On November 17-19, DevGAMM came back in an online format. It was an extremely productive, action-packed, and amazing event. Let’s look back and go over the conference highlights.
DevGAMM team opened the conference giving an overview of key activities from 5 different countries. If you missed the opening, go ahead and watch it now
Content
The event virtually gathered 90 speakers from 20 countries who presented sessions in 10 topic tracks. Among them were:
🎤 Warren Spector, creator of the iconic Deus Ex title;
🎤 Thomas Beekers from inXile studio, who has worked on Wasteland 2 and 3;
🎤 Anne-Sophie Mongeau and Philip Eriksson from Hazelight, who created sound design for It Takes Two;
🎤 Yuliya Chernenko from Owlcat Games that unraveled the secrets behind the making of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous;
🎤 Alden Kroll, Kaci Aitchison Boyle, and Tom Giardino from Valve, who covered the questions from developers about Steam features;
🎤 Dmitry Yashanov from tinyBuild that shared a success story of Potion Craft.
On top of that, there were 3 panel discussions dedicated to education in the video games industry, new Unreal Engine 5 features, the uncertain future of mobile free-to-play games, and consolidation of the ads market.
In total, our three virtual stages hosted speakers from Microsoft, Rovio Entertainment, SuperScale, Wargaming, Xsolla, Sperasoft, Values Value, Belka Games as well as other game companies and studios.
The conference sponsors held extra activities in the Industry Expo, such as live pitches, lectures on employment, Q&A sessions with the company’s team, etc. The attendees had a chance to stop by the virtual booths of Unreal Engine, tinyBuild, Globant, Nexters, Values Values, and InGame Job.
Networking
The online format offers just as many opportunities to meet and talk with new people as the offline one. Everyone who attended DevGAMM Fall 2021 had a chance to see it with their own eyes.
We had 7 roundtables – closed discussions of the burning industry topics between 10-12 experts. This time, the tables were focused on salaries, depression and productivity, metaverse, investments, and other things. Professionals from Xsolla, Values Value, Harpy Media, and other companies fulfilled the roles of moderators.
On the first day of the event, we held Random Networking where attendees could have 5-minute video calls with random people.
Developers and publishers had their own activity with random meetings called Speed Game Dating. We divided it into mobile and desktop streams for convenience.
To make it easier to look for publishers, we created a dedicated list of the most active ones, the Publisher List. Developers were able to schedule meetings with publishers right from there to introduce their projects.
Even though the conference was meant to be entirely online, an additional offline event took place in Minsk. Hosted in a comfy META ARENA space for cybersport events, it offered a chance to watch the event activities, meet with the game dev community, and even grab a DevGAMM cocktail.
Games
Games Hub featured 185 titles from 39 world countries serving as a virtual showcase where you could find information about some fresh projects. Developers took part in gaming activities to demonstrate their projects to the attendees and even more.
The traditional game reviews ran in 4 tracks: game design, marketing, audio, and art. Experts in relevant fields analyzed 24 games and shared their best advice for making them better.
This time, we had as many as 12 game bloggers streaming new projects at Streaming Showcase. With the support of HypeFactory , B_U_L_O_C_H_K_A, Tomatos, TianKami, RoadHouse, ArtGamesLP, Jeens and mooniverse. had a chance to play through games. There were also such streamers as Amiko-chan, Holodilnick, ah0ra, Ducat and Ruslan_maybe. In total, they tested 125 newly launched titles.
Public Pitch
The qualification phase started a month before the conference. Once a week, game industry experts would gather to review 4 developer pitches and select the one that has the best potential.
The finalists presented their improved pitches live and experts from Bossa Studio, The Games Fund, Achievers Hub, tinyBuild picked the best one. The pitch for Dwarven Skykeep made by Hack The Publisher bore the palm this time.
DevGAMM Awards
We received 148 submissions to the prestigious competition between developers. Three judging rounds later with more than 60 judges involved, we got 30 game nominees from 15 different countries.
The prize money at DevGAMM Awards stood at $40,000 thanks to our sponsors tinyBuild, Xsolla, Green Grey and GEM Capital.
Warren Spector, Thomas Beekers, Alisa Chumachenko, and other special guests have announced the winners at the online grand ceremony. Batora: Lost Haven by Stormind Games took the Grand Prize.
Career opportunities
Career Wall featured over 200 vacancies at Xsolla, Black Caviar Games, Ubisoft, Vizor, Game Insight, Playrix, tinyBuild, Globant, MYTONA, G5 Games, and other companies and game studios. We picked them together with our conference partner inGame Job.
Livestreams
Hosts from three top game media went live every day to talk about new games and interview developers! Over the three days of 8-hour livestreams, developers of over 70 newly launched projects had their time in the spotlight!
We want to thank everyone who joined us at DevGAMM Fall 2021! Our special thanks go to sponsors and partners of the conference: Unreal Engine, tinyBuild, Xsolla, Black Caviar Games, Nexters, Globant, Wargaming, Belka Games, GEM Capital, Green Grey, PINE, VALUES VALUE, InGame Job, NIKO Firm, META ARENA, HypeFactory.
The event was truly global and action-packed. A perfect 2021 season end! Until next time 😉
Yours truly,
DevGAMM team
