The mother of all showcases is almost here
Game Conference Guide Insights - December 2024
This month I do have a very short update for you.
From all I can remember, the time around The Game Awards was when the industry went quiet with a bang. When I was covering games, the news cycle slowed down almost to a halt. It was the time of the year, when the Black Friday and Cyber Monday preceded the slowdown of the industry followed by a bit of an excitement and equal outrage around the The Game Awards and that was it. That will be all in 2024.
If you look at the schedule there are only 9 events till the end of the year and we have entered the most lucrative showcase week of all. The Game Awards is the most expensive of all and it attract the biggest number of viewers. I am not here to talk about the importance of it, the avoidance of mentioning layoffs and other tough challenges the whole industry is facing, or the commercialization of the broadcast, or why is it called awards.
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From the pure viewership perspective it is the most important and there are partner events tied to it. Again, Game Conference Guide is zooming in on the winter showcase season kickstarted by PC Gaming Show and Indie Live Expo broadcastsed in multiple languages on 5th and 7th of December respectively.
Below you can find all the showcases and awards broadcasted this December. On the Game Conference Guide website you can find full entry with exact times, descriptions, direct links and if the broadcast finishes, you will find a direct link to on demand version there and in the accompanied calendar.
5 Dec (12PM PT / 3PM ET / 9PM CET) - PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted
7 Dec (2AM PT / 5AM ET / 11AM CET) - INDIE Live Expo
8 Dec (12PM PT / 3PM ET / 9PM CET) - Indie Awards
10 Dec (4PM PT / 7PM ET / 1AM CET (11 Dec)) - Latin American Games Showcase: Game Awards Edition
10 Dec (9AM PT / 12PM ET / 6PM CET) - Slitherine Next
11 Dec (9AM PT / 12PM ET / 6PM CET) - Day of the Devs: Game Awards Edition
12 Dec (TBA) - Access-Ability Winter
12 Dec (4:30PM PT / 7:30PM ET / 1:30AM (Dec 13) CET) - The Game Awards
14 Dec (TBA) - Horror Game Awards
19 Dec (4PM PT / 7PM ET / 1AM CET (Dec 20)) - Indie Game Awards
Showcases are getting more and more popular. This year alone 156 of them happened. Game Conference Guide will track them moving forward in 2025 as well. Once again, I want to give a big shotout to Simon Carless from who convinced me to make a dedicated page. Cheers, sir!
Watch the Showcase page to be continously updated in 2025.
What is going to happen during Christmas holidays?
Behind the scenes at Game Conference Guide, the usual annual clean up will start; preparing the database for the 2025 and prioritizing these events. The ones from 2024 will be archived alongside all events from 2020 – 2023 creating an achive of almost 1500 events in total. The Archive acts as a time capsule especially for the pandemic years, that were transformative how we run and attend events.
On the main page you will start seeing donut graphs breaking down 2025 events and the line graph will undergo some changes as well to reflect upcoming season.
These changes will be happening slowly before and in between Christmas and New Year. There won’t be any downtime or interuption of the service.
Next steps will be digging through the data and preparing the annual Year in the Review (read the one from last year) followed by an analysis of the ticket prices, and you can bet we were paying more for events this year compared to 2023.
Lastly, I want to wish you all Happy Holidays. The games industry continues to be challenged and we are all in it together. I know it is hard to step back, if you can, try to spend the time with family, loved ones, espace from the reality into books, virtual worlds, or nature. Eat all the great food out there and we will see each other in 2025 at some event out there. There will be plenty of them and you can bet, you will find them here at Game Conference Guide.
Oh, and if you are feeling too festive, buy me a cup of coffee. I will need one while crunching the data.
See you all in 2025!
[Game Conference Guide is helping you find your next games industry events & showcase.]
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Pavol Buday, curator @ GCG