Record breaking summer is ahead of us, plus plans for gamescom
Game Conference Guide Insights - July 2023
Summer is in full swing as we are entering a slowdown from the hefty number of virtual showcases and presentations delivered in the first half of June. To be precise, it is much needed, as last month brought the record-breaking number of events (44) in general since Game Conference Guide has started to track them. The upcoming period is going to give us a breathing room before the build-up phase starts again with inevitable and exhausting Gamescom in August.
Speaking about Gamescom, scroll down for the list of all side-events and showcases accompanying this behemoth of an event. As always, Game Conference Guide offers you to list them all with quick search for “Gamescom” on the main page.
June wasn’t only smashing records with the number of events; it was also driving number of visits to the website beyond any expectations. Steady and slow growth was accelerated by the showcases and searches for events to visit during summer to such extent, Game Conference Guide welcomed twice as many visitors compared to any other month. I am beyond happy. Thank you all who is using the website.
United States took the lead with almost 25% of visitors, followed by United Kingdom with 11%, France with 6%, Canada and Germany with 4%. Surprisingly, China generated 5% of all visits during June for the first time!
Substack’s dashboard has a very nifty new feature tracking subscribers of this blog. It correlates with the country of origin for visitors. 17% of subscribers are coming from US and United Kingdom each, followed by Germany (8%), Canada (6%) and France (4%).
June generated a huge number of people subscribing, which is always great to see. Thank you for reading and if you do not know where to start, here are the Top 3 articles from this year. They are full of data and great insights into E3, dry events and more:
Making events safer
Cancellation of E3
Events in full Bloom
PARTNER OF THE MONTH
Are you going to gamescom and do you want to plan more meetings ahead?
Join the largest summer matchmaking service in the games industry!
MeetToMatch - The Cologne Edition 2023, powered by Xsolla is your most relevant platform for business in the games industry during gamescom since 2016. Trusted by thousands of publishers, investors, governments and developers, our platform enables you to get in contact with the right people from game companies around the world and network by choice rather than chance.
Current signups include: Playstation, Bandai Namco, Blitworks Games, 11bit Studios, Focus Entertainment, Poki, 101XP, Ravenage, Gameseer, Oculus Publishing, United Games, Kongregate and many more!
Plan your meetings at various locations such as a booth, a meeting point, or a custom location. Do you have your own booth or location? Let us know and your meetings will be booked there. No private location? No problem! The platform will automatically assign a Meeting Point at one of the partner pavilions inside the Koelnmesse, or you can select a custom location of your choosing.
Readers of Game Conference Guide get 10% off their ticket, so grab yours now and start gamescom with a full schedule!
I have almost forgot to mention, we are way past 1000 events in the database covering 2000 - 2024! This is huge landmark. The archive will undergo a big change though. Instead of dividing events into seasons by calendar year, I am planning to group them together, so you can search in one table instead of switching between multiple ones when looking back.
Speaking about changes behind the scenes. Twitter changed the API policy, and with that, automated scripts announcing new events stopped working. For you dear followers, nothing has changed. The number of tweets is not overwhelming, so I am adding them manually, meaning whenever there is a new event added, I will tweet about it instead of a robot.
Upcoming Devcom and Gamescom schedule for showcases and side-events + how to watch them
When it comes to big flashy presentations, gamescom was always lacking behind nonE3 in the number of announcements and the number of big showcases. Compared to last year, we are going to deal with the same number of events / Showcases.
Do not worry, you won’t miss the usual suspects like Opening Night Live produced by Geoff Keighley, Future Game Show and few others as well. There is a high possibility smaller publishers / labels will announce something later.
August 20 – 22: Devcom (B2B conference)
August 22: Courage Cologne
August 22: Opening Night Live
August 23: Future Game Show
August 23 - 27: Gamescom
If you are a trade visitor, consider signing up for MeetToMatch, our Partner of the Month, use the discount to book your ticket and meet all relevant publishers, investors, and developers during the gamescom.
This was 34th issue of Game Conference Guide Insights delivered to your inbox monthly. If you like what you are seeing and want to support, consider turning your free subscription into paid, or buy me a coffee on Patreon.
Special thanks goes to my supporters, namely: Jeanette, Kate, Takaaki, Damir, Masatoshi, Erik, Robin, Mateusz, Justin, Tobi & Jay.
[Game Conference Guide is tracking games industry & game developers events, trade shows, festivals, conferences and events around the world.]
Thank you for reading and supporting Game Conference Guide. Consider sharing it with your peers, colleagues, and community.
Pavol Buday, curator @ GCG