Case Study GDC 2016: How Do You Attract More Than 26,000 Game Developers to San Francisco?
30 years are an eternity in the world of gaming – but that is exactly how long GDC, the Game Developers Conference has already been around! What makes it such a spectacular event? Find out here!
GDC: Game Designer Community Meeting Point for Over 30 Years
Gamers are part of a very special community. That applies to game developers, too! It is really something special to have more than 26,000 experts from this sector gather annually in San Francisco – and in 2016 already for the 30th time!
The gaming industry ecosystem is made up of programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio specialists and of course managers and decision makers. They all gathered last week in San Francisco at GDC 2016, the 30th Game Developer Conference, to discuss new trends, exchange ideas and shape the future of the gaming industry together.
It’s that time of year again. Where I get jealous of everybody having fun and meeting cool Gamedev folk at #gdcconf
— Stewart Needham (@coolbeenz) 2. März 2015
How do you design an event that retains so many experts over such a long period of time? Let’s take a look at how the organizer, UBM, shaped the event in San Francisco.
21 Thematic Tracks, 7 Format Categories
No less than 21 thematic tracks are on offer at the conference. The topics range from artificial intelligence (AI) to monetization, career opportunities in the gaming industry, up to special developments for smartphones and tablets.
The topics were presented in 7 different types of formats: classical session, tutorials, boot camps, roundtables or poster presentations, to name a few. UBM dedicated a full three day program to monetization alone!
You can easily get lost in such a variety of offers. UBM offered the participants the Session Scheduler, a powerful tool that lets you put together your own conference plan.
Virtual Reality Developers Conference VRDC
In parallel to GDC, the Virtual Reality Developers Conference was held for the first time. This booming topic will open new gaming horizons through virtual and augmented reality. In the months and years to come, it will definitely cause a lot of excitement in the gaming community.
Minecraft for Gear VR with @oculus. #VRDC pic.twitter.com/8KLuGT5enF
— VRScout (@VRScout) 16. März 2016
Game Developer Choice Awards
At GDC, the Game Developer Choice Awards were held for the 16th time already. It is a very prestigious industry award, presented by the industry, for the industry.
The award ceremony was broadcasted live on Twitch TV and can be viewed on demand at their platform now. Twitch TV is the leading live video and video-on-demand platform for gamers and gets more than 100M views per month.
The emotional highlight of the event was the tribute to Satoru Iwata. The game developer and president of Nintendo died in 2015, after having shaped the industry for many years. This is the touching film that was shown during the awards ceremony:
B2B Matchmaking
UBM puts the needs of the game developer community first, offering a comprehensive program covering all trends and core topics. At the same time, UBM facilitates the personal exchange between game developers.
Since 5 years, Converve provides the business matchmaking platform for this highlight event of the gaming industry, along with the online exhibitor catalogue on the main conference website.
By means of the networking platform, exhibitors and conference participants could arrange meetings well in advance of the event. More than 1,500 participants have managed more than 9000 meeting requests via our platform, among which were firms like Activision, Facebook, Github, Google or Bigpoint from Germany.
Companies that have already used the B2B matchmaking platform come from over 40 countries, supporting international exchange and partnering, as well as forging cross-border cooperation.
Would you like to know more about how B2B matchmaking can make your event more efficient and give visitors and exhibitors an added value? Get in touch now!
