GameDevDay on 16th November 2017 in Leeds, with Headline Sponsor Amazon Appstore and sponsor Boneloaf, was a roaring success – more than 300 developers from Yorkshire and across the North descended on Leeds to attend both the Game Republic and GaMaYo (Game Makers Yorkshire) events to hear from industry speakers, network with other companies and play more than 20 new games from developers.
First up was the Game Republic business event, which featured talks from Mario Viviani, Technology Evangelist at Amazon Appstore with an update on their platform, including new opportunities to be featured on the Appstore and free GameMaker software, followed by Tony Baldwinson from Creative England, giving an update on the GamesLab Leeds initiative that has funded more than a dozen games developers and provided workshops and mentoring.
Then Ian Lindsey from games developer GameDigits gave a sobering but essential view of the tough mobile games market, and how his company manage to keep profitable by working with official licenses such as Storage Hunters UK and Red Dwarf (the new game is out now on iOS & Android!) Finally, Colin Macdonald from digital publisher All 4 Games gave developers tips on getting signed and how to impress investors and publishers when pitching your game.
After Game Republic, it was time for GaMaYo at Shooters bar in Leeds, packed with hundreds of games developers, networking and playing new games including One Man Tank from New Moon Games and Sumo Slammers by BetaJester. Mario Viviani also judged the best mobile games on the night and awarded prizes of a Fire TV and HD10 tablet to Kotori Studios for Fugl and Cave Monsters for their game Zoom Boom. GaMaYo is now the biggest developer event in the North of England, and was a fantastic opportunity for developers to meet platform-holders and network with games companies for possible work-for-hire and other employment opportunities. Our next GameDevDay will be in May 2018 – more news soon…
