After its fourteen-year-old history, DevGAMM has finally arrived in the Baltics, with its first-ever IRL event in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. And, boy, it was magical. Over 750 game dev professionals from 36 countries and 117 cities joined us on-site, with almost half attending DevGAMM for the first time! Take a quick look at how it all went.
If plain text is not enough, how about a quick video tour?
Content
The stellar lineup of 61 speakers from 20 countries featured such well-known
names as:
- Leszek Szczepański, Guerrilla Games
- Fawzi Mesmar, Game Designer & Author
- Ahmed Salama, Ubisoft Stockholm
- Henrique Olifiers, Bossa Games
- Sergei Savchenko, Bethesda Game Studios
- Alex Nichiporchik, tinyBuild
Plus, there were panel discussions on composing music for games, finding purpose for junior specialists, and looking for differences between Eastern and Western European game audio in venue halls.
Games
This time, twenty games were put on display at the conference. Of course, they gathered a lot of attention from publishers, major brands, and regular spectators. But that wasn’t all!
Public Pitch premiered in a real-life format, and it was a blast! Hosted by Borys Trienin, it featured eight game developers presenting their pitches to well-known publishers. Congrats to the winners of two rounds – Vengeance of Mr. Peppermint, by Hack The Publisher, and Halve, by Moonleaf Studio.
Game Roast was a whirlpool of emotions and fun! We can’t explain what it was like – you should have seen it in person! Here’s a hint: the experts Henrique Olifiers, Michael Kuzmin, Alisa Gurska, and Alexey Davydov roasted four games and four developers. The host Alex Nichiporchik came up with the weirdest cocktails for losers. And yeah, they drained them to the lees.
Networking
The Expo hosted a few dozens of booths with engaging activities. Representatives of tinyBuild, Nordcurrent, Wargaming, Melsoft, Playrix, Glera Games, and other great companies were there to promote, exchange ideas, and hire new people.
PINE was in charge of the Meeting Area, with over 500 sessions of business conversations. Thanks to the sponsor Archibaldi Studio, holders of BUSINESS, SPEAKER, and MEDIA tickets had access to the Business Lounge with live music and additional catering options.
Apart from that, DevGAMM Vilnius kicked off three days earlier with the Online Networking in PINE. So, everyone who could not make it to Vilnius joined online and held 180 video calls.
Roundtable discussions gathered attendees in three streams for private conversations without spectators and recording. Moderated by Wargaming, Playrix, CM Games, and G.Round experts, the participants discussed relocation, education, LiveOps, recruitment, game industry trends, publishing, and much more!
Parties and Special Events
Sponsored by tinyBuild, Pre-Party was the very first event of the conference. Located on the riverside, the venue offered attendees an opportunity to meet each other with a stunning view of the summer sunset.
On top of that, Poker Tournament returned to DevGAMM. It was a tough competition at Olympic Casino Lietuva, but Alexey Dokukin from DECTA was the strongest. Congrats!
Main Party in Artistai Pub turned out to be the key networking thing of the conference! Sponsored by Httpool, it offered alcoholic drinks, a delicious buffet, and new friendships. Plus, we had a special guest: Cloudless Band from Kyiv.
The Charity Auction was the climax of the DevGAMM’s will to support the brave Ukrainians suffering from war. Sponsored by Belka Games, ten items were purchased by the highest bidders, thus raising more than 11 thousand euros. We will transfer these funds to the UA Responders charity fund that helps medical teams, hospitals, paramedics, rescue volunteers, and other first responders in Ukraine.
And more!
Career Wall, sponsored by tinyBuild and powered by InGame Job and Values Value, featured 140 vacancies at top game dev companies such as Playrix, Vizor Games, Easybrain, Belka Games, and many others!
DevGAMM vibes will stay with the attendees for long, thanks to the official limited-collection merchandise brought to the event by Niko Firm.
The new collection features our favorite conference mascot – Lucky the Dog – created by the talented Olga Lebedkova. Lucky stickers for Telegram are available for everybody!
DevGAMM Quest was the funniest activity for the event attendees. One hundred seventy-one participants completed the tasks at expo booths. They got a chance to win PlayStation 5, Xbox X, iPad, Apple Watch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and other fabulous prizes from the conference partners.
Special thanks go to the sponsors of the event. It would have been impossible without tinyBuild, Melsoft, Playrix, Nordcurrent, Wargaming.net, Belka Games, Vizor Games, Glera Games, Huawei AppGallery, devtodev, Nord Beaver, Usercentrics, Clever Ads Solutions, Easybrain, HTTPool, Azur Games, Archibaldi StudioPINE, inGame Job, Values Value, NIKOFIRM, Go Vilnius, Invest Lithuania, Lithuanian Game Developers Association, Plan of Attack and other partners.
Also, huge thanks to our incredible volunteers, speakers, moderators, media, and all the good folks who helped us bring DevGAMM to Vilnius. You are the rock stars 🤟
Check more pictures from the conference and tag your friends on our Facebook page.
Up Next: DevGAMM Game Fest 2022. See you in November!
