Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 157

"When he serves, he farts, and that made me lose my concentration, for which I am famous throughout Zambia."

These were the words of tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl who blamed his defeat in a 1992 tournament on a tight jockstrap and the aforesaid flatulence. Game, set and crutch perhaps after winning on a wind-break?

Everybody loses a good excuse and Ndefwayl's is legendary, but gentlemen, please, there was absolutely no excuse for the scruffy appearance of the crowd at Wednesday's Develop Awards. It's bad enough being forced to see ponytails in public, but the invite said Developer Chic, not Developer Cheap. How many pairs of jeans and I-wore-this-crumpled-shirt-to-work-today outfits can you get in one hotel? Organisers, please note. Black Tie next year, please.

Fortunately, the immaculately tailored Develop editor Owain Bennalack was on hand to raise the standard and hand out the prizes, which rounded off a jolly roger (and there was one certain Roger who was very jolly) evening. Intent Media has done a good job here and The Develop Awards are now the culmination of what was once imaginatively branded London Games Week. The announcement of next year's Develop conference in Brighton looks like another step in the right direction.

Still, it was good to see everybody in town again, back from their holidays and raring to go to Stringfellows, er I mean, GDC Mobile, TIGA Content World and Games Market Europe.

The mobile games community is a tight-knit, leftfield crowd and London needs to be at the centre of this revolution, but at one stage of Wednesday evening I thought I was in Vietnam with Colonel Kurtz, such was the decadence of this crowd. You know who you are and even Lighton Ndefwayl would be hard pushed to think up an excuse for such behaviour. Very amusing to watch, though.