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Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeEventsThe success of IndieGameBusiness Sessions: "A drama-free place to learn"

The success of IndieGameBusiness Sessions: “A drama-free place to learn”

In about 4 hours the 10th edition of the IndieGameBusiness Sessions will start. You can still join because the entire event is held online. Plus it’s free! And that’s exactly the point. Jay Powell started the event for all the companies and professionals that don’t have the time or resources to attend the big conferences. 

His event IndieGameBusiness Sessions was the first to do a full conference online, before strict Covid rules forced every other major conference to do the same. With his event being the new kid on the block Powell feared that with the online presence of the big names his Sessions would somehow get lost in the mix. Luckily that’s not the case. The IndieGameBusiness platform is steadily growing. 

Drama free place to learn

Powell is proud of the community: “When my co-host Dan (‘Indie’) told me we needed a Discord server for the show back in 2018 I laughed. I told him ‘There are approximately eight people watching our stream, why in the world do we need a Discord server?’. Four years later we have over 4,000 people from all walks of the industry in the Discord.”

He’s pleased with the way everyone is willing to help out: “From college grads to executives at some of the biggest companies in the industry, everyone is there to learn and share what they know about the business, marketing, and licensing side of video games. It’s a safe place to ask any sort of question and people genuinely want to help one another. In four years we’ve had to ban a grand total of two people and we don’t even have a moderator team. It is a drama free place to learn.”

Diversity

This edition’s online sessions topics are diverse as ever, ranging from publisher AMA, marketing talks, advice on how to grow your business, production pipelines and more. “I’m also proud of the diversity we bring to all our speaker sessions. I work extremely hard to make sure we have great representation from all walks of the industry. I’ve always been adamant about the fact that we can’t have a proper conference when all the panels and the speakers are stocked with white men like me”, says Powell.  

“Our ‘Game Production AMA’ this time is a panel of some of the best producers in the industry. Heather Chandler has been producing games for over 20 years and she was the senior producer on Fortnite for 2.5 years. Sarah Spiers is a Forbes 30 under 30 and she’s the lead producer on PUBG. Juney Dijkstra had a fantastic career at Soedesco, runs the ‘Game Production Community’ Discord and is currently the Legacy Portfolio Manager at Paradox.” 

Attending the online talks is free. There is a small fee to use the matchmaking service of MeetToMatch, with 20% of the revenue will go the Ukraine Red Cross Society. Get your tickets here.

Eric Bartelson
Eric Bartelson
Editor-in-Chief of PreMortem.Games. Veteran game journalist for over 20 years. Started out in 1999 for game magazines (yes the ones made of paper) such as PC Zone Benelux, PlayNation and GameQuest, before co-founding Dutch industry paper Control Magazine.
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