Games Growth Summit was an all-day event that brought together more than 25 industry speakers. Panels and talks covered trade topics spanning publishing and distribution, through to finance, tax and beyond.
We wanted to share a few key points that Payload Studios co-founder, Vincent Scheurer mentioned on the “Understanding the trends: Where are the investment opportunities?” panel at Games Growth Summit a couple of weeks ago:
- Don’t shoehorn trends into projects (but you can be agile as a developer).
- The game is the foundation and strength – trends are a bonus.
- Investment needs to focus on getting a game in front of people to see if it lands (not necessarily trends).
Sitting alongside Vincent and also giving their views on the subject were Cassia Curran – founder of Curran Games Agency – and Tony Pearce – CEO of Reality+. On the subject of trends, Cassia highlighted that teams need to have proof that they can demonstrate development in hot topic themes and also to show traction, especially social traction, in any pitches to investors.
For those game developers interested in leveraging trends, Tony suggested that they prove a trend via the outcome i.e. ‘make the thing, have a plan and prove’. His view is that you can always fail quickly and pivot if you need to. Well done to all the panellists for their contributions and making the panel a success.
Another familiar face also appearing at the event was Dan Bernardo, founder of Dreamnauts Studios. Dan has been a supporter of the Tentacle Zone incubator programme and very kindly gave up his time to speak to 2022’s cohort.
Dan’s panel at GGS was called “Playing the field: Being attractive to investors” and focused on what indie studios can do to maximise their chances of attracting investment.
Congratulations to the Games Growth Summit team for organising a fantastic event!