Archive for the “Game Industry” Category

Today was the final day of meetings w/ Bushi Road.

We went to NISA & had lunch w/ them.
I’ll have to go back to their office next month, since we just informed them of our dissolution and we’ve been doing a lot of co-promo with Disgaea among other things.

Next, we headed over to Atlus USA.
We’ve been meeting them for many many years now, but this was the first time I actually went to their office. I was never part of the entourage that visited their office whenever our upper management from Japan came to the US.

And then we headed over to Bandai America & Bandai Entertainment.
I noticed that they had a bigger Power Ranger figure in the main lobby… although they might have had that figure there for a while & I just never noticed it.

By the time we left Bandai offices, it was 5:30pm… and there was horrible traffic heading back to West Los Angeles.

Thank goodness for the carpool lane!

Too bad it doesn’t go all the way up the 405.
Boo!

And then we went to The Chart House in Redondo Beach for dinner w/ SEI sales managers Futami-san & Tashiro-san.

It’s been a schedule-packed three days, but I learned a lot of things about the trading card game industry & the video game industry. I hope I’ll be able to share these types of information one of these days… but I only have 40 days until this blog ends (for the second time).

Maybe someone will pick up this blog & give it a new home.
Like Gia…?

Former Broccoli USA production assistant Krystal came by.
If you’ve read Broccoli Books & Synch-Point production blogs from several years back, Krystal was our production assistant for a long time while she studied 3D animation/graphics.

After she graduated, she’s been working on various projects… and she got to work on the graphics for the Harry Potter ride that’s going to open two years from now. She said she worked on the graphics for half the castle (she said a name, but I don’t read Harry Potter so I don’t recall).

How awesome is that? (Even though I don’t know what castle it is… *laugh*)

She’s currently working at an online game company that’s making a new game called TwinSkies. She said she’s mainly working on clothing & hair pieces that are interchangeable in the game.

And former Broccoli Books editor Samantha is also working there!
Apparently she started out as a writer, but they liked her art & she’s the main character designer there.

We’ve had a lot of aspiring artists work for us as part-time staff (like in retail), and I always didn’t know how to help them w/ their career paths. The only thing I could suggest was in animation, so it was good to know another potential career for those who like to draw.

Anyhoo, go check out the site.

Freelancer S@ki messaged us that we missed We Cheer on Amazon for $28.

Apparently it was a Gold Box item yesterday… and we really wanted to get it because Voice Actor Stephanie Sheh said she was in it. Or we think this is the game… She said it was a cheerleading game.

Grr!

We usually have a friend who tells us about these types of deals, but I guess he missed it too. Too busy playing Soul Calibur on XBox 360, probably…

Now we’ll sulk as we buy it at Best Buy at full price, knowing we could have gotten it much much cheaper.

Hafu~

Broccoli Japan sent me an email, asking me to contact EA.

I probably can’t say anything more, but I sent an email to them.
Email, since that was the only contact information I received.

If I don’t get a response back, I suppose I’ll have to look up their phone number.

I haven’t really done game related work before, so this should be rather interesting.

Although I don’t know why they weren’t able to ask any of the game publishers in Japan about it. But I suppose it’s best to go directly to the source. Let’s hope they write back. *crossing fingers*

Broccoli USA president Kaname left for Japan to attend Tokyo Game Show & for various other meetings.

ADR director Michael Sinterniklaas should also be on the plane too.
And Treyarch artist Erika is already there.

So this week will be relatively slow in terms of email & phone calls, since a bunch of other people are probably out of town.

Hohum.
Glad I found a new toy called Facebook (yes, I know I’m 7-8 years behind the times…)

ADR director Michael Sinterniklaas was in town, so last night he asked me to have dinner w/ him.

It’s mostly b/c I had helped him book a hotel room in Japan during Tokyo Game Show, so he wanted to treat me to dinner. Though all I did was look up hotels on the internet & made my mother call each of them to make reservations *laugh*

Anyhoo, we met at the Banana Republic store at The Grove.

Where voice actress Stephanie Sheh was getting instructions on how to do the Windsor knot from the sales clerk.

The sales clerk even photocopied a page (from their manual?) that had instructions on how to do the tie. So nice! Banana Republic, please give these sales staff raises & more hours ^_^

We went to eat at Morels, because they absolutely love the mussels and french fries dinner. But I don’t eat clams, oysters and mussels (I hated miso soup with clams in them!!), so I had a crepe instead.

I forgot to take pictures of the mussels. But I did take a picture of the sweet potato fries!

Plus Michael pretending to grab one of them.

We had dessert too. Even though I was sooooo full.

Have a safe trip to Japan, Michael!

I was going to take a week off to go to Japan during Tokyo Game Show, but my schedule wasn’t working out, so I decided not to go this year. I would have had a free place to stay, since game illustrator Kayura Yuka had offered to let me stay at her place (and share a room w/ the dogs).

Broccoli USA president Kaname is going for business, though.
And he’s getting offers to go out to eat w/ all sorts of people.
Like Bushi Lord president Kidani-san. And Bandai Visual Konno-san (they’re gonna go eat sushi!).

I would have had plenty to write about in Industry Babble for a month!
But I guess I’ll have to find topics in the US. Or relay whatever Broccoli USA president Kaname reports to us. It’s too bad…