Time for a recap: SGA in 2024

This year was one of the biggest among the six that SGA has existed so far. There are many reasons for that. The association got a CEO for the first time when Mihajlo Jovanović-Džaril took over the helm. The influence of this “lawyer with the soul of a gamer” was already felt through the efforts to shape the SGA’s strategy. Strategy 2030 defined that our most important goal is to increase the chances of success of Serbian gaming companies, and Mihajlo says on this occasion:

The year was certainly marked by well-known content – programs, conferences, meetups – but also some completely new moments. This is the right opportunity to remember them.

PROGRAMS

SGA Empowers reflects our belief that diverse teams contribute to better games and a more creative and inclusive industry. As in previous years, this year we strived to provide a platform for inspiring stories of female colleagues and encourage future ones to consider gaming as the right place for them. At four workshops and two meetings, 12 mentors and facilitators presented themselves to over 200 participants.

Shift2Games leveled up at the end of the year! From now on, 50 detailed job descriptions and many expert articles that will enable industry newbies to shift can be read in three more languages: English, Macedonian and Albanian, as well as in the “universal” BCS version. As part of the projects, Career Day was organized in Belgrade, which was visited by over 600 enthusiasts, as well as Career Day in Novi Pazar, whose workshops and lectures were attended by over 120 young talents.

Playing Narratives saw off the fourth generation of 35 participants, behind whom now seven pitches stand, and you can watch them here. Future professionals in the fields of illustration, 3D art, animation, sound design and music composition, as well as narrative and game design, spent eight months and with the help of more than 40 mentors, created their first game concepts and, more importantly, gained experience working in a team and acquaintances that led to the formation of successful indie teams in previous years. We can’t wait to see what awaits the new alumni!

And that’s not the end! SGA Report for 2023 consolidated the information we received firsthand from our members and for the sixth time presented all the relevant statistics for our industry, and SGA Insights was present again this year for all possible legal and business issues. These perennial programs will be waiting for you with new content in 2025 as well!

CONFERENCES AND FAIRS

For the Win!, our international b2b conference experienced its third edition, and in terms of the program, it was the most advanced, as well as the most visited so far, with more than 500 visitors and over 60 speakers, among whom were guests from 20 countries. It’s time to mark May 28 and 29 in your calendar, when FTW! will be back in 2025 with interesting additions!

Unreal Day, our second flagship conference, grew into two days because it offered more than 50 hours of cumulative knowledge transfer, and there were useful things for professionals, beginners and future trainers. Among new content, there was the Game Dev Geekout and the Expo Zone. There’s no better way to sum this up than with our after-movie:

In addition to our own, we were also at European conferences and fairs, such as Reboot and Gamescom, where Serbia officially performed for the second time. We were in the business and entertainment zones, where SGA, the Serbian industry, companies that provide services and indie studios and their games were presented. There are already plans to go to the biggest gaming fair in 2025, so, Cologne, here we come!

MEETUPS

This year was full of community gatherings in various formats. We started with an old-school Vanilla meetup, where community members shared their stories, followed by a Concept Art Meetup with guests from the awesome Sixmorevodka studio, to end the year with two Ctrl + Alt + Slav Community Merges, where we had an “introductory” clash of communities – “natives” and new locals who joined us from the eastern parts of Europe. There was also the SGA Assemble, the annual gathering that gathered SGA members and partners for the fourth time. 

As part of the Shift2Games and Playing Narratives projects, we organized meetups in the region and connected with colleagues in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Albania. We have also attended professional events in Armenia, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Croatia and Bulgaria.

Completely new was Create in Unity, the first official Unity event in Serbia. This was an extended meetup lasting five hours, with ten lectures held by experts from the company, as well as representatives of local studios. Over 100 participants shared their experiences and had the opportunity to speak directly with Unity representatives about the company’s features and future plans, as well as to give them feedback on the tools they use.

In May, the regular gatherings of the indie peer group began, for the purpose of getting to know each other, connecting, exchanging experiences and better understanding the needs of this segment of the industry. At the end of the year, a C-level dinner was traditionally held, an opportunity for key people from the industry to gather in an informal setting.

AND THAT’S NOT ALL!

This year was also an opportunity to embark on completely new ventures! We are especially proud to have organized the first one Serbian Games Week on Steam. As many as 85 games produced in our country participated in this seven-day sales event. The goal for 2025 is to have over 100 games and a global promotion!

We also created the first Publishing Deck for indie studios who want their projects to reach publishers more easily. 15 teams responded and there are currently 19 projects in the deck. We will update this presentation once or twice a year, and all SGA members have the opportunity to have their unreleased games in it so that interested investors, publishers or co-producers can get to know these projects. The new resource will be actively used in communication with international partners, accelerators and conferences.

We also implemented Game Caravan, the first mobility program for lecturers at local universities, but also representatives of indie studios, so that they could get to know their colleagues in France and the ecosystems in Lyon and Montpellier firsthand, in almost ten French studios and six faculties. In the coming year, we will continue to connect ours with other local communities throughout France.

Last but not least, the SGA website has a new look! With an average of 70,000 monthly visits, this place has become the identity card of our industry. In order to make navigation easier, we have relieved some segments and introduced a little more efficiency, and we hope that your stay here will be even more useful and easier from now on.

Finally, we would like to remind you that you can get all the information about events that are important for the industry in our newsletter, the format of which has also changed this year. If you’re not already on the list, jump on here. There are, of course, our Instagram and LinkedIn as well, where we are now followed by over 11,500 profiles, and indispensable for every game developer is our Discord server, where, in addition to news, you can get answers to all the questions you might think of, because our wonderful community demonstrates its unwavering willingness to help everyone interested in the gaming industry day after day. If you were at one of our events this year and want to share your experience on social media, you can probably find yourself in our Flickr albums.

We slowly enter the loading screen, ready to click the new game button and enter the year 2025, in which we wish you happy holidays and successful projects!