The Inevitable future of events at the Game Conference Guide
Game Conference Guide Insights - September 2021
Next month, the Game Conference Guide is going to be online for exactly one year. Time flies, huh? At first, it was available as a soft-launch version during September 2020 to selected industry experts and close friends. Their input helped the initial prototype to shape into a website you are using today to find your next event. Now, for a true anniversary post you will have to wait till October.
I would like to talk today about what is planned for this project.
When I started Game Conference Guide, I wanted to be as accessible as possible (= no gatekeeping content behind paywalls) on any device. The website since launch has grown and changed with new features and components I was not planning at the beginning. And with that some of them are all over the place, not where they should be, easy to reach from the main page. With that said, new upgrades are needed, plus some back-end magic, which leads to...
This month, a new foundation is being laid down to create Game Conference Guide 2.0. Now, before we get there, I need your help.
Thanks to amazing partners, awesome companies, ongoing support, and a sizable separate fund I managed to secure, the plan is to enhance the experience, add visible design improvements and prepare it for the truly next-gen version that hopefully will come with a complete graphic overhaul.
I would like to invite you all to be part of the Game Conference Guide 2.0 and help me to make the most comprehensive website tracking events. Same as during the soft-launch many features and updates were suggested by my close friends and I am ready to listen to you, how you are using the website, what you miss, and I want to hear great stories from an event you discovered thanks to GCG via a short survey.
It takes around 2-3 minutes to complete and it is anonymous.
By taking this survey you are helping me and your peers to have a better experience while using the Game Conference Guide. Thank you.
Not very keen on answering a few questions and you want to contribute in a different way? Here are few suggestions how you can participate:
- Share the link to the website with your friends, peers and colleagues
- Support the GCG by buying me a coffee
- Become a partner of the month (currently booking slots for next year starting with January 2022). Ping me for more details.
MATH FOR SEPTEMBER
This summer we have seen two mega virtual happenings spanning multiple days involving various companies and participating organizers; E3 during June and gamescom which just concluded in August.
During the E3 period (June 10 - 22) there were in total 15 events, festivals and showcases happening (not including EA Play held on July 22). On the other hand, during five-day gamecom week (Aug 23 - 27), only 8 events were scheduled. For years, gamescom has been considered as an underdog to E3, where all the major titles are usually premiering first. For European audiences breadcrumbs are served, and it is interesting to see this trend to continue in the virtual events age where these mega events are targeting primarily global audiences.
There is more to this, and I want to revisit the numbers from both events in one of the next issues.
To see all E3 events, visit Game Conference Guide and type “E3summer” in the search bar, for a list of supporting gamescom events type “gamescom”. Be aware: results will return Asian sister event and recently announced 2022 edition as well.
Lately, I was playing with the nature of events and wondered how to visualize it. By combining monthly data you can see how many physical, hybrid and virtual events were happening this year. Dotted green line represents the total number of scheduled events in 2021, not including the cancelled ones. Yes, there are a lot of them, plus more are coming.
This graph will be updated on a monthly basis and published with every issue of the newsletter. You can filter the events by nature on the Game Conference Guide anytime.
PARTNER OF THE MONTH
WEBINAR | Make the most of your multiplayer games - AWS & Gameye
A match made in heaven
On 9th September, The Amazon GameLift FlexMatch team and Gameye are hosting a webinar on how matchmakers and orchestration work together.
Give your players a better experience
It’s no fun playing against someone who trounces you every game. And it’s even worse if you’re lagging all over the place. So how do you make sure your players get a fair – and lag-free – match? One they’re pitched against players of the same skill, but also in the same location. No matter when or where they are. That’s where you’ll need a matchmaker and orchestrator.
In this webinar, listen to Gameye and AWS as we discuss the challenges, the technology and the techniques to get started. You’ll learn how matchmaking tools and orchestrators work together, get practical advice on how to set them up, and find the answers to your most important questions.
Join Bruce Brown, software development manager at Amazon GameLift, Elmer Bulthuis, CTO at Gameye, and Kristian Jackson, technical support engineer at Gameye, as they talk through these issues and explain all.
DO YOU LIKE GAME CONFERENCE GUIDE?
Here are few ways how to make it better:
Spread the word, tell your colleagues, friends about your favourite feature and share with them a link to the website and tell them how Game Conference Guide is helping you to navigate through the saturated games industry events landscape
Send me direct feedback. Tell me what could be improved, streamlined, what do you miss.
Buy me a coffee on Patreon.
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.]