Spring into 2016!!

January has flown by, we’re nearly at the end of February and are heading into spring with the conference season now upon us. This is a great time of year to catch up with old friends, make new contacts and plan for the rest of the year. So, March is a great time to climb out of our developer warrens to see what everyone else is doing in 2016.

Having said all that, July will be here before we know it, and so it’s time for speaker submissions for Develop:Brighton 2016. This is an exciting time of year for me, waiting to see what interesting new topics people want to discuss. I get tingles just thinking about it. Of course with all those hundreds of amazing submissions, comes the commitment from speakers to provide real takeaway for our attendees. So, I implore all of you before you submit your talk this year, to take time to think about what you want to teach or share with those people attending your session. 

- What would YOU want to learn in your 45 minutes?

- Could YOU use the talk to help you work better?

- Would YOU pay to hear someone give this talk?

- Will they be playing Candy Crush instead of listening to YOU?

If you feel like your answers are still positive after doing this exercise then submit right away!

Now let me tell you about what devs seem to be interested in at the moment. Back in December I spent the month catching up with developers to find out what they were concerned about for the next twelve months while having a holiday drink or too. During our sampling of Christmas cheer, I realised that several topics came up in our chats. These topics are ones you should think about when submitting to this year’s conference.

First off was funding - we’ve actually added a Funding Workshop for Indie developers that will offer help improving their pitch and working on their presentation skills. This daylong workshop will help give indies the confidence and expertise they’ll need when putting together their next pitch presentation. We’ve also added our Games Funding Forum conference onto the Tuesday - running alongside Evolve, it will address more mainstream financing issues like alternatives to crowd funding, regional funding and new or different funding models. 

Let’s not forget VR, THE hot topic for everyone this year and something we’ll look to discuss – covering all aspects of VR development in our new VR track within the main conference. We’re also launching a VR gallery within the Expo for the VR providers to showcase their tech and let you get more hands on with what’s happening. 

Another big challenge issue for developers is how they work. Many devs are looking for quicker and easier ways to work with their teams spread around the world as well as optimising their work environment. People are using places like We Work for cool office space or Playhubs that offers workspace for game specific companies without all the hassle. They are also using tools like Slack to help them work more efficiently from anywhere in the world. Along with working models changing, business models are changing as more and more studios are interested in working in the Hollywood model. We’ll definitely be addressing these issues at this year’s conference. Do you have examples of your studios experience in how you work that you’d like to share? Submit now: http://www.developconference.com/conference/call-for-speaker-submissions

We are always looking for new faces to speak – so if you’ve never spoken at a conference before, then like last year we have a special submission page for you. Don’t be shy, be the next Rami Ismal or Mike Bitthel and share your work with others.  Build your confidence and give a talk this year at Develop:Brighton. Check out the submission page here: http://www.developconference.com/new-speaker-opportunities

We want you to speak if you’re a veteran developer or a fresh off the boat indie doing some original stuff. Whether it’s a cool VR game you are working on, a successful Kickstarter campaign you ran, how your team works all over the world or something we haven’t even thought of yet, now is the time to share your knowledge with the rest of industry, don’t hide your light under a bushel it doesn’t do any good there. We’d love you to hear from you!!

We are very excited about the new sessions and features we’ll be offering at this year’s conference.  Make sure to sign up for our newsletter here: http://www.developconference.com/news-letter-sign-up  or follow us on social media to stay informed on all the new things happening down by the sea.

Susan Marshall is content director for Develop:Brighton

Submit to speak at this year’s Develop Brighton 2016 here: http://www.developconference.com/conference/call-for-speaker-submissions