Now in its seventh year, the Children's Media Conference has just taken place in Sheffield, city of steel. I attended for the first time this year, with the expectation of meeting industry players, attending some engaging talks and get more of an overview of the state of the industry as it stands now.

The Children's Media Conference is aimed at everyone involved in media for children, but whereas the spotlight used to be broadcast focused, digital has become central to the majority of debate and discussion being heard, to various degrees of understanding and engagement.

The first day brought with it a number of workshops designed to encourage discussion and stimulate creative solutions. Monetising digital platforms was one area discussed as well as the almost ubiquitous conference inclusion, the crossover lab, facilitating creative ideas and culminating with pitches being made to commissioners on the last day. I went ...

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@media is the UK’s biggest web design and development conference, attended by companies and individuals from all over Europe, with sessions led by some of the world’s most respected experts in the field.

Although there are no stated themes, each year there are discernible patterns in the subjects of the sessions which act like a barometer for the prevailing topics in the web climate (terrible analogy, sorry). This year, there were three apparent themes: HTML5 (and the diminishing influence of Flash); user-centred design (UCD); and mobile—or, rather, the web on different devices.

HTML5 has become something of a public discussion point recently, with a great deal of confusion around what it actually means. Strictly defined, it is an updated specification for giving meaning and function to content; but in the public sphere, it seems to mean ‘everything that’s not Flash’. Doug Schepers’ talk on SVG fell ...

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Every project allows us to build on previous experience and try out new things. Trafalgar Origins was no exception, giving us the opportunity to evolve the multiplayer system used in 1066 as well as take our first big step into the muddy world of Facebook Connect.

Facebook integration was an integral part of Trafalgar Origins but was developed as a separate set of components that could be used by other Channel 4 indies in future commissions. We wanted to demonstrate by example, best practice with the heady ambition of it ultimately unifying how future Channel 4 projects integrate with Facebook.

This blog post is all about the learning from this process and the reasons behind the specific implementation of their new system.

Socialising the game design

Our biggest inspiration for single-player socially connected gaming was Trials HD. Being a firm studio favourite, it motivates play by showing your score in ...

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With game plays in excess of 14 million and numerous awards and nominations (SXSW, BIMA + BAFTA), we thought it time to write a post on how we made 1066. 

Getting started

1066 was our first project with C4 Education, commissioned to coincide with a two-part TV drama produced by the nice folks at Hardy Pictures. Keen to repeat their previous game success, C4 gave us a small chunk of development money to put together a game prototype in late September 2008.

C4 Education's brief was to develop a game that was both entertaining and educationally robust. The subject matter suited this brief perfectly, and working alongside Greg Jenner (the historical consultant) and Hardy's Art Department we collected historic and visual resources to act as reference for our early ideas.

Alongside this research, we also conducted some qualitative research with school children who helped steer us towards a blood-thirsty ...

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Last year was a real benchmark for us at Preloaded. We took a step back, looked at how we were working and who we were working with, and changed a lot of things to improve our positioning and the way we did things.

The results of that process mean that 2010 is all set up to be a great year for us. We've got a brand new website and won four major projects at the end of last year, all of which will be challenging, exciting and creatively fruitful. We are equipped to carry them out more efficiently and effectively than ever before. We're excited, and so are our clients.

One of the biggest changes we've made is the relationships we have with our clients. We don't work for them any more - we work with them. It sounds like a really small thing, but as a ...

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