A brief conference guide for game developers
I am a technical evangelist of Unity Technologies , and my job is to travel. A couple of hours before the New Year, I counted in my calendar 23 business trips on various conferences and events in the 2013th. In 2012, the situation was similar, but the focus was more on Western Europe. And now it's time to share the experience.
If you look for the most important idea in this text (in fact, it is really one): to read the Internet and delve into something very infinitely more useless than attend a good industry conference. Or give us the same thing, but without double denial: having visited a good industry conference you will find much more than endlessly delving into the Internet.
The paragraph above is ready to protect the individual material - motivate me in the comments, and I will do everything!
')
... for the time being on weekends, but we plan to put together a bigger team and take on the game completely, find funding, go to Kickstarter ...
Friends, you need to collect all your work and sketches into a beautiful and easy-to-read booklet (you can even print a couple of copies on paper so that it is more solid), and from the fact that it is somehow starting to build a demo build for a tablet.
Your vision for the future is on paper. Your present is on the tablet. Your main task is to show one thing and another to as many people as possible around and listen to their (malicious and unfair) criticism. Your conference is DevGamm . Already been? Then - Nordic Game .
Devgamm
The conference takes place in the winter of Kiev and spring in Moscow, famous for the friendliness of the public and inspiring presentations. There you can find publishers and the right people from the industry and broaden your horizons and worldview. Drive away full of motivation, new ideas and priorities turned upside down.
Nordic Game
In Malmo, Sweden (this is next to the Copenhagen airport) in May, a cozy Nordic game devil takes place. It is focused on the Scandinavian upcoming game-scene with local stars and success stories like “we worked on doshirak and manuals for 4 years, then we released it and it took off.” The event is interesting to indie, looking for a creative, non-commercial, if you will, sincere game dev.
... but now it seems that we understand how to do it, the next game should make a profit.
You are on the right track! Now try to get to Europe, on Casual Connect or Quo Vadis . Be sure to set yourself clear goals, what you want to achieve, what you want to do, who you are and why. Of all the objectives of the goal, leave 5, or better yet 3. In the booklet, you do not have the outline of a future game, but pictures and descriptions of your released games. You will distribute booklets to potential partners, print at least a couple of dozen. The tablet with your games you will use to attract attention. Not "here, see what we are doing ...", but "this is our released projects, and now we are working on this masterpiece, what is your opinion ...".
Casual Connect Europe
CCE 2014 will be held in Amsterdam on February 11th. You can still have time to arrange documents and find cheap tickets (low-cost fly to Eindhoven). A huge event with a very different audience, from students to heads of major studios. Spend two days getting to know each other, talking and listening.
Quo vadis
Berlin is sometimes called the European startup capital. Very cozy and cheap city. In 2014, Quo Vadis will begin on April 8th. You can go there for inspiration, dating, contacts, experience. Live and big conference. If you do not have the experience of European conferences, it is better to choose Quo Vadis than on CCE.
Major industry events such as CES , MWC , GDC are useful if you know very clearly what, how and why you are doing. Otherwise, you just spend a lot of money, you might get a lot of fun. But from the Western point of view, we are saying “makes sense” :)
At large conferences there are a lot of necessary people, big money and signed contracts, only it is difficult to get into this stream. It requires a certain experience, experience, contacts, dating. If you really want to get to the megaconference, drive to Gamescom in Cologne, there is a scale, there is a cosplay and noisy-sparkling stands, and there is a corner of the business zone with (often) relevant people. In terms of price / quality ratio can be quite good.
Success stories are unique and highly dependent on your personal qualities. I shared my experience and knowledge on the results of two years of travel in different events, conversations with colleagues of different technical skills and experience.
Am I somewhere wrong? You did it differently, and you did it all? Let's discuss :)
If you look for the most important idea in this text (in fact, it is really one): to read the Internet and delve into something very infinitely more useless than attend a good industry conference. Or give us the same thing, but without double denial: having visited a good industry conference you will find much more than endlessly delving into the Internet.
The paragraph above is ready to protect the individual material - motivate me in the comments, and I will do everything!
')
We are doing the first game with the guys ...
... for the time being on weekends, but we plan to put together a bigger team and take on the game completely, find funding, go to Kickstarter ...
Friends, you need to collect all your work and sketches into a beautiful and easy-to-read booklet (you can even print a couple of copies on paper so that it is more solid), and from the fact that it is somehow starting to build a demo build for a tablet.
Your vision for the future is on paper. Your present is on the tablet. Your main task is to show one thing and another to as many people as possible around and listen to their (malicious and unfair) criticism. Your conference is DevGamm . Already been? Then - Nordic Game .
Devgamm
The conference takes place in the winter of Kiev and spring in Moscow, famous for the friendliness of the public and inspiring presentations. There you can find publishers and the right people from the industry and broaden your horizons and worldview. Drive away full of motivation, new ideas and priorities turned upside down.
Nordic Game
In Malmo, Sweden (this is next to the Copenhagen airport) in May, a cozy Nordic game devil takes place. It is focused on the Scandinavian upcoming game-scene with local stars and success stories like “we worked on doshirak and manuals for 4 years, then we released it and it took off.” The event is interesting to indie, looking for a creative, non-commercial, if you will, sincere game dev.
We released a couple of small games, not very successful ...
... but now it seems that we understand how to do it, the next game should make a profit.
You are on the right track! Now try to get to Europe, on Casual Connect or Quo Vadis . Be sure to set yourself clear goals, what you want to achieve, what you want to do, who you are and why. Of all the objectives of the goal, leave 5, or better yet 3. In the booklet, you do not have the outline of a future game, but pictures and descriptions of your released games. You will distribute booklets to potential partners, print at least a couple of dozen. The tablet with your games you will use to attract attention. Not "here, see what we are doing ...", but "this is our released projects, and now we are working on this masterpiece, what is your opinion ...".
Casual Connect Europe
CCE 2014 will be held in Amsterdam on February 11th. You can still have time to arrange documents and find cheap tickets (low-cost fly to Eindhoven). A huge event with a very different audience, from students to heads of major studios. Spend two days getting to know each other, talking and listening.
Quo vadis
Berlin is sometimes called the European startup capital. Very cozy and cheap city. In 2014, Quo Vadis will begin on April 8th. You can go there for inspiration, dating, contacts, experience. Live and big conference. If you do not have the experience of European conferences, it is better to choose Quo Vadis than on CCE.
Big ambitions, big conferences
Major industry events such as CES , MWC , GDC are useful if you know very clearly what, how and why you are doing. Otherwise, you just spend a lot of money, you might get a lot of fun. But from the Western point of view, we are saying “makes sense” :)
At large conferences there are a lot of necessary people, big money and signed contracts, only it is difficult to get into this stream. It requires a certain experience, experience, contacts, dating. If you really want to get to the megaconference, drive to Gamescom in Cologne, there is a scale, there is a cosplay and noisy-sparkling stands, and there is a corner of the business zone with (often) relevant people. In terms of price / quality ratio can be quite good.
Did I miss something?
Success stories are unique and highly dependent on your personal qualities. I shared my experience and knowledge on the results of two years of travel in different events, conversations with colleagues of different technical skills and experience.
Am I somewhere wrong? You did it differently, and you did it all? Let's discuss :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/208070/
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