State of the games industry events in 2023 - Year in Review
Game Conference Guide Insights - January 2024
Hello and welcome to 2024.
The reason you are reading is, is you. Yes you. I wouldn’t be able to provide you insights or write an article without subscribers and visitors of Game Conference Guide. You are amazing. Apologies for a bit sentimental opening but looking at the numbers I was blown away by the growth and the interest in this project. Thank you all.
I would like to start with an excerpt from last month’s blog perfectly encapsulating 2023 and how I feel about it.
The year 2023 is not without its challenges. Geopolitical situation is affecting everyone; war in Ukraine continues, while the Israel – Hamas conflict took the world by storm. We are still seeing high interest rates, the investment is dropping below pre-Covid times, the games industry is on one side celebrated by the number of hits, on the other more than 9,000 jobs have been cut throughout the whole year. These are out of control events affecting the attendance, pricing, and availability of events.
Many events are back to normal and operating as usual, not without changes though. Local initiatives welcomed back their efforts and they are successfully catering to smaller audiences, while some were cancelled, and their future existence is questioned.
During 2023 there were more events than in 2022 (307 compared to 291); they were happening everywhere, in all formats and they were back. Events were running without health & safety or any other restrictions. Yes, some have changed the locations, or moved to a different timeline, all usual suspects are back and, on the track, to attract similar number or higher number of visitors then pre-covid (I am looking at you GDC).
PARTNER OF THE MONTH
This month’s Pocket Gamer Connects London 2024 conference will be bigger and better than ever.
On 22nd and 23rd January, the much-loved UK event will once again bring together game developers, publishers, investors and industry professionals from around the world to share insights, network, and explore the latest trends.
In 2024, it will be celebrating its 10th anniversary! That’s right; the first Pocket Gamer Connects took place in 2014. In this anniversary year, you can expect to meet over 2,600 game industry professionals who will enjoy four stages of exclusive talks and panels.
There will be networking activities, including two parties, the traditional pitching competition, a Careers Zone for recruiters and more. And with this code, you can celebrate this 10th-anniversary conference with 10% off any ticket: PARTNER10. Please hurry – tickets are selling faster than usual!
Events in 2023 were more expensive mirroring the inflation and higher costs of living. And the local events were gaining momentum as their importance is higher than ever not just for newcomers but for business to explore regions they never visited before.
B2C events were celebrating fandom rather than focusing on a single hobby. B2B events were raising the quality of hospitality to compensate the higher costs, and I have seen an improvement in the sessions highlighting often overlooked topics like ADHD, safety on the workspace and toxicity.
I would like to say there weren’t that many surprises, but I would be lying. The end of the year brought two major bombshells; gamescom is moving to Latin America by acquiring BIG Festival and strengthening its position as a gaming powerhouse; and E3 is officially death as ESA called it finally. And for the second time ESA made my predictions what the events will look like in 2024 wrong again. At least in this point.
June was becoming very attractive again. Showcases sprinkled around Summer Game Fest were making the headlines as multiple publishers including Xbox and Ubisoft tried to emulate the former E3 week with in-person press conferences in Los Angeles.
2023 was the year of physical events; 232 of them happened compared to 118 in 2022. There has been 43% decrease in virtual events, 57% decrease in hybrid format, clearly indicating, where the preference for attendees and visitors lies.
In general, there has been 10% increase in number of events compared to year prior and the events were very healthy, only 9 of them were cancelled (44% less than in 2022). What we have seen was changing the length of the events, in majority cases the plans were cut short, and the content was squeezed into a single day (for budgeting reasons and considering the interest from attendees).
On average, 28 events (in 2022 it was 24.5) were announced per month scheduled to happen during 2023 and beyond. Don’t mistake it for the number of events happening per month.
The biggest chunk of events (106) was announced during Q1 with 99% of them scheduled for 2023. November was the month with the biggest number of events announced for 2024. Usually, the events for the next season are being announced in the last quarter. For the past two years it was around 50 of them.
Game Conference Guide in Review: 2023 Edition
Game Conference Guide is growing and again breaking all my humble predictions. I have seen 46% increase in the number of subscribers for this blog. All of them are organic as I am not adding any emails manually. I am super happy about this, that there is an audience reading what I have to say. And I am preparing small changes with introductions of new formats and topics to be discussed here in this newsletter.
I was blown away by the reception of the partner of the month programme, and I can say very confidently that 2024 is sold out. And by looking at it, it seems 2025 is on the right track to locked and booked as well.
2024 was also the introduction of Showcases, which became very popular during June, and then during Gamescom and VGA Awards in December with smaller satellite broadcasts. There have been 174 showcases in total last year and in 2024 I want to focus on them as well. Bear in mind, these are very hard to track, so there are some I missed.
There is a new calendar, now tracking Events, Showcases and Deadlines, and it is easier to see how populated the days are.
When it comes to number of supporters (Patreons and paid subscribers here on Substack) there is 12 of you in total. If you want to increase this number, you will be joining a club of awesome humans: Jeanette, Kate, Takaaki, Damir, Masatoshi, Erik, Robin, Mateusz, Justin, Tobi & Jay.
Again, you have helped to keep Game Conference Guide running smoothly during the year. Yes, there were few downtimes which will be negated by changing the hosting provider in coming weeks and hopefully the website will be on a faster backbone.
Game Conference Guide in numbers:
Total number of events in 2023: 307 (increase by 5,5% from 291)
82% of all of them were physical, compared to nearly 66% in 2022
only 3% (10 out of 321) were cancelled or postponed compared to 5% (16 out of 291 in 2022).
The biggest number of events originated from EU (54%) followed by North America (28%).
United Kingdom contributed with the biggest number of events 30 (24 from UK last year), followed by Germany with 26 (same in 2022).
You are looking for events mostly during work hours on desktops (65%), the rest is using mobile device to access the website.
Longest running events in 2023 were: Tribecca Festival (12), London Games Festival (11) and LatinX Games Festival (10).
Busiest days of 2023 was 12th and 13th of October with 9 events happening simultaneously. In 2022 it was 8th of November with 8 events.
Median duration of a single event was 2 days (same as in 2022), average duration was 2,7 days (same as in 2022).
If you would have decided to attend every single event in 2023 (except those that were cancelled) it would take you: 546 working days and 199 weekend days. Compared to 554 working days and 210 weekends in 2022.
In total you would be conferencing nonstop for 2 years and then some, 745 days to be exact. It is a decrease by 2,5% from 2022 with 764 days.
During the 2023, Game Conference Guide has seen:
Most visitors are coming from:
United States
United Kingdom
China
France
Canada (Followed by Germany, Spain, Poland, Netherlands, and Russia.)
And this is the Year in Review. Hope you are ready for another one.
Next month I will be looking at the ticket prices for conferences and big shows. Stay tuned!
[Game Conference Guide is tracking games industry & game developers events, trade shows, festivals, conferences and events around the world.]
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Pavol Buday, curator @ GCG