Here's the schedule for our 2018 conference programme.
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Why Nobody Can Find Your Game... And What to Do About It
Tuesday 10th July: 14.00 - 14.45 : Room 4Answers to questions like why nobody writes about your game and why nobody can find it. Real world examples of the horror and how developers are working to overcome it.
Takeaway- How to get journalists to cover your game
- How to create games people can find
- Best practice on merchandising
Your Game Isn't Going to Sell. Let's See What We Can Do About That
Tuesday 10th July: 15.00 - 15.45 : Room 6With so many games releasing across every possible platform, the vast majority of titles are now sent out to their immediate deaths. Only the top 0.1% of games now make any real money -- so what can you do to grasp for one of those top slots? In this talk, Mike Rose from publishing label No More Robots explains what you can do to raise your chances of success in this scary market.
Takeaway:
- How to build a community that actually works through Discord, Twitch and Mixer
- Building behind-the-scenes relationships to reduce launch risk
- Working out exactly what it is about your game that will make people care
How to Win Loads of Awards with Your Very First Game
Tuesday 10th July: 16.00 - 16.45 : Room 5Why do some games win awards and others don't? After entering the industry just 2 years ago our game Blockships has won 6 awards and 6 nominations. We've taken it to over 20 events, expos, and conferences along the way, appeared in the PAX10, on Ginx TV, and the front page of Twitch. Were we just lucky? No, then, are we simply amazing? No, and in this talk I will discuss how we won these awards, and our strategy for getting them. What we did right, what went wrong, and how you can use what we learned to improve your ability to gain awards and how to make the most of them when you win!
Takeaway:- A practical strategy for achieving industry recognition
- Which awards are the right ones to target
- What to do once you have won
- How you can win even without winning the award
Social Marketing Revolution: How Data and Social Can Help You Win!
Tuesday 10th July: 14.00 - 14.45 : Room 6How do you build an audience around your game even before it’s released? How do you turn loyal fans into brand advocates who celebrate and promote your game for you? We look at case studies from the world of TV and big brands and explore how a revolution in social media data and advertising can be harnessed to take on the big publishers and win.
Takeaway:
- How to build an audience
- The role of social advertising
- Using data to drive creative
- Turning customers into brand advocates
Discoverability
NEW! One of the biggest challenges facing game developers today is how to get your game on people's radar in such a competitive marketplace. The new Discoverability track will focus on helping you do just that - finding and attracting the right audience, nurturing your community and building good relationships with media, streamers and other influencers. Hear case studies, top tips and practical advice from the people behind some of the most successful games around.James Binns Network N14.00 - 14.45 : Room 4Garret Keogh One Great Day14.00 - 14.45 : Room 6Mike Rose No More Robots15.00 - 15.45 : Room 6 -
Effective Social Media and Influencer Marketing on a Budget
Wednesday 11th July: 16.00 - 16.45 : Room 4Thanks to digital distribution, social media and streaming platforms, the art of video games marketing has changed significantly over the last few years. New players keep entering the scene, which makes it even harder to pick the right marketing channels for small to mid-sized indie developers and even big publishers. In this hands-on talk, Michael Schade, CEO of ROCKFISH Games, will share his best marketing stunts on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, and imgur, which helped to make EVERSPACE, the studio’s debut title, an indie surprise hit on Steam and Xbox with over 400,000 copies sold and still selling strongly.
Takeaway:- How to reach millions of gamers through imgur, 9gag and reddit
- How to build a great relationship with influencers
- How to do facebook marketing effectively
Community Management in the Memeverse
Wednesday 11th July: 11.00 - 11.45 : Room 5As a social media manager for a community of almost half a million on Facebook alone, Grace Carroll is used to dealing with passionate fans. This talk will cover a number of key points for anyone interested in managing online game communities - dealing with negative sentiment, growing a community and above all, keeping the fans informed and excited without giving everything away. This talk covers the important basic knowledge of online community management and some tips and tricks to finding the voice of your game.
Discoverability
NEW! One of the biggest challenges facing game developers today is how to get your game on people's radar in such a competitive marketplace. The new Discoverability track will focus on helping you do just that - finding and attracting the right audience, nurturing your community and building good relationships with media, streamers and other influencers. Hear case studies, top tips and practical advice from the people behind some of the most successful games around.Michael Schade ROCKFISH Games16.00 - 16.45 : Room 4 -
The Never-Ending Fight: Getting Noticed as an Indie
Thursday 12th July: 12.15 - 13.00 : Room 5While developing Abandon Ship, Team Lead Gary Burchell kept track of all marketing-related data, from trailer views to individual social media posts. All of this was focused on one drive: building up as many Steam Wishlists as possible. Join him as he goes through the data, breaking down strategies that helped get Abandon Ship covered by major outlets dozens of times, attaining a newsletter with thousands of subscribers, gaining a million plus views on YouTube and over a hundred thousand wishlists – all with no prior marketing experience. Learn from the successes and mistakes that allowed a remote working micro-studio, self-publishing its first title in Early Access to hit 4th in the Global Top Sellers charts on Steam – yet also why it may not be a challenge you wish to take on alone.
Building An Audience For Your Game On Social
Thursday 12th July: 15.00 - 15.45 : Room 3A detailed look at how to grow an audience for your game on Social Media, from the team at Happiest; who in 18 months have organically amassed a following of over 3.5 million followers.
This session will deep-dive into how and why you should go about building an organic audience on social channels, the best 3rd party tools to make use of, how to produce and package your content for maximum impact on social, and ultimately how you can maximise the return on the time you spend marketing on social channels.
We'll take a look at some examples of content that have worked well for us at Happiest, as well as those performing best in the gaming space to discover why and how they are achieving the results they are.
Takeaway
- Clear guidance on how to maximize your time investment growing an audience on social channels.
- Best practice in terms of producing and packaging your content for social.
- A list of the best (primarilly free) 3rd party tools to maximize your efficiency.
Acquiring and Retaining Users in VR Apps
Thursday 12th July: 16.00 - 16.45 : Room 4The purpose of this talk is to share FitXR's insights from acquiring the first 10000 customers for their top selling app BOXVR. The talk focuses on lessons learnt from using traditional user acquisition methods such as search optimisations, ads, marketing campaigns, competitions, social media campaigns, store placements, influencers, reviews, in game features and community management. Sameer will discuss the success of each type of method and elaborate on how FitXR used the lessons learnt in improving their game design, and in increasing engagement and retention.
Discoverability
NEW! One of the biggest challenges facing game developers today is how to get your game on people's radar in such a competitive marketplace. The new Discoverability track will focus on helping you do just that - finding and attracting the right audience, nurturing your community and building good relationships with media, streamers and other influencers. Hear case studies, top tips and practical advice from the people behind some of the most successful games around.Gary Burchell Fireblade Software12.15 - 13.00 : Room 5
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I’ve been to every single Develop in the last 12 years. One thing you get here is networking - you will meet the most amazing individuals in the video games industry.
Kish Hirani
Terra Virtua
Develop is an excellent way of catching up with people – there’s a really nice community feel here.
Mike Bithell
Mike Bithell Games
There’s really something for everyone at Develop and the experience of being around like-minded people is really useful.
Grace Carroll
Creative Assembly
Develop:Brighton’s a great conference. It’s got a spread of people from all parts of the games industry talking about such a wide range of topics.
David Amor
Mag Interactive
Develop is a very important place – it’s one of the few developer focussed conferences we have in Europe and that makes it very valuable.
Rami Ismail
Vlambeer
Building games is hard and it’s taxing physically, mentally and emotionally. So being around a community that understands that is great – there’s a comraderie here.
Haden Blackman
Hangar 13
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
Develop always gets put in the diary. There are many reasons to be here, not just the talks, but the networking, people exchanging ideas about where the industry is right now and where it’s going to. It’s pretty essential to be here I think.
Ian Livingstone, CBE
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 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
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