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11:15am
James Stone Unity11:15am - 12:00pmRoom 6Indie BootCamp FREETips for Successful Game Development in Unity
Thursday 13th July11:15am - 12:00pmRoom 6A session for new indie devs using Unity, who want to know how to be successful in not only building, but shipping their games on multiple platforms. You will learn how to avoid the common pitfalls that developers encounter when developing their games, and how to approach publishers and platform holders.
Session Takeaway
- Development pitfalls and how to avoid them
- Useful tips on optimising your development and your game
- How to approach publishers and platform holders
12:15pm
Sarah Jones Creative UKPaul Durrant UK Games FundRory Clifford Northern Ireland ScreenChris Filip BFI / UK Global Screen Fund12:15pm - 1:00pmRoom 6Indie BootCamp FREEDemystifying Public Funding for Games Studios
Thursday 13th July12:15pm - 1:00pmRoom 6There is close to £10,000,000 public funding available between the 4 main speakers at this roundtable, available to UK indepedent games studios. However, not many game studios are aware of this funding, and much of it is, due to the way the funds were set up, complex to access, especially for game developers and founders who may come from underrepresented backgrounds, such as working class, English as second language, education leavers or people with dyslexia. This is before factoring in geographical, business, revenue, team or other requirements.
This roundtable is not only the first time these 4 organisations - the UK Global Screen Fund, Northern Ireland Screen, Creative UK and the UK Games Fund - are in a room together, it's the first time we all sit down together with the games industry, explain the funds we manage in plain language and open the floor to any questions to all of us. We will not only be talking about how to apply for the funds, but also how the funds themselves are formed and what we are looking for, as fund managers.
The purpose of this roundtable is to create a resource for game company founders, owners and indies to feel like they can ask any question and eventually access the pots of public funding that are available to them.
Session Takeaway
- Understand how public funds and grants work compared to equity investment and debt investment
- Learn about the funding criteria of the UK Global Screen Fund, funding from Creative UK, the UK Games Fund and funding from Northern Ireland Screen
- Understand how public funds available to games studios are managed
- Gain insights into how assessing funding applications work
- Be able to create a strategy of which public funds are best to apply to for your studio
- Learn about success cases from the UK games industry
2:00pm
Rachel Macpherson Neonhive2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 6Indie BootCamp FREEThey’re Just Not That Indie You: Five Mistakes Devs Make When Pitching to Press
Thursday 13th July2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 6In an increasingly saturated games market, trying to get your indie game noticed by the press can be challenging. But pitching your game to the press can be more complicated than just knowing the right people and the right time to pitch. In this lecture, Rach aims to chat through some of the biggest mistakes developers make when pitching to press, based on data gathered from five industry experts, and how these are often influenced by the changing nature of the games media landscape. Whether it’s planning a robust PR strategy or understanding the relationship between PR and press, this lecture will aim to give devs important tips and tricks to think about when preparing to pitch their game.
Session Takeaway
- Good planning before completing press outreach
- Have a clear idea of the outcome you want from pitching to journalists, when you’re going to pitch and what benefits it would add to your campaign.
- Who you’re going to pitch to is also important.
- Clear idea of messaging
- What is your game, what does it do? More importantly, what’s the tone?
- What works and doesn't work
- Avoiding the pitfalls of pitching (at busy times, to the wrong people, with the wrong angle, with the wrong outcome in mind).
- An understanding of how PR and the press rely on each other and why this relationship is important while pitching.
3:00pm
Sam Jones Pinpoint3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 6Indie BootCamp FREEWhy You’re Already Out Of Touch on TikTok
Thursday 13th July3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 6'We do have a TikTok, but we don’t really use it’
‘We put out a trailer on TikTok and it didn’t really do much’
‘We don’t get many views on our videos, even when our games are discounted in the Steam sale’
The list goes on.
Consumers see straight through inauthenticity; Long-gone are the days of using TikTok as a value-add to your existing marketing strategy – it now plays an integral role in all kinds of marketing campaigns.
In this talk, we will explore the change in content on TikTok over the last few years, and take the mystery out of many of the age-old questions about the platform:
- Should I be on TikTok? If not, why not?
- Is it just for kids?
- Should I be using it personally, or strictly business?
- Why does my content not perform that well?
- Is it essential? Will my game/brand succeed without it? Will it help me sell more games?
- Can I provide measurable results to see the impact it has?
- How can I make content fun and relevant without losing attention to my game?
Session Takeaway
- Insight into how strategy has changed over the last 2-3 years and why – what we know now
- Discussion on why people come to the platform in the first place and how you can tap into the right markets and make the channel work for you
- Practical tips on how you can get started making some fantastic, relevant content
- How to make your tone of voice on TikTok work for you, making your brand values shine authentically
4:00pm
Agnė Vitkutė G.Round4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 6Indie BootCamp FREEHow to Avoid a Bad Steam Score?
Thursday 13th July4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 6This session will focus on playtesting as a tool developers can use in order to improve their game and predict the score at launch. We will touch on different forms of playtesting and how each can be utilized at different development stages.
Session Takeaway
- What is playtesting and why is it important
- What’s the difference between focus groups, public and private testing and their pros and cons
- What data types can you gather through playtesting
- How indie developers used user feedback to improve their games
- How to use playtesting data in publisher negotiations.
