◆Cross Border - CEDEC 2011 commencement comments -

Naoto Yoshioka,
CEDEC Steering Committee Chair

Greetings to all. Entertainment Development is our chosen profession. Out of the many jobs in the world, we work to add a little bit more enjoyment to the lives of people. The essence of working in entertainment development is enriching society by providing individuals with a enriching experience.

CEDEC is an open arena where computer entertainment developers and researchers assemble to debate, discuss and at times, clash with each other. The sessions announced are the best selected from a very large number of proposals. The CEDEC steering committee conducted a grueling selection process to pick out the best of the best. These presentations will highlight an issue, propose a solution, show the results, and conclude with future goals. This framework will be a way for attendees to help find similarities and apply the lessons to their own practices.

We invite everyone to participate at CEDEC. Not only those who will be presenting, but those who were not selected for the final conference schedule, and those who didn't submit a proposal. IT doesn't matter if you are a programmer, an artist, sound engineer, game designer, systems engineer; working in marketing, sales, accounting, legal, HR, or management. We are all entertainment developers in the greater sense of the word, and CEDEC is a conference for all developers.

CEDEC 2011 also happens to be the first time we will be using a new name for the conference. We are now the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference, instead of our previous name of CESA Developers Conference. CESA is a video game industry organization, giving the impression that the conference was limited to video games. We felt this was only a small facet of our scope, far too limited to describe our intent in full. CEDEC 2011's focus is on diversity in the field. Computer entertainment as a whole includes of computer software, video, audio, stage direction and effects, and entertainment business as its elements. The knowledge and experience found in elements traditionally thought as outside the scope of video games are proving themselves to be valuable, even essential in a wider application.

Our focus on diversity is embodied in our theme: Cross Borders. The theme for CEDEC 2011 means to be the intersection, and the deconstruction of borders between video games, computer graphics, interactive devices, online services, electronic commodities, education and electronic publishing. These are only a small selection of fields we are yet exploring. CEDEC is the place where we gather and exchange ideas and thoughts beyond the boundaries of companies, jobs, country, language and cultures. There may be some vigorous clashes at times, as the Japanese saying "grinding down the shinogi". The shinogi is the raised side of a katana, illustrating the kind of intense exchange that comes with passion and opinion meet each other. We know the sparks that fly in a mutual debate ignite new ideas, new ways of doing things, and widen our perspective as a whole.

Finally, I would like to express our condolences and heartfelt sympathy for the devastation cause by the The Tohoku Japanese Earthquake of March 11th, 2011. The disaster is fresh in our minds, and the recovery is a long marathon that awaits us. We at CEDEC's steering committee debated long and hard as to our role in the recovery effort. We have created a special Disaster Relief Support Technology Session open to proposals until July 29th. This session is our message to the attendees and the industry at large, showing that we are resilient and stubbornly obstinate. We may stumble, but we will not falter. We will look forward, and never cease to take the next step forth. And most importantly, we will always believe in hope, and a better future.

CEDEC awaits the tireless challengers. Thank you.