image by mrtopp

The three main conferences I go to each year are GDC (San Francisco), Casual Connect (Seattle), PAX Dev + PAX (Seattle).

Someone on a forum I frequent asked what the benefits are, and so I thought I’d list what I specifically find useful about them. Your mileage may vary:

Press/Publishers/Distributors

– Meeting press so you can build personal relationship (Friend of mine gets taken to dinner by well-known press. They always write up his news.)
– Showing game demos to press (Another friend of mine came to GDC the first time this year and got tons of press mentions including a GameSpot video.)
– Meeting new publishers/distributors.
– Strengthening relationships with existing publishers/distributors so they remember you when you ask them to feature your games.
– Initiating or making deals.
– Getting your brand out there. (I wear a Grey Alien Games T-shirt and obviously have lots of business cards)

Other Devs

– Interesting educational/motivational talks with useful takeaways.
– Helps keep your finger on the pulse with regards to what’s happening in the industry as a whole and within your niche.
– Discussing business/marketing strategies and sales figures with other indies who are willing to share.
– Meeting new indies (and people you’ve only spoken to online) and strengthening relationships with indies. Apart from the fact that hanging with indies is enjoyable to me, sometimes it can result in future alliances, or key bits of useful info, or introductions to people etc.
– Checking out the IGF games in one place and meeting the devs. Plus getting a feel for what sort of game wins awards.

Misc Cool Stuff

– Getting motivated to get on with your work when you get back.
– Helping you to decide on new directions to take your business in and give you new ideas about what to do with your old IP.
– A break from your normal routine, and in my case, better weather than at home too!
– Being in another country/city.
– Parties, free food/booze, music.
– Hanging with Notch (or insert game dev celebrity of your choice)

There’s probably more but that’s a good start.

What reasons have I missed that you go to conferences for?

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 4:34 am and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.