Game Conference Guide – NEWS #4
The one about the kick-off of the (digital) event season
Welcome to 2021. Some say that this year is a sequel to 2020, but I hope we are in for some positive surprises in the long run.
Searching, planning, not travelling
In January, usually every seasoned business traveller had their calendar pretty much sorted out for most of the year. They could tell you, which city they will visit each month due to a landmark event their are planning to attend. By landmark I mean, an event generating a lot of traffic overtaking the conversation of the said month.
Creating a travel calendar was very predictable. Starting the conversation in March (GDC), following up in April (Reboot Develop), shaking hands in May (Nordic Game), closing the lead over a dinner in June (E3) or August (gamescom). Planning ahead, adding new event to the travel calendar based on recommendations, new business strategy, or because you are going to be in a near vicinity, was much easier and predictable due to the dates of the events available sooner.
As of today, there is a lot of unknowns and questions about certain landmark events. A lot of conferences and events are moving announcements and ticket sale closer to starting dates. News is breaking slower with updates, new additions to the programme, line-up, or offering for B2B audiences. Last year showed us that planning ahead is not only impossible for organizers (find out more in Newsletter issue #2) but also for those who are attending events. It is very common that conferences are being announced at the 11th hour month or just a few weeks before they start. I am not saying this didnt happen before, but in 2020 this strategy was more pronounced.
Sadly, what we are seeing as well are the victims of the new landscape shift. Some of them are putting pause on all activities, staying completely silent, and some are coming out and announcing they are not coming back, like Ludicious (also one of those landmark events). Personally I have only good memories tied to this smaller & highly focused event from Switzerland with very tight community of lovely people and great selection of curated games. Ludicious was previously held in January and was considered to kicking-off the whole event season.
What does the data say?
As noted in Newsletter Issue #2, new formats are being introduced and it is expected that highly focused events will flourish more in 2021. Game Conference Guide’s calendar is quickly filling up with events scheduled for 2021. Many newcomers are among 88 events. February, March and April have already more events scheduled per month compared with 2020 and not necessary with annual editions. In March we see 400% increase in number of events (in 2020 the dip was cause by harsh lockdowns).
It is still too early to say, if there are going to be more events in 2021 (GCG started to track properly events in late March last year), but a slight increase is expected. By cross-referencing the data, there are still more than 50 annual events waiting to announce their plans for 2021. Will they return? We have to wait a bit.
Monthly update
Some of you may have noticed already, some entries have a label NEW next to them. This tag in not filterable (yet), but you can use the full-text search to find newly added events (bear in mind that the search will return also locations like New York and New Zealand). This is a truly very small step into the next big feature I want to develop to help better understand the event just by glance without reading the lengthy info. And hopefully to help you identify similar events you enjoyed in the past.
Adding new entries to the database is also closely tied to Twitter bot which is shaping up very nicely and I hope it will start to tweet very soon. In the meantime, pls follow @gameconfguide.
What is also visible immediately, is an updated view for the list of all events. By a glance you can see more details about every entry without the need to open up more detailed view by clicking on the blue “i” next to a logo. It is a very small visual update for both mobile and desktop versions.
During the annual clean-up, few of the events from 2021 calendar were cleansed and purged, especially those tied to gaming (gambling). These are no longer featured. Big sales events like Steam February Sale started to be featured in the database and also virtual showcases that poped-up as an alternative to E3 in 2020.
Introducing… Event Deadlines
This one was in my head for a long time, and with introduction of the Event Deadlines the Game Conference Guide is even more comprehensive and more robust. Event Deadlines gathers details about awards, gamedev pitches, competitions of various kinds, showcases, even those happening during a bigger event / conference in a list and offers by a glance most of the sought-after details including fees, deadline, date of the event and location. Type of the event and any special features are highlighted by a label for easier identification.
As usual, you can filter all the entries, use full text search and find out more details behind the blue “i” button. For easier navigation, you can click on the logo to visit the event website.
Event Deadlines also have a separated calendar offering automated reminders set to 7 days and 2 days prior the deadlines.
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Did you know?
Game Conference Guide is accessible to anyone with fully integrated calendar, event deadlines and reminders, daily updated database of events around the world + free insights from the games industry events landscape delivered to your inbox monthly. No payment wall, no registration necessary. Help make it better and most comprehensive tool for tracking games industry events by supporting it on Patreon.
Before I wrap up this issue of the newsletter, here is a question for you. Are you interested in following more consumer driven events like cons / festivals, or super small events that moved temporarily to Discord / Twitch? Obviously GCG covers PAX, Global Game Jam, or GenCon are tracked, but there are more of these consumer / fan driven out there. Let me know in the comments.
Thank you for reading and supporting Game Conference Guide. Consider sharing it with your peers, colleagues and community.
Pavol Buday, curator of GCG
[Game Conference Guide is tracking games industry & game developers events, trade shows, festivals, conferences and events around the world.]