After almost two weeks of Game Masters coverage, you’re probably getting sick of hearing about local videogame-related events by now. Don’t worry: I’ll be back to writing about videogames themselves shortly, but I thought it would be remiss of me not to point out some other upcoming events around Australia.

First is the Game On Symposium: Foreplay to Freeplay in Brisbane, held this Saturday and Sunday at QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct and QANTM College. It’s a satellite event of Melbourne’s Freeplay festival (in September this year), and will feature speakers from Halfbrick Studios, Defiant Development, and a number of industry veterans, such as John Passfield (Krome, Pandemic, Red Sprite) and Morgan Jaffit (Irrational, Relic, Pandemic and Defiant).

Second is another gaming event at ACMI: the first in their monthly series of ‘Re:Play’ events curated in conjunction with Freeplay and the Game Masters exhibition. This is an ‘in the studio’ type panel called “Thorin Sings About Gold: Adaptations and Videogames”, and centres on the relationship videogames have with other media forms. It’ll be chaired by Freeplay director Paul Callaghan, with panelists Sara Haghdoosti (Young Writer of the Year finalist), Dr. Josh Nelson (academic and film critic) and Craig Duturbure (Creative Director, Grapple Gun Games).

While I might usually write up a report of the Re:Play events on this blog, considering I’m on the Freeplay programming committee this year and I’m participating in two of them, there’s obviously a conflict of interest—not to mention just being a bit ick.

Nonetheless, it’s important to draw attention to these kinds of events—more and more, videogame culture in Australia is stepping outside the boundaries of living rooms and private entertainment.