Game Industry Conference 8-11 October 2020

October 8-11 2020
Poznan, Poland

Polish Game Industry

as seen on the Poznań Game Arena and Game Industry Conference

The Game Industry Conference takes place alongside the Poznan Game Arena, one of the most important and largest game expos in Europe. Over 76 000 visitors enjoy the show by testing games and hardware from more than 220 expositors.

The two events are the best place to meet most of the people from the Polish Game Industry. There are already more than 400 studios and 6 000 people working in games development in Poland. And if you include all the additional services, such as outsourcing, Q&A, localization, publishing and distribution, this number will surely double in its size.

B2B exhibition zone and meeting system

The GIC offers the best B2B opportunities to reach industry professionals from Poland and most of the Central and Eastern Europe. The B2B exhibition zone, although located in the proximity of the B2C area of the PGA Expo tradeshow, is separated and offers an excellent environment for meeting developers and business partners.

A professionally organized meeting area with a Meet to Match meeting system allows for well-organized sessions with just the proper business partners you are looking for. It also hosts the Japan+Eastern Europe Networking Event. The Business Lounge offers a place to sit down and chill out or to have a casual conversation. It also serves meals during lunch hours and coffee, soft drinks and snacks non-stop.

Finally, the networking events planned for each evening are designed to include space to sit and talk as well as to taste Polish foods and drinks.

Recruitment event

GeekCareers is one of the latest additions to the GIC. It started in 2016, with seven companies searching for employees for their Polish and international offices. Its success exceeded our expectations and hopes. Recruiting companies reported that they have met many candidates, both Polish and foreign, on all levels of expertise, starting from juniors and students, but also reaching into the group of experienced seniors and leads. The best success story is four new employees for an individual company only from this event. One of the biggest advantages of GeekCareers is high availability for potential candidates, both in terms of ticket pricing and the time – the event is happening over the weekend.

Teaching event with advanced talks

At the GIC we believe in the learning value of talks and we think that the content of presentations and meetings is more important than big names. Due to our unique marking of the presentation difficulty level (1 - basic, 2 - intermediate, 3 - advanced), we are looking for talks that will provide useful insight even to developers with years of experience. Speaker candidates have to go through an advanced and rigorous submission and review system, while our Advisory Board is working hard to verify the potential value of every talk.

And it pays off: the GIC is seen as a major teaching event with talks of only the best quality.

CEEGA

Central & Eastern European Game Awards is a new initiative to recognize and promote the best video games from this region yearly. The CEE region is big and important and yet often underseen part of the global gaming industry. The region totals over 1000 game development studios, over 25000 people producing games and many interesting success stories.

Central & Eastern European Game Awards 2018 will be announced on October 13th during a big gala hosted by GIC together with Poznan Game Arena.

Featured speakers

Alex Mandryka

Design consultant. Ex-Design Director at Ubisoft and Relic, worked on Assassin's Creed, Farcry, Rainbow Six, Company of Heroes.

Anthony Christov

Co-Founder of ARC Academy. Longtime Art Director in Pixar, worked on WALL-E, Finding Nemo, Cars, The Incredibles and more.

Alex Nichiporchik

CEO and Game Producer at tinyBuild. Worked among others on Hello Neighbor, SpeedRunners, Graveyard Keeper and Party Hard.

Moria Goldstein

Head of Publishing Studio at TabTable, managing developer relations and working with developer partners across the globe.

Stefan Randelshofer

Audio Director of Ubisoft Düsseldorf. Worked on EA's Battleforge, Piranha Bytes' Risen 3, Ubisoft's South Park and Anno 1800.

Jason Della Rocca

Co-Founder of Execution Labs. Funding advisor, business consultant, bizdev and pitching expert with 20 years of experience.

Lyubov Vozhakina

Senior Art Manager at Sperasoft, coordinating daily work of more than 250 artists. Resource, management and developement expert.

Gregan Dunn

Director of Publishing at Hothead Games. Overseen licensing partnerships for World of Warcraft, Doom, and Battlefield.

Mariusz Gąsiewski

Google veteran of 11 years, now working as Head of Mobile Gaming and Apps Poland. Expert on web analytics and marketing.

Shiew Yeu Loh

Senior External Development Artist at Electronic Arts with 15 years of experience in gamedev. Works on The Sims series.

Kacper Szymczak

Creative Director at Artificer Ex-Techland designer (Call of Juarez). Ex-Lead Designer at CreativeForge Games (Phantom Doctrine).

Ranko Trifkovic

Game Designer/Producer gone full Narrative Designer, wrangling writers for Decision Fiction at Grandpa's Narrative Design.

Elena Nikolova

3d & VFX Animator at Snapshot Games, working on E3 nominated Phoenix Point.Ex-Lead 2D Animator at TabTale.

Juan Linietsky

Creator and Development Lead of Godot Engine. Tech consultant and expert, promoting game development in Latin America.

Pawel Wojtasik

Senior Animation Programmer at Crytek, responsible for CRYENGINE’s animation system. Ex-Techland engine programmer.

Christian Fonnesbech

CEO of Leverage, developing compelling Brands and lasting IPs for games. Ex-Head of IP Development for Nordisk Film Games.

Tom Grochowiak

Indie developer at MoaCube. Author of Cinders, Solstice, Bonfire , with over 10 years of experience in gamedev.

Valentina Tamer

Narrative & Game Designer at King working on Candy Crush. Ex-Daedalic Entertainment designer & writer (The Pillars of the Earth).

Dr Tomas Rawlings

Design Director at Auroch Digital. Award-winning games designer (Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land). Creator of Endgame:Syria.

Edmundo Bordeu

Art Director and co-founder at ACE Team with 10 years of gamedev experience. Worked on famous Zeno Clash and Rock of Ages.

Aleksander Kauch

Lead game programmer at 11 bit studios, working on Frostpunk, and previously on This War of Mine and Anomaly series. Lecturer at Warsaw University of Technology.

William Besnard

Creative Director, Designer & Programmer at Vile Monarch, ex Vivid Games and EverydayIPlay. Created MonKey Commander and Selection Parrot, dev tools for Unity.

Joanna Lelito

3D Artist and Character Artist, currently in 7LEVELS, with 7 years of gamedev experience. Worked on God's Trigger and Driftland: The Magic Revival.

Marco Bucci

Freelance artist, working for Walt Disney Publishing, LEGO, LucasArts, Hasbro, GURU Studio, C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, Yowza! Animation Inc., Pipeline Studios, and more.

Axel Riffard

Shipped multiple 2D mobile to AAA console titles on all platforms in Japan (No More Heroes, Naruto). Now works as Support Engineer with many Epic licensees.

Thomas Feichtmeir

Pixel artist, Art Consultant and Art Director with 9 years of experience. Worked on The Mummy Demastered, Adventure Time, Tower 57 and a lot more.

Teut Weidemann

Online & f2p consultant for Ubisoft, Digital Extremes, Edge of Reality, Headup Games . Shipped 100+ titles in 30 years of career. Creative Director at Boombit.

Natalia Riabokon

Developer and software engineer with 10 years of experience, now in Huuuge Games. Specializes in game logic and multi-paradigm programming in various languages.

Richard Rouse III

Director, designer, and writer at Paranoid Productions. Ex-Design Lead at Microsoft Studios and Ubisoft Montreal. Author of Game Design: Theory & Practice.

Łukasz Burdka

Solution Engineer at Techland for 5 years, working on the new C-Engine version and world building pipeline for Dying Light 2. Author of semi-procedural city generation tech.

Martyna Neumann-Baranowska

Marketing Specialist at Vivid Games working on App Store Optimization. She works on Real Boxing, Space Pioneer, Gravity Rider and more.

Eric Jacobus

Veteran stuntman, filmmaker, performer and action designer. Motion capture stuntman in Mafia III and for Kratos, Baldur and other characters in God of War.

Ryan Clark

Indie developer, creator of Crypt of the NecroDancer, Cadence of Hyrule, Industries of Titan. Ex-Executive Producer at Big Fish. Founder of Brace Yourself Games.

Kate Edwards

CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, pioneering in content culturalization, the former Executive Director of the IGDA. Board Member of Take This.

Jay Powell

Business consultant for 20+ years. Worked with People Can Fly, Starbreeze, DICE, Paradox Studios , Haemimont Games, Invictus Games and more.

Rob Carr

Audio designer with 12 years in the industry in Rockstar Games working on GTA, Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire, Max Payne 3, and currently working for Wargaming.

Partners

Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego

Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo-Sieciowe

Organizers

Wydział Informatyki Politechniki Poznańskiej

Media partners

Patrons

Ministerstwo Przedsiębiorczości i Technologii

Companies in MeetToMatch

GIC place and time

Games Industry Conference takes place in the area of Poznan International Fair next to Poznan Game Arena expo. GIC will take place in pavilon 15, in its 2 aulas, 4 conference rooms and its other areas, while PGA will be held in 50m walk distance in pavilons 7, 7a, 8, 8a, 6, 6a and 5. (more)

In 2020, GIC will take place on:
Thursday, October 8th – Sunday, October 11th
Have any questions? Contact us: contact@gic.gd

Travel

Poznań is quite easily reachable from all around the Europe.
Poznań is the eastern neighbour of Berlin. There are multiple trains and bus lines that take 3h to travel and offer prices starting from 10Euro.
There are regular direct flights from following cities:
Star Aliance Airlines: Frankfurt, Lviv, Munich, Warsaw–Chopin, Copenhagen.
Ryanair: Stockholm, Sandefjord, Billund, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London Standstet, Bristol, Dublin, Cork, Paris-Beuavais, Alicante, Girona, Bergamo, Rome, Malta, Corfu, Athens, Kavala, Tel Aviv, Budapest, Odessa, Kiev, Kharkiv.
Wizz Air: Sandefjord, Doncaster/Sheffield, Birmingham, Eindhoven, Paris-Beauvais, Kiev, London–Luton.

For more detailed information, see our travel guide.