Yes, I know I'm not the most prolific blogger...sorry. But changes are a-coming.

I recently left Tuna and I'm planning to launch my own company in the very near future. I'll be spending the rest of the year getting some exciting projects off the ground, and hopefully blogging a bit more than I did last year.

I've also upload copies of the pdfs that I used to create my game design sketchbooks here: http://andrewcrawshaw.posterous.com/pages/templates Go and help yourself - they're free! (And as much as I like Lulu.com, I'm not sure that their products are the best format for my sketchbooks. SO save yourself a few pennies, download the pdfs, and print as you need. It's cheaper and greener).

The internet has been alight with stories heralding the imminent death of the newspaper industry. Just this week the London Evening Standard has decided to become a free offering. After 180 years of being sold to Londoner's on their way home from work, the only way they can see a future for themselves is to give their product away for free.

So why does this interest me, a game developer? Well I think the signs are that we might well be exiting the last generation of customers that are willing to pay, en masse, for their media content, whether that is newspapers, music, films, or videogames. Soon we won’t be able to sell videogames.

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With three frantic days of meeting and visits nearing an end, and some of the group feeling the pace, I was still in a buoyant mood. Our next visit had, at one point, been cancelled. When we heard the news I was gutted. Fortunately, one of Cross Creative's previous visiting presenters, Dan from the fantastic Six to Start, had managed to pull a few strings on our behalf and had sealed the deal (thanks). This was it - we were going to see Pixar!

As the minibus rolled up to the gateway of the complex, pilgrims to this digital Mecca were taking snapshots of the public face of our hosts - the iron lettered Pixar logo. Those five letters were the boundary between the fanboy tourists (which I would normally have been very happy to be one of) and the very lucky buggers like us that were going to be allowed to enter...

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Cross Creative's tour of Silicon Valley was beginning its third and final day. We'd already seen some stellar companies, and the invites that Carole (from TRC) and Will (from UKTI) had secured for today were going to continue that trend.

Our first visit of the day was back over in Palo Alto, with the current daddy of social networks, Facebook.

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Just to set the scene - I am a big fan of Star Wars. I was born just at the right time to get caught up in the whirlwind of the first film, and became an instant addict.

Today we were going to meet with some of Lucas' key staff...

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Given the previous day's travel and excesses, I woke with a spring in my step - no doubt propped up at the excitement of our first day of appointments, including a date with one of my 'must-see' companies - IDEO.

After months of anticipation we were finally going to meet with some of Silicon Valley's finest companies.

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What should you do when one of your ideas gets rejected by 4iP?

You could 'tut' loudly, you could release the inner teenager and moan about the submission panel's "lack of understanding/vision/taste", or... you could try and do something positive about it...

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I was recently lucky enough to hear Tom Savigar , Strategy and Insight Director at The Future Laboratory, give a presentation about future trends. It was one of those eye-opening, learning experiences that I'll probably quote for a long time to come.

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