We're no Philadelphia experts here at GamesRadar (or at least, not for the purposes or duration of this article), but the city's newly-announced Grassroots Game Conference has us wanting to extend our knowledge beyond “cheesesteaks, Rocky and that Denzel movie.” A spinoff of AT&T's Philly Tech Week, Grassroots will fill the last week of April with a stream of events exploring games' relationship to music, cinema, art and society. And it looks smoother than a pot of cream cheese (another Philly thing)!
While your year steadily fills with opportunities to ogle booth babes or watch men in suits perform hyperactive PowerPoint presentations, Grassroots' roster contains a day-long excursion into that gaming question in the form of a games-as-art panel with representatives from the Smithsonian and National Endowment for the Arts, followed by presentations on games' role in the artistic space and process. Other presentations include a panel on music in gameplay and a day-long conference on gamification for non-profits.
The event also includes a screening of Indie Game: The Movie, which the filmmakers have added to their release tour specially for the conference; the conference's final day, appropriately enough, will feature a panel on starting your own indie studio, to put all the week's thinking to practical use. Surely Benjamin Franklin (also a Philly thing!) would approve.
