Game developers from across the North East and beyond gathered at the impressive Baltic for Game Dev Essentials on 10th September. The event which was supported by Double Eleven formed part of the 2025 Game Republic event programme supported by Official Partners Red Kite Games, Xsolla and Barclays Games and Creative. Presentations and fireside chats provided thought-provoking insights on all aspects of game design from flow and how to design games to produce the state to day rates and how to operate in a hyper competitive market. Here are some top takeaways from the event from the stellar line-up at the event
Andrew Willans – a great “warts-and-all” talk about the development of the Sumo game DeathSprint 66 and how the use of “Flow” (complete focus on an activity and enjoyment/fun while doing it) was used in the iteration of the game’s development.
Sophie Shanks, Kepler Interactive – had a very useful presentation about “How to Have a Successful Game Launch in 2025”, with advice on targeting your audience (splitting into three audience types – Primary, Secondary and Tertiary), when you should release your Steam page (ask yourself if you have a timeline for release, enough content for the page over that timeline and if you are ready to communicate with your community) and building a marketing timeline (split into Awareness, Hype, Content Share, Big Push and Buy It Now!).
Phil Scott, NVIDIA – presented about opportunities with NVIDIA, especially cloud gaming on GeForce Now, which coincidentally (or was it planned by us?!) had an announcement on the same day as the Game Dev Essentials event about “Install to Play” on Steam – launched just 15 minutes before the talk.
Patrick Randall, Double Eleven – a fireside chat with Dr Jackie Mulligan at Game Republic about co-development at Double Eleven – and how communication is the most important part of any co-dev relationship, and also how you need to be upfront and honest – no hiding issues/problems until later in the project.
Becky Jackson, Atomhawk – a very honest and revealing presentation about how “Not all day rates are equal”, discussing how in the current games industry climate, you need to demonstrate “Value beyond the rate” when pitching for work, such as positioning your company as an expert in a particular field, having a consultative client approach, a flexible budget model (for clients with limited budgets early on) and alternative ways of asset production.
John Sanderson, Pitstop Productions – a conversation with Jamie Sefton at Game Republic about the current landscape of game audio, with the top tip for smaller devs to keep budgets down, is to have a consistent vision for your game and being able to communicate that to the audio provider, and that an audio budget is usually around 10-20% of a total game’s budget.
Jamie Sefton said “This was a great start to the Autumn events programme. We have a members-only webinar with publisher PQube on 24th September, then our major Northern conference Game Republic New Horizons where guest companies include MachineGames, Supercell and Kickstarter, and a MeetToMatch meeting system starting next week. Tickets are available on a special rate of £149 until midnight tonight!”
Anyone interested in joining Game Republic should visit gamerepublic.net/join-us
