewhere in the room.

Q How has attending ICEC improved your research?
ICEC is a conference that allows me to submit side projects that have both an entertainment factor as well as a research factor.  It gives me the opportunity to discuss and obtain feedback on that type of research, which otherwise would not necessarily be published or discussed with non co-located researchers.

Q What networking opportunities did you find most useful?
I found the reception night the most useful because it was very open and there was an opportunity to talk with many people.

Q Would you like to give kudos to a presenter or fellow researcher? 
I found Anders Drachen, the speaker of the research work on how gamers name their World of Warcraft characters, to be incredibly energetic and felt like he really engaged with the audience during his talk.

Q What was the coolest thing you (over)heard during the conference? 
That many Vancouverites (including myself) have never been to the Top of Vancouver revolving restaurant, despite having lived in Vancouver for a long time.  But that’s always the case isn’t it?

Q If you were a game character who would you be? 
I would be a baneling, baneling, baneling...

Q Why would you be a toxic, kamikaze baneling?
Because of this video.