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Last week was the second time Minsk welcomed one of the biggest game industry events in CIS. While in Belarus DevGAMM is now the only event of this scale with around 1000 people from 25 countries attending.

More than 40 DevGAMM sessions were targeted at people coming from different backgrounds and different levels of experience. This way both beginner developers and trained professionals benefited from the conference.

During this year the conference shifted focus from social and mobile games to hardcore development for desktop, consoles, VR and AR devices. DevGAMM Minsk hot topics included e-sport, Twitch and Youtube for developers, indie apocalypse to name a few.

If you were wondering what sessions to watch at DevGAMM Youtube channel next week here are a few tips. Keep your eye on Stan Just and his session about production cycle of The Witcher 3. Learn how Transformice unexpectedly became a hit wonder from Melanie Christin. Understand Twitch better with Jon Carnage’s talk. Also take a look at extra useful sessions from Microsoft, Nvidia, Unity, Epic Games, Facebook, Wargaming, IMVU and tinyBuild.

Each DevGAMM organizers introduce something new to the conferenсe agenda. This time Pitch & Match and Service Showcase took on that part. Pitch & Match system, which is used widely at conferences around the world finally landed at DevGAMM. 500 meetings in two days made DevGAMM one of the top three conferences by the number of conducted meetings.
Meanwhile Service Showcase helped companies to attract potential clients, who were looking for localization, quality sound or marketing support.

However games were still in the spotlight. GAMM:Play Showcase had around 50 amazing projects competing for audience attention, while more than 80 developers submitted their games to the contest.

Every Speed Game Dating stream came with a big line of developers looking to hijack the list of 40 lucky participants for a chance to meet lots of publishers in an hour.

Conferences may be about business development, but they are actually a great way to break out of everyday routine. Three parties hosted at DevGAMM Minsk were meant to do just that. Free beer, snacks and happy faces created a perfect environment for networking and easy conversations.There are good reasons why relationships established at the informal functions often lead to fruitful collaborations in the future. Parties were sponsored by Melesta and Renatus Media.

All those who stayed till last few hours of the conference dived straight into the festive mood. Hilarious Game Lynch, epic DevGAMM Awards and People of the Year ceremony made this evening unforgettable.

Thanks to the amazing expert lineup Game Lynch went perfect. If you can use the word ‘perfect’ to describe lightsabre fights, drinking races and nerf gun duels. New trial by combat feature fit right in. Jokes, booze, steel-hearted developers make Game Lynch one of a kind event in all history of game industry conferences.

The biggest surprise of the conference was music break with Ressa Schwarzwald and Stanislav Polesko from Strategic Music doing covers of famous game soundtrack.

People of the Year Award organized together with VC.ru acknowledged the most influential industry leaders such as Maksim Donskih, Leonid Sirotin, Sergey Orlovsky and Viktor Kisly.

DevGAMM Awards was the grand finale of the event where the audience learned the names of the games that won in 10 nominations. Mike Rose and Lerika Mallayeva, co-hosts of the ceremony, made the whole room of people laughing out loud with their amazing sketches.

Winner List:

Grand Prize (sponsored by RJ Games)
Game: The Final Station
Developer: Oleg Sergeev and Andrey Rumak

Excellence in Visual Art (sponsored by Fibrum)
Game: Fold The World
Developer: Eon games

Excellence in Game Design
Game: Steam Panic
Developer: NOD Group

Excellence in Narrative (sponsored by All Correct Group)
Game: Breached
Developer: Twisted Pilot

Excellence in Audio (sponsored by RJ Games)
Game: Summer Catchers
Developer: Eugene Siryk

Best Indie Game (sponsored by tinyBuild GAMES)
Game: SKYHILL
Developer: Mandragora

Best Mobile Game (sponsored by Casual Connect)
Game: Fold The World
Developer: Eon games

Best Desktop Game
Game: SKYHILL
Developer: Mandragora

Game Lynch Award
Game: SaviorX – The Story Of Life
Developer: Gediminas Siutilas

Best of GAMM:Play Showcase (sponsored by Wargaming.net)
Game: One Day in London
Developer: OWL-studio

Sponsor companies did their best to entertain the attendees throughout the event. Nekki hosted a tournament for Shadow Fight 3 players with beautiful Japanese swords at stake. Vizor Interactivebooth stood out because of the huge electronic graffiti wall, which allowed to create and print a drawing on the spot. Those who took photos for Instagram on the first day of the conference received their pictures printed with the custom frame at Puzzle Dreams booth.

This year was a huge accomplishment for DevGAMM with three events in Moscow, Hamburg and Minsk. This became possible only due to the support of the Renatus company.

So where do you see us next? Moscow!
Save the date: May 12-13, 2016

The annual DevGAMM conference was held in Moscow on May 15-16. Radisson Slavyanskaya Hotel hosted more than 1400 industry professionals from all over the world.

DevGAMM Conference reached a whole new level, introducing a wider range of topics that included console and PC game development, while the game showcase area featured more mid-core projects. 95% of the conference content was dedicated to game making technologies, art, animation, sound design, programming, game design and cross-platform development.

More than 50 established speakers and panel participants shared their experience with DevGAMM attendees, eagerly answering questions and offering valuable advice. All sessions including those by Rami Ismail, Daniel Rosenfeld, Linnea Harrison are already available on DevGAMM Youtube channel.

60 games demonstrated at the traditional GAMM:Play showcase impressed conference attendees and press representatives with the diversity in terms of genres and platforms.

Speed Game Dating once again came out as a very productive event with 20 publishers and 40 developers taking part. Due to a careful preliminary selection of projects and interested publishers, both parties spent quality time exchanging contacts and discussing games.

Lots of DevGAMM attendees participated in the conference with a sole goal of finding new projects or employment opportunities. Vacancy Wall supported by Spice Recruitment agency was organized to help them learn about job offers from dream game companies and receive quality advice on how to become an in-demand employee.

One of the most unusual events of this DevGAMM was a private screening of GameLoading: Rise of the Indies movie in Russian. Amused viewers shared their impressions right after the premiere: most were inspired and claimed to look at international indie-culture in a whole new light.

DevGAMM heartwarming atmosphere manifested itself at Chartboost Pre-Party on May 14th that took place in a popular Moscow bar. The party felt more like old friends hanging out with a glass of beer discussing events that happened in their life in the past few months. Meanwhile at the end of the second day of the conference, Bye-Bye Mingle organized by Renatus was a great opportunity to dispose of business cards, find new friends or colleagues, discuss the event and plan for future encounters.

DevGAMM Moscow 2015 was the first conference to gather such a star-filled team of judges at Game Lynch that truly made developers suffer. The only game maker that came out of the lynch smelling roses (and not alcohol) was Michael Peiffert, the creator of Out There: Omega Edition. Make sure to watch him become a winner of this incredible show.

DevGAMM Awards came up as a bit of a surprise this year. Instead of ever-smiling Lerika, the role of a honorary host took on Mike Rose, one of our speakers who immediately won the audience with his British humour and unexpected sketches.The whole ceremony was accompanied by Daniel Rosenfeld who just sat there on the couch reading a weird Russian book.

DevGAMM Awards recording will soon be available on our Youtube channel.

Here is the list of games which received special rewards and prizes from our sponsors:

Grand Prize (sponsored by Kefir!)
Game: Out There: Omega Edition
Developer: Mi-Clos Studio

Excellence in Visual Art
Game: Shadowmatic
Developer: Triada Studio

Excellence in Game Design (sponsored by Gamanoid)
Game: Beat The Beat
Developer: 2Players & Nekki

Excellence in Narrative (sponsored by Casual Connect)
Game: Out There Omega Edition
Developer: Mi-Clos Studio

Excellence in Audio (sponsored by Unilead)
Game: Replay – VHS is not dead
Developer: Neko Entertainment

Best Indie Game (sponsored by tinyBuild GAMES)
Game: Scrap Garden
Developer: Flazm

Best Mobile Game (sponsored by Vizor Interactive)
Game: Divide by Sheep
Developer: Bread Team

Best Unity Game (sponsored by Unity Technologies)
Game: AI Olympius
Developer: Lions Shade

Best Online Game (sponsored by Nekki)
Game: Get The Gun
Developer: DATCROFT GAMES

Game Lynch Award (sponsored by Renatus)
Game: Out There: Omega Edition
Developer: Mi-Clos Studio

Media Choice Award
Game: Shadowmatic
Developer: Triada Studio

Sponsor companies entertained DevGAMM attendees with a huge amount of different contests, announced their newly released products and gave away lots of great souvenirs. Worth mentioning that the best tables, treats, presents and other activities were provided by Vizor Interactive, Akamai, Kefir!, Unity, Nekki and conference organizer Renatus company.

Next conference is a completely new page in DevGAMM history.The event will become a so-called bridge between the developers from CIS countries and Western Europe. It will be held in a luxurious Grand Elysee Hotel in the center of Hamburg (Germany).

DevGAMM Hamburg 2015 will take place on September 10-11.

Additionally, this year is going to lay foundation for a good new tradition: there will be 3 DevGAMM conferences annually. So the registration for the third one, DevGAMM Minsk 2015that will take place on December 10-11 in Renaissance Minsk Hotel, will open in October.

We are so grateful to all our sponsors, speakers, media representatives and attendees for supporting us all the way!

Forever Yours,
DevGAMM team.