IESA at Game Connection Paris

LexAquillia

Hi guys,

I'm excited to announce that the DTI has approved funding for a trade mission to Paris Games Week! IESA as the trade mission organizer and 14 other local game development studios will be attending Games Connection next week!



As you can see we're occupying a big chunk of the hall (top left). The funding from the DTI has covered the return trips, accommodation, entrance to the show along with the stands. Over all the funding has covered over a million rand worth of expenses.

All this was possible thanks to the support of the IESA members who's memberships fees have allowed IESA to slog through the bureaucracy and paper work to make it happen.

We are planning on attending GDC in San Francisco next year and Game Com in Cologne, if you would like to attend, and be given preference when determining who attends, consider joining IESA!

I'll update this post about the mission and what happens

dammit

Finally! I knew that one year taking French in high school was going to pay off...

parlez vous francais? Oui!

Also this is extremely exciting and a fantastic opportunity not only for each studio attending but for the future of our industry. Thanks to all the studios who are members and to Nick for slogging through that paperwork :)

Elyaradine

That's awesome! Congratulations! :D

Tuism

Super stoked for the super exciting opportunity! It's looking like a very different and interesting business-focused event compared to everything that I've ever seen before, so it will be an amazing learning experience!

Big fat amazing thanks to IESA and of course @LexAquillia for the superb work! :D

Also... Mr Mime! XD

Squidcor

This is a big deal! Am I right in saying this is the first time we've gotten government money for the game industry?

Thanks for all the hard work @LexAquilla, you are an actual super-hero to me.

EvanGreenwood

Well done IESA on organizing this! I hope this is the beginning of a trend!

Also, thanks to all the people who believed in IESA and who payed money to enable this. If it wasn't already clear, we're clearly stronger, and have more advantages, when we stand together.

Enjoy the expedition!!!

dammit

Thanks to Nick for organising all of this (and believe me when I say he went above and beyond to get us all there and home again). I think there'll be a lot of positive feedback from all the studios that went and hopefully we'll see that turn into actual signed deals and partnerships. A really worthwhile experience and valuable opportunity that we were fortunate enough to have!

Tuism

Great big massive thanks to Nick first and foremost for getting this ragtag crew up to Paris on such minimal notice! For me personally it's the first time I've been part of such a business-focused gamedev shindig (Game Connection was called The Deal-making event and does not disappoint in that way) - a real eye-opener that's shown me different facets of communities. And there are still more facets than those that I have experienced!

Thanks Nick, and thanks everyone for making the trip epic :)

Elyaradine

Would love to see a write-up and pics! :D

dammit

Elyaradine said:

Would love to see a write-up and pics! :D

Tbh, there's not much to take photos of at the event. I know most people got of their stands so we could share those, but they were also last minute productions that were hastily arranged*

*FuzzyLogic has some magic in this department so we'll ignore them.

I imagine that @lexaquilla will provide a write up soon (he has to do one to send to the gov I think so it may be parts of the same thing). And then we all need to do another write up in 6 months which will be the real interesting thing - to see if anything landed and stuck.

Elyaradine

Ah, okay thanks! Yeah, tbh even though I saw some pictures that friends were taking of the event, I know very little about it: what goes on there, who the kinds of developers (or other people?) are who go, and what sorts of things I should be into to get value out of attending it. :)

If Fuzzy Logic saw enough value to invest significant time/energy in it (maybe they intended to go regardless of whether or not there was govt funding?), then I imagine it's particularly useful for studios who wish to land contract work?

AngryMoose

Elyaradine said:

I imagine it's particularly useful for studios who wish to land contract work?

My experice was along the lines of it being mostly geared towards publishers looking to publish/distribute titles and developers looking for a publisher/distribution. Lots of other services along the lines of localization and monetization pitching their wares as well.

Could pick worse place to be if you are an indie with a completed game that you want to find a partner for.

dammit

Elyaradine said:

If Fuzzy Logic saw enough value to invest significant time/energy in it (maybe they intended to go regardless of whether or not there was govt funding?), then I imagine it's particularly useful for studios who wish to land contract work?

In terms of strategy, having a great looking stand is a good start to attracting people to come and talk to you, but the event was set up with a meeting app that allowed you to send meeting requests to those attendees who you wished to interact with. The meeting could be at your stand, their stand, or at one of the many meeting points. I spent most of my time at other people's stands. This (the meeting app) was actually the most powerful aspect of the event, followed by the ability to simply walk up to another stand and sit down to chat to them if they were available.

Because everything happened last minute, our stands were a bit plain. If we'd known we were going earlier the event organisers would have added our artwork and blurbs to the stands - as was done for the other attending companies. We also weren't in a high traffic area, so whether this would have changed anything is unclear.

Our strategy had also been to make our stand more attractive by having the showreel playing on my laptop when I was not at the stand however after one laptop was stolen, I couldn't risk that further.

dammit

@LexAquillia any chance you've written a summary yet? :)