Games festival director Sam Roberts and I had discussed this some months ago. Even as I was shooting my documentary, there was much talk of pulling the games competition entirely and moving it to the safe confines of Los Angeles. It is somewhat difficult to believe the statement on Slamdance's site currently - not because Sam doesn't believe in the goals of the Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition but because it would appear that his courting the Columbine game this time a year ago has ended up costing the competition itself. I really don't understand why a town that annually permits films about the Holocaust, the assassination of Bill Gates, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, or a woman who has sex with horses couldn't support a videogame about Columbine. Maybe, as some have suggested, Slamdance never really, truly knew they believed in games as an artistic medium. They do, however, like having a room in the back of their festival that functions as a video arcade...

I think it would be a mistake to say that "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" killed the Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition; I think Slamdance did that all on its own.

I spoke to Sam about this two or three weeks ago, and mentioned it briefly in a GameSetWatch post:

"I followed up via email with organizer Sam Roberts, and he told me that it'll be held as a separate event to Indiecade, which is another indie festival that's taking place next summer in L.A. - the more the merrier, I say!"

However, since then, the Indiecade page has been updated to remove references to their planned Summer 2008 L.A. event - but add references to them turning up as the 'indie representation' at DICE and other separately organized events next year.

So my inference is that we'll get the Slamdance Indie Games Fest in LA next year, and Indiecade will be the indie representation at a bunch of the larger game shows (they were at E3 and E For All already) - alongside the Independent Games Festival/Summit, which I run at GDC, of course. So there's some good diversity there, I think/hope.

Thanks for the comments, Danny and Simon.

Danny: I agree that SCMRPG did not kill the competition, and I think I was careful not to say that (and I'll clarify it here).

Simon: Thanks for the clarification that Indiecade is totally separate from Slandance. Diversity is good, but it's hard to explain how electric a game festival at a film festival was (especially one that was itself colocated with Sundance). I lament the loss of that camaraderie of artists across media.