Ok - wasn’t quite expecting the flood of work that was coming my way towards the end of the week, but I got tied up with a secret project that will be coming very soon - stay tuned for that - it’ll be free for everyone to join.

Anyhow I promised a post on the team building exercise that we played out after the ‘exciting’ bit of our merry conference. Kev’s been able to give you some of the low down already in an earlier post on what chaos ensued, but I feel the need to let you know a little more about what fun activities happened at our conference.

Well, after much laughter in the Generation Game part of the speaking, and a quite delicious packed lunch, we headed off to a water park somewhere in the Cotswolds for all sorts of boating shenanigans.

I found myself in team two - the oranges - (there were six teams in all) so shortly after arriving my face was entirely covered with orange makeup; I’m not altogether sure where it came from. It just so happened that most staff from the European offices were all grouped together in the oranges. While they all spoke excellent English, things maybe weren’t altogether on the same wavelength when we capsized our Canadian canoe three times in a minute. We were promptly told to get out of the water and never attempt to set sail again.

So, after firmly losing the first task of rowing, kayaking and Canadian canoeing (shudder) to the purples we went on to battle at some kind of Chinese long boat rowing - (that’s Dragon boating right? Yes, Wikipedia says so.) Well, we got firmly thrashed at that too, and I was relishing the prospect of getting the biggest wooden spoon known to man.

After that we had to endure several trips across the lake to collect stuff to build our raft. Luckily it was scorching hot, so being ridiculously poor at oarmanship (apparently that’s a real word) was compensated by building a pretty sweet tan. Once we’d collected all our stuff we had to build a raft in twenty minutes, but at least seventeen of those were spent by most of the team milling around. In the dying seconds we somehow built a raft that looked completely terrible in comparison to those built by the other five teams. For some reason, I nominated myself as one of the six crew members to row this beast across a small stretch of water and back again. I was pretty certain we were going to sink.

Despite my certainty, we actually didn’t do too bad in this task - I think we came fourth, even beating our old enemies team purple in the process, and we didn’t sink! So, unfortunately, I couldn’t get my hands on the coveted wooden spoon. Oh well… Now for what conferences are really about…

I could go on for hours about shenanigans of the BBQ and beers that commenced at about 8 PM, but I don’t think many people would be too happy about me posting the finer details on the Internet - that’s what Facebook is for! Normally in photographic form of course. Well, there was many a delicious cocktail consumed, plenty of tasty BBQd meat and even a few arcade games dotted around - as well as the chance to shake it up on Samba de Amigo. Probably the highlight was the limbo - which seemed to go on for several hours, and the surf board - here’s a slightly Photoshop enhanced photo of Martin doing his tricks:

Ghoulish hey? Maybe it’s just my drunken skewed vision…

Martin insists that I mention that he stayed on the surf board the longest out of all those who tried. The thing is, I got cocky by whooping and hollering, and the attendent turned the speed up because of this. I still hold that if I hadn’t been cocky then I would have won. Needless to say, I felt terrible in the morning.

And so continues the somewhat epic saga of the conference. So, after yesterday’s incredibly exciting speeches post, the morning took slightly more comic proceedings. This was through the Marketing Dept’s presentation for some of our upcoming top titles for the year; namely Sonic Unleashed, Madworld, Samba de Amigo and Empire: Total War, all done in the style of the classic game show - The Generation Game.

It turns out that the President of SEGA Europe, Mike Hayes, was on the show in question during the 1980s. Somehow this footage was discovered and then aired at the conference - I suppose you had to be there but I can tell you it was pretty amusing. After this, there was a series of Generation Game style challenges relating to the top titles. Members of the audience were ‘invited’ to take the stage and make a plasticine model of Sonic the Hedgehog in celebration of Sonic Unleashed, draw the Jack (the lead in the upcoming Madworld) and then shake the rhythms out on Samba de Amigo.

While Marketing Director Gary Knight was playing the part of Brucie with an uncanny realism, various members of the audience won prizes for their artistic prowess. In the Samba de Amigo competition, meanwhile, two of our most senior directors took to the stage and shook their maracas (donning ponchos and sombreros of course).

For those Brits reading this who remember The Generation Game, you may recall the final conveyor belt round. For this, picture puzzles of some of SEGA’s upcoming titles rolled along a screen, then classic games and a few retro SEGA titles. I must admit that I wasn’t the best at this, but I still managed a few. I was particularly hopeless with the classic games, but I’ve got to say I’m more a fan of the modern stuff. Do I court controversy? Err… Probably… More tomorrow.

*artists impression of Brucie
P.S. I was struggling to cut through all the legal issues of putting up a Bruce Forsyth picture on our blog, so I drew this one in fifteen minutes using paint and a few Photoshop effects. Hope you like it. Martin has informed me he will be drawing a portrait soon as well so maybe we can see who’s best.

P.P.S. if you don’t know what Brucie really looks like then you should check out the link above.

So, as you probably know from our last posts, on Thursday SEGA Europe threw their annual company conference. This, for a relative newcomer, was an absolute pleasure, because if nothing else at least it was two days off work. However, it turned out to be a more welcome break than that, with the speeches helpful, the team building hilarious and the night activities… well, it’s always a pleasure to have a party courtesy of your company.

The coaches took us from our office in Brentford to somewhere in the Cotswolds, and we arrived at about eleven in the morning. I’m not deliberately being vague, I’m just not entirely sure where we were - somewhere near Swindon I think, but the surroundings were particularly picturesque. Upon arrival, we were all given some refreshments and then into the conference hall. Now, I’d normally go into a conference with more than a little trepidation, because of the likelihood of incredibly boring speeches. However, this wasn’t the case with SEGA, and I was pleasantly surprised.

As I’d only been at the company a month, there was plenty of things I hadn’t known that I found out quickly at the conference. The President, Mike Hayes, began with general talk about company and performance; all which was pretty interesting to someone who’s fairly new. One thing I didn’t realise is just how much people loved Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, and how well it’s done over the last year. There was also some talk of our financial projections (which I couldn’t possibly bore you with) and upcoming titles (which are top secret so I can’t tell you). It was great to see how the company was doing, and it’s always nice to know that you’re working in an industry that is showing great likelihood of growth despite the threat of economic downturn. (I hate to gloat).

Anyhow, this might not be the exciting post you were expecting for something like the annual company conference, but there’s so much to write about that we’ve all chosen to post about it all week. The highlight of the morning’s speeches was the Generation Game style shenanigans that the marketing team threw for our upcoming titles, so I’ll let you know about that tomorrow. There’s also the ‘team building’ which entailed getting aboard boats and sinking a lot, and the BBQ bash, where much merriment ensued. Keep reading for an insight into SEGA company life this week from all of us here…

Yup, we’re back from the lakes and I’m pleased to report that no one has been mislayed or lost, though some people were clearly dead this morning judging from their eyes. Seriously.  No severe injuries have been reported either although many of us are suffering from very sore backs, shoulders and several are nursing some bruised egos… and headaches.

A cavalcade of reports from individual teams including some, none or fewer details on titles coming your way from SEGA. That and just what (can be told without getting into severe trouble) went on, as well as a run down on just how everyone did which I will sum up now:

Martin’s Team = Cheating Winners
Swiss Cheese’s Team = Missed Chances…
JimmyC = Wet
Dave = Half-Drowned
My Team = Utter Rubbish, But…

On the plus side I’m now King of the Jet-Ski, but you’ll have to wait for my main blog on this to find out just why…

It’s, let’s see here… er, 00:53 on July 24th and myself Jimmy, Martin et al are off tomorrow - I mean this morning, for the SEGA conference.  This consists of a bit of a “how we’re doing” session followed by a team building session followed by a very strenuous attempt to get a hangover for the next day.

The team building exercise for this, the first conference for pretty much all of the Online Team besides “jack of all sports” Dave, is raft building which we’re all looking forward to immensely. Honest.

As such we are going to get very wet most likely…

We are all in different teams and no doubt the fellas will each be reporting on their team’s unique successes and failures in their blogs.  Teams are randomised and I ended up being placed in Team 4 - I was less pleased to discover this was the pink team.  I have already said if I’m forced to wear an Amy Rose t-shirt I want a massive hammer at my disposal.

Anyway we’ll let you know how it goes so wish us luck - especially those in Team 4!