The conference was inspired by a game called Peacemaker, which was developed by ETC graduates at Impact Games. Apparently ETC and CMU have an incubator program for start-ups coming out of the program. And Impact benefited from this program, obviously. The game is essentially a “God” game that places players in the shoes of either the Palestinian President or the Israeli Prime Minister. And unlike the typical video game scenario, one must “wage peace” to succeed. Players have various methods with which to wage peace, such as making a speech, sending in military forces, contacting the UN, etc…

Although I’m from Philly, I’d never been to Pittsburgh. And for some reason I had it in my head that it would be a very similar place. But no, I was pleasantly surprised by the new scenery. It’s certainly has an Appalachian feel to it, with the three rivers converging among hilly streets, a slew of victorian houses, etc.. We didn’t have much time to wander around. Okay, none really. But we did get a tour. Pittsburgh has a ton of cathedrals, and because we were at a game-related conference, we all thought of how they could have been levels in Zelda or Super Mario Bros.

The conference opened last Wednesday afternoon with unremarkable speeches at the main campus. In the evening we gathered at the Entertainment Technology Center facility, which is adjacent to the Ohio river. The center takes up about three floors of a modern building, which also houses some science labs. Coming from Hunter College, the facility is all the more spectacular. Electronic gadgets, toys and all kinds of games abound. The students have collaborative studio space to work in which looks like it came right out of Silicon Valley – which it essentially did. The primary faculty are ‘alums’ of big corporations like Disney, Pixar and LucasArts. And those are just a few of the places that students end up.

So, it’s a bit surprising that Peacemaker came out of that program, and that this program is even holding a conference related to technology and peace.