By Alex Calvin, PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor
The inaugural PC Connects London is right around the corner, kicking off next Monday.
We've been working really hard to fill the two day and four track conference with some of the biggest and brightest names in the PC games sector and wanted to share with you some of the top reasons to come check out this brand new b2b conference.
The State of Play track is taking place on the morning of Monday 22nd, and will be looking at the big trends affecting the PC games market overall.
We have Epic Games' Sjoerd De Jong sharing their knowledge about surviving as an indie, Thomas Bidaux telling us how the video games crowdfunding market performed in 2017, while No More Robots' Mike Rose is going to be making the case for being realistic about PC sales figures.
That's on top of talks from Polystream about streaming, Edge Case Games talking the premium to free-to-play transitions, Video Game Tax Relief advice from Rift Group's Liam Dowe and much, much more. Good Shepherd's Ben Andac and I will also be taking to the stage to tackle your questions about the indie games scene, working with a publisher. Drop me a line to have your query answered.
2
DIGITAL DISCOVERY
The second track on Monday is Digital Discovery - a set of talks all about getting your game noticed in an increasingly busy marketplace.
Indie heroes such as Team17, Square Enix Collective, Curve Digital, Imperia Online will be offering their insight into making your game stand out from the crowd, while communications guru Jon Torrens is going to be telling us his top tips for pitching to secure investment.
We also have two panels as part of this session - our indie marketing session, chaired by AlphaBetaGamer's Jupiter Hadley, will see ID@Xbox, Curve Digital, Raw Fury, Auroch and Ndemic Creations giving us a sense of the indie publishing scene and its pitfalls. The PR and marketing panel, chaired by GamesIndustry.biz's UK editor James Batchelor, and features PRs Caroline Miller and Stefano Petrullo, as well as Bossa marketing chief Tracey McGarrigan and PCGamesN editorial boss Joel Gregory sharing their tips for getting word out about your game.
3
PC GAMES UNIVERSITY
Kicking off the second day of PC Connects London 2018 is the PC Games University track, a series of sessions that's all to do with the technical side of game development. We have Jagex telling us about making games on PC and mobile, while Hyper Light Drifter programmer Juju Adams is going to be to be telling us about the power of communities in gmaes development.
Rob Davis of Playniac is sharing his thoughts on paper prototyping, we have Scirra's Ashely Gullen bringing us up to speed on HTML5 games tech while Susan Cummings is talking about decentralised development. Meanwhile, Multiplay - yep, that Multiplay, will be telling us about best practices when making a multiplayer game.
4
THE MAKING OF
Closing off PC Connects London 2018 is The Making Of, where we are taking you behind the scenes on some of the hottest releases in recent memory. Dominic Matthews from Ninja Theory is going to be giving a post-mortem about Hellblade, its 2017 hit, while Sports Interactive's Miles Jacobson will be having a fireside chat with Games London boss Michael French about the recent innovations to Football Manager.
Mike Bithell will be sharing his thoughts on making smaller games, such as last year's surprise release Subsurface Circular, while Splendy Games' Simon Sparks will be telling us how live-action adventure game The Bunker game together. We have Andrew Smith of Spilt Milk telling us... what to do when you find yourself making an MMO, and Cliff Harris tells us about making Production Line. The title of that talk has 'hell' in the title, so you know it's going to be a good one.
5
THE PC INDIE PITCH
As well as the wealth of talks taking place at the show, there's also the PC Indie Pitch. Developers put their creations in front of a panel of judges with the best ones winning prizes and exposure through PCGamesInsider.biz.
Developers - this is also a free way of getting into the show. All you need to do is email [email protected] and I'll put you in touch with the relevant people.
There's been some top quality games come through the Big Indie Pitch in the past - is your game the next big hit?
6
THE MOBILE GAME AWARDS
There's also the Mobile Game Awards taking place on Tuesday, January 23rd, if you're into that sort of thing. POcketGamer.biz Craig Chapple and co have been working really hard on this inaugural event that's set to celebrate the best that mobile games market has to offer.
So, this is a Steel Media joint, so you know we have your best interests at heart. We also have a number of parties taking place alongside the event, so come rub shoulders with the games industry's best and - probably - drunkest at this year's show.
Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.
