Prepare for queues - there will be queues of people waiting to play. We find that 9/10 people at events haven’t tried VR and so, it will be a big draw for crowds. Queues are good though as you have a steady stream of people eager to play and willing to listen to you whilst they wait, so prepare some queue chat subjects. So where possible, have as many demo stations as people / space / budget allows, remembering to allocate one person per booth with floaters for queue management and breaks.
People are less likely to want to try a headset sat there unused - we haven’t worked out why but if it’s just there as a weird looking bit of tech, people will be more hesitant to be the first to have a go. So if quiet (which is unlikely) have someone on the team play and have fun doing it.
Seating for safety - unless you are demoing HTC Vive and using room-scale to full effect, ensure you have a seat available for people to park on so that they are less likely to feel nauseous, fall over or stumble about. First timers tend to over-react to the motion sensation and will throw themselves around!
Regular wiping - be prepared to clean the headset and lenses regularly; headset foam with natural baby wipes and lenses with a good cloth. Try to avoid alcohol-based anti-bacterial wipes unless you can make sure it’s dry without any residue before the next user, otherwise it might react with contact lens fluids and give people a nasty reaction (have seen this happen!) After doing events for many years, this is why we have a set of headsets that are only used by us for development, without x,000 human skin cells embedded in the foam.
Set defaults - most VR headsets and software offer options to tailor specific dimensions of the user for the optimum visual experience. However this is time-consuming and requires an understanding of how VR works and the technology, which when dealing with high volumes of people (see point 1.) you aren’t going to have time to tweak settings for each and every person. If you set to default average settings, you can still give a great experience and any comments about blurriness can be overcome with a request to “find the sweet spot”.
LATEST NEWS
Calling all wannabe speakers!
Develop:Brighton brings together the game dev community to share ideas, learn and be inspired by each other. So if you have an idea for a conference session we'd love to hear it. Hurry - the deadline for submissions is 19 February!
find out more
If you really want to have a good interface with the British game developer community then this is the place to come.
Kate Edwards
Geogrify
There’s something creative about Brighton, so it’s the perfect place to have the conference.
Graham Devine
Magic Leap
Develop is an excellent way of catching up with people – there’s a really nice community feel here.
Mike Bithell
Mike Bithell Games
Develop:Brighton is especially unique - it’s by the seaside and there’s a lovely relaxed tone that goes with that.The talks are cool, the networking is cool and having the opportunity to catch up with people – that’s always the excitement for me!
Sean Murray
Hello Games
A lot of the opportunities that come from being here are speaking to other developers who are doing exactly the same thing as you. And there are some good parties – it’s very much a pleasurable work experience!
Gemma Foster
Dlala Studios
There really is a huge mix of people at Develop - loads of peers that you can learn from and the perfect blend of every element of game development as well.
Alex Moyet
Curve Digital
I’ve felt a big passion here at Develop!
Tetsuya Mizuguchi
Enhance Games
By coming to Develop what you get is the opportunity to network like you can’t in any other situation. Everyone knows everyone and it’s such a wonderful community feel.
Jessica Saunders
Salix Games
It’s really nice to see some of the younger people in our studio come to Develop, interact with other people in the dev community and make new contacts. I think it’s really important to learn from other people.
Abbie Heppe
Media Molecule
There’s really something for everyone at Develop and the experience of being around like-minded people is really useful.
Grace Carroll
Creative Assembly
Get involved today!
There are many ways you can be part of Develop:Brighton 2020 - including speaking in the conference, taking a booth in the Expo or becoming a sponsor.
Find out moreOur Partners
Platinum Partners
Partners
Media Partners
