A relaxed and informal roundtable designed to help you get the most out of your time at the conference. A diverse panel of friendly and experienced devs from across the whole industry spectrum want to help anyone who feels shy, awkward, a little out of place, on the outside, or just unable to really squeeze all the goodness out of this amazing show. You'll feel positive, empowered and fully equipped to have an absolutely smashing time, with tips on how to be productive, tools to network, and commitments from volunteers to be your safety net should things get a little too much! Finally, should you feel like it would help, we'll match people up with Show Mentors to ensure however long you're in Brighton, you go back to your studio feeling invigorated and inspired!

• Shared experiences that will give you some ideas on best practise plus do's and dont's for networking at every event.
•  Recommendations for talks to attend and delegates to meet, plus practical help to do so!
• Knowledge of safe and quiet spaces to help manage your experience at the show
• A mentor committed to helping you for the duration of the conference with introductions, meetings, advice, and someone to lean on!

Diversity is NOT the same as Inclusion. Just because you have a diverse team, it doesn’t mean you have an inclusive work environment. Diversity is about recognising and celebrating our differences. Inclusion is about belonging and valuing our differences. Everyone must have the skills to create environments where their teams thrive and where people talent’s shine! This is no longer a nice to have but a must-have, especially in the hybrid virtual work environment where change is constant. During the session, we will go through the 3 key conditions needed to foster greater inclusion and more meaningful work in the workplace, all the while having fun! You will learn how to nurture psychological safety within teams, promote open feedback and use a coaching culture to create a shared responsibility to nurture inclusive environments. Walk away with practical actions you can start doing immediately in your workplace. This is your whistle-stop tour of powerful leadership and self-improvement skills.

Takeaway:

• Increase confidence to spot moments that matter to engage in productive conversation on inclusive behaviours, uplifting teams’ morale, and workplace culture
• Enhance skills and capabilities to have ‘in the moment’ open feedback and coaching situations, increasing employees' productivity and effectiveness
• Improve awareness and education on the principles of psychological safety and trust, allowing them to keep a constant pulse on teams’ morale and engagement to proactively manage your team

A hosted roundtable giving games businesses the chance to discuss how the sector can play its part in preventing global warming and addressing conservation issues. We'll be talking about how to measure your carbon emissions, what offsetting schemes are, what green coding is, how games can inspire change and more.

Takeaway:

• How your business can move towards being carbon net zero
• How the games you make can inspire change
• What the industry is doing in this space
• How climate change and conservation organisations are looking to work with the games sector

Safe In Our World discusses practical ways to support employees' mental health within the games industry, as well as how Levelling Up Mental Health can improve workplace culture. We talk about ways to eliminate stigma surrounding mental health, to make it a natural topic of discussion, and promote the dialogue around mental health so that employees are not afraid to reach out for support if they need it.

Takeaway:

• How to access relevant training for your games companies in mental health
• Easy structures to implement to support employee wellbeing
• Audience will leave knowing where accessible mental health information and resources can be found

A relaxed and informal roundtable designed to help you get the most out of your time at the conference. A diverse panel of friendly and experienced devs from across the whole industry spectrum want to help anyone who feels shy, awkward, a little out of place, on the outside, or just unable to really squeeze all the goodness out of this amazing show. You'll feel positive, empowered and fully equipped to have an absolutely smashing time, with tips on how to be productive, tools to network, and commitments from volunteers to be your safety net should things get a little too much! Finally, should you feel like it would help, we'll match people up with Show Mentors to ensure however long you're in Brighton, you go back to your studio feeling invigorated and inspired!

• Shared experiences that will give you some ideas on best practise plus do's and dont's for networking at every event.
• Recommendations for talks to attend and delegates to meet, plus practical help to do so!
• Knowledge of safe and quiet spaces to help manage your experience at the show
• A mentor committed to helping you for the duration of the conference with introductions, meetings, advice, and someone to lean on!

Businesses are more successful when they’re equal, diverse and inclusive places to work. But how can you make EDI essential to your games business, whether you’re working as a small team or in a major company?

In this session, we’ll bring together people who’ve sought to put EDI at the heart of the way their businesses work to give practical advice on driving diversity onwards. We’ll share tips on recruiting more diversely, on fostering an inclusive culture and broadening the content of games to foster a welcoming environment of all. We’ll also discuss how to make change stick, including how to set targets, change processes and turn incremental improvements into long term transformation.

Takeaway:

• Discover the value of equality, diversity and inclusion to games businesses
• Learn how companies have widened their recruitment pools, retained diverse talent and diversified the contents of their games to inspire change
• Understand how to make EDI a natural part of your company’s long term thinking to embed change for the long term

One of the key pillars of any diversity & inclusion organisation or internal company initiative would be to make sure that the majority who are in positions to make a difference by simply providing allyship get the opportunity to do so. If we look at the latest industry census and see just 11% of the industry is underrepresented ethnicities then why exclude the 89%, out of which majority are allies, who also want to have a diverse and inclusive industry to foster diverse thinking leading to more innovative and inclusive products?

Mentoring is one easy way to empower the majority to be involved in inspiring the future diverse generations rather than feeling the need to help but not doing so by assuming getting involved would mean taking up the space from an underrepresented ethnicity.  Join us on this roundtable where we want to discuss making diversity and inclusion something everyone who cares about can and should be empowered to be involved via allyship and mentorship. We will also discuss and share good practices on running internal diversity groups or if your company is large enough then how to help your company's diversity officer to foster a more inclusive work environment.

Takeaway:

• Practical tips on empowering all to be involved with improving diversity and inclusion of underrepresented ethnicities in our industry.

A roundtable led by Victoria as chair discussing the pros and cons of raising equity investment for a small studio, and how studios can prepare and position themselves to be investment-ready and attractive.  

Takeaway:

• An understanding of the materials and work needed to get investment ready
• An understanding of studios that investors are interested in
• An understanding about how to go about meeting investors

Following Mark’s talk about developer iteration in Unreal 5 you’re invited to join this round table to dive deeper into issues that may be impacting your projects.

The rate of growth for modern games and the more recent world events that have forced many of us to work in a more globally distributed and isolated manner have only made developer iteration harder than ever.

Long sync times from source control, increasingly long data and code builds, valuable SSD space being eaten up and increasing larger product footprint are just some of the factors affecting our ability to work efficiently in this new world.

Come and join this interactive session and get a greater insight into how you can work more efficiently with UE5.

Further and Higher Education Games Development courses wish to produce high-quality graduates who go on to be employed in the industry, thereby improving their student outcomes, increasing student satisfaction and contributing to their marketing and growth. At the same time, the industry is sometimes struggling to find enough good-quality talent to maintain their own growth targets. 

Everyone would benefit from clearer communication of the challenges of one sector to the other, and of collaborative solutions which benefit both parties. This roundtable aims to encourage discussions, collaboration and reflection to help forge new partnerships and move towards meeting the needs of both education and industry.

Note to industry: Indies and small companies needed just as much as large companies!

Takeaway:

• A wider knowledge of the issues facing a range of industry and education bodies
• A stronger knowledge of the priorities of industry and education at this time
• A set of solutions to begin solving these challenges in collaboration with industry/education partners. Potential for new partnerships in the future

Evidence shows that women are more likely to be harassed online, and this is even worse for women of colour, disabled and LGBT+ women. It is not the responsibility of the victims of online abuse to protect themselves and deal with its lasting effects, and Glitch is doing everything it can do to hold decision-makers accountable and stop the problem at its core. In the meantime Glitch's workshops will equip participants to navigate the online landscape with confidence. Glitch wants to help women of all ages, backgrounds and political affiliations to overcome the barrier of online abuse, feel more confident to use online platforms in order to use their voices online.

This session hosted by Gwen Taylor (Glitch) will be a practical sessions, where developers can protect minoritised people in their communities, take practical action to prevent and deal with online abuse and to be role models of diverse, respectful and engaged digital communities. The session will explore who is most likely to face online abuse and the impacts of online abuse, ways developers can role model good digital citizenship and practical tools to help activiate your community to be part of the solution.

 

Takeaway:

• What is online abuse and who does it impact?
• How can developers be a part of ending online abuse and supporting minoritised communities?
• How to create positive digital communities
• Practical advice for managing social media accounts and communities

A roundtable discussion led by Ugonna Nwosu (he/him) from "Out Making Games" and Leon Killin (he/him) from "Sumo Group". Join us for a conversation about sexuality and gender issues in the content, creation and culture of video games. This is a welcoming space to share your stories and learn from the experience of others in a forum of LGBTQ+ games professionals and students having frank conversations about the challenges they face.

Takeaway:

We will be leveraging the experiences of the attendees to build takeaways such as

• An understanding of the concerns of LGBTQ+ individuals working in the games industry
• Techniques shared from first-hand experiences of celebrating diversity in workplaces
• Tips and tricks for pushing for better in-game representation from within the industry
• Building a sense of community and optimism for the future!