For all those who are unaware, how did Game Connection develop?<\/strong><\/p>\nFrom the beginning, Game Connection meant to be a market place where developers could effectively meet publishers\u00a0and find a way to make their ideas come to life. We started as a medium-sized convention in\u00a0France filled with exceptional new tech and IPs, a goldmine for AAA publishers and an exceptional\u00a0springboard for Indies. At that time F2P wasn\u2019t even conceivable and mobile was only a tiny share of\u00a0the pie.<\/p>\n
As the industry changed we grew with it, building a show which was no longer exclusive to\u00a0developers and publishers, but open to service providers, distributors, business and marketing\u00a0services where all platforms were represented, as the digital revolution was fast approaching. \u00a0We crossed the European borders and expanded into the Silicon Valley, bringing our 30-minute\u00a0back-to-back meetings concept alongside GDC (Game Developer’s Conference). That\u2019s when we started to be recognised as THE B2B\u00a0event for the games industry, where a worldwide audience is always expected and business\u00a0actually gets done during 3 days of intensive networking.<\/p>\n
What do you think makes Game Connection’s events unique versus other conferences in the\u00a0sector?<\/strong><\/p>\nThe concept and the attitude. The concept is unique because we are the only event that optimize\u00a0your meetings on-site thanks to a dedicated online match-making system that we developed\u00a0ourselves. When you come to Game Connection you spend no time wandering around: you know\u00a0exactly who, when and where you are going to meet the decision makers you want, also because we\u00a0target very precisely our audience. You\u2019ll never find students or non-professional people at Game\u00a0Connection and you\u2019ll always receive your printed agenda, full of meetings, once you come pick-up\u00a0your badge. Besides that, the way we organize this show is different: the atmosphere is very relaxed\u00a0even if we are still in a very professional environment. One of our attendees once said \u201cIt\u2019s like\u00a0getting to see your extended family\u201d and that\u2019s exactly the spirit. Our team is devoted to both Game\u00a0Connection\u2019s mission and vision, because we all feel like we are an essential part of it. There is no\u00a0gap between the show management and the attendees, we are not numbers, people recognize our\u00a0faces after all those years and we want things to remain this way.<\/p>\n
What do you see as the big highlights at this year’s Game Connection Europe, coming up on 3rd –\u00a05th December?<\/strong><\/p>\nWe are extremely proud of the conference program that we finally packed: we have more than\u00a075 conferences and panels some of which are in some very innovative format. I am thinking to\u00a0the “Pecha Kucha” presentation by The Ant Farm for example, where a bunch of creatives will\u00a0have just a few minutes to present what inspired them most and then let the audience lead the\u00a0discussion. This goes far beyond the regular speech + Q&A that people normally find elsewhere, as\u00a0we really feel like there is a need of interaction during a lecture and we want speakers and audience\u00a0to get together in reaching new level of knowledge. The speakers line-up for our one-day Master\u00a0Classes then it\u2019s just amazing, with C-level managers coming from Sony Online Entertainment,\u00a0Applifer, Ubisoft, Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog and many more. Check with your own eyes on our\u00a0website if you can\u2019t believe it!<\/p>\n
What generally are your thoughts on the state of the Games industry? What do you see as the\u00a0biggest challenges and opportunities?<\/strong><\/p>\nPlenty of challenges await: self-publishing, crowd funding, the discoverability issue, Fee2Play and\u00a0Free2Win models\u2026 Now that next-gen consoles have been announced, it\u2019s like Christmas everyday: \u00a0new IPs rise from the darkness, top level mangers change and companies switch their strategy in a\u00a0blink. It\u2019s a war somehow, but certainly a spectacular one, as creativity and innovation are the most\u00a0powerful weapons. People is in need of content right now and if you add this to new technologies\u00a0as the soon-to-released Game Stick and Oculus VR, we can\u2019t expect less than magic in the upcoming\u00a0months.<\/p>\n
%CODE Game Connection%<\/p>\n
We’ve already offered one free ticket to Game Connection, but we have one more! \u00a0If you’d like to win it, just like and comment on the above status!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since 2001, Game Connection has been one of the top events, if not the top event, focusing on the B2B side of the games industry. As a result, it offers a perfect environment for not only networking and connecting with other professionals in the industry, but also creates an environment where actual business (partnerships, deals,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":20820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10564],"tags":[3536,3842,4655,4009],"class_list":["post-20798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech-2","tag-casual-games","tag-game-connection","tag-mobile-games","tag-pc-and-console-games"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"game](\"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/assets\/game-connection-photo-e1383661122537.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Photo_Pierre_Carde\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/assets\/Photo_Pierre_Carde.jpg\")
I recently had the chance to catch-up with Game Connection founder and innovator Pierre Carde, who offered his insights on what makes their events unique, the highly innovative, jammed-packed program planned for