FOR THE WIN! is the new meeting point of the European gaming industry
After last year’s edition, the most visited and program-rich so far, we can confidently say that the b2b conference FOR THE WIN! rightly entered the calendar of the most notable European events for game dev professionals and became a new meeting point of the European gaming community.
More than 500 visitors will gather again on May 29 in the mts Hall, for the fourth edition of this professional event organized by SGA since 2022, with special programs that will be held the day before. On the official website of the conference, you can already read about some of the program attractions, while on the Speakers page, you can see 40 notable names who will join us this year from Poland, France, Finland, Sweden, Great Britain, Puerto Rico, Slovenia, Croatia, Russia and Slovakia, along with numerous local developers. The list of speakers is not complete, so expect more names in the coming weeks!
Like every year, FTW! offers the audience an interesting mix of lectures, panels and workshops that are favorable both to those who develop games for mobile devices, as well as developers and designers of core games, or other creative-tech niches. Some of the topics that will be in focus this year are publishing, the use of AI tools in production, ad monetization, news related to the most important game engines (Unity and Unreal Engine), external development (that is, outsourcing), as well as topics related to resistance to the crisis that continues to persist within the framework of the gaming industry.
Among the renowned companies, but for the first time also publishers, whose representatives will be in front of the audience in Belgrade are CD PROJEKT RED, Anshar Studios, Outfit7, Unity, Intel, 3Lateral/Epic Games, Aurora Punks, Old Skull Games, Sperasoft, Raw Fury, Bright Gambit, Spectral Games, Untold Tales, Shosha Games, Foxy Voxel, Chat3d, Grindstone, Herocraft, Untold Tales, GameBiz Consulting, Kando Factory, Narwhal Accelerator and many others.
A novelty that will be interesting to all indie studios is the GAME SLICE segment, which is entirely dedicated to publishing. Its first part is a series of lectures that will look at publishing today both from the point of view of publishers and developers, and the publishers who will be with us are Raw Fury, Aurora Punks, Grindstone, Untold Tales, Bright Gambit, Herocraft and Kando Factory. The second part of this program will consist of pitch presentations by indie teams that will be selected based on an open call that will be published on April 15, and the jury that will give them valuable feedback on their projects and presentations will be made up of representatives of the aforementioned publishers. Studios from all over Europe will have the opportunity to apply, but, of course, local and regional projects are expected.
For the first time at FTW! one country is the guest of honor – one of the strongest European gaming industries, Poland! In cooperation with the Polish Institute in Serbia, we will be presented with 10 prominent professionals who, through talking of their globally recognized studios and franchises, will reveal to us how this country managed to break into the most developed European gaming ecosystems during the last 20 years.
When we talk about ecosystems, visitors of FTW! know very well that this event is also specific in that it always has a part of the program dedicated to stakeholders and ecosystem development. This year there will be a round table dedicated to the processes of incubation and acceleration of companies and projects in the game dev domain. Through different experiences, we will try to devise a direction in which Serbia could go when it comes to similar initiatives and support for new generations of video game creators.
As always, a large number of SGA member companies will have the opportunity to visit the conference for free, and the now-traditional Shift2Games program will also present a number of lectures for beginners in the industry, or those who are interested in getting involved, completely free of charge.
Unlike previous editions, this year the conference is completely open to all interested visitors, and tickets at the promotional early bird price are already available through the conference website, until April 15, after which the regular price of EUR 69 will apply.
FOR THE WIN! was made possible and supported this year by the companies Outfit7, Unity, Playstudios Europe, 3Lateral/Epic Games, Polish Institute, French Institute, MEDIA Desk Serbia and Hotel Metropol Palace. More details about the individual programs and how to submit your pitch for GAME SLICE are coming in the following weeks!