NoShow: "devcom..." (I)

VON Dr. Wolf SiegertZUM Sonntag Letzte Bearbeitung: 18. August 2019 um 19 Uhr 58 Minuten

 

... this is just a reminder for those of you, who want to come to devcom 2019, the official game developer conference of gamescom...
... find an update on the program and speakers of devcom.

We are very proud of the program of this year’s conference, because for the first time a team of Studio & Team leaders from the European games industry supported us from day one to develop a program tailored to the needs of game developers.

Auch wenn in diesem Jahr weder heute noch morgen, Montag, eine Teilnahme möglich sein wird, an dieser Stelle zumindest ein Hinweis auf jene Themen und TeilnehmerInnen, die an diesem Tag zur Sprache kommen werden:

Sunday, August 18, 2019
10:30 AM
11:00 AM
devcom Opening Ceremony
devcom’s official opening ceremony by Stephan Reichart and other guests!
Offenbachsaal
Opening Ceremony

11:00 AM
12:00 PM
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Production: The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful
Cristian will talk about the learnings from Tom Clancy’s The Division and how they were applied in the production of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2. He will then take a deep dive into the production philosophy, processes and tools that were used throughout the development of The Division 2, and the challenges Massive had to overcome while working on a multisite production.
Offenbachsaal
Keynote
 Cristian Pana (Ubisoft Massive)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
Classic Post Mortem - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
Follow games industry legends David Fox and Noah Falstein on their journey through time, back into the year 1989, and celebrate the 30th anniversary of a classic - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure.
Offenbachsaal
Fireside Chat
 David Fox Noah Falstein (The Inspiracy)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
Beyond the Soundtrack - a Journey in creating unique musical Soundworlds for Games
From journeying in near lost villages in Mexico in search of rare Mayan musical knowledge to handmaking paper instruments that sound larger than life are just some of ’normal’ things that Brian does when he is creating soundtracks for games. In this talk, we will explore the unique creative process and methodologies that Brian used to create the award-winning soundtracks on games such as ’Shadow Of The Tomb Raider", "Tearaway" and "Resident Evil 7
Europasaal
Talk
 Brian D’Oliveira (La Hacienda Creative)

12:30 PM
1:00 PM
When S..t hits the Fan, you need a Plan!
Building a studio and team of game developers is one thing – growing it and keeping it alive, even when things don’t seem to go your way, yet another. After working at numerous high-profile companies like Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Bigpoint, and Ci Games, Dan founded his very own studio Black Sail Games in the heart of Warsaw, Poland, and gathered his fair share of experience in game development, focused on the risks and best practices when it comes to build, manage and grow international teams to make them perform and create innovative products. In his talk, Dan will give valuable insights into how teams can prepare for the worst case and how they can weather the storm.
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Dan Olthen (Black Sail Games)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
A new Era of Publishing: How to evaluate the Services of a modern Publisher and pitch your Game
In this session, developers will examine the functions of a modern publisher, learn how to evaluate their services, and understand what makes an effective game pitch.
Hall 11 - Stage 3
Talk
 Christina Seelye (Maximum Games)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
More than once upon a Time: KPI-driven Storytelling
Narrative has been back in business for a while now. Proving over and over again, that it does not only work as a vehicle for immersion, it is a solid business model as well. At the same time lots of games try to cash in on this trend delivering story driven F2P gaming experiences. The market has doubled the last two years and shows no sign of stopping. But how to establish a successful storytelling product, that monetizes well and is accepted by the audience? This Session will give real insights into the processes and concepts behind the launch of such a product. We will illustrate these with actual data from the launch of our own game “My Love: Make Your Choice!” in the DACH region. We will also show how we shaped our Live Operations process around the improvement of the storytelling experience. Using real data to explain why some decisions work with the target audience and others don’t. The session will help to understand some of the basics behind creating a F2P story driven app which focuses on romantic plots. While offering some basic thoughts on approaching other genres as well. Session Summary: How to make a narrative game work and perform on the F2P-market. How to optimize decisions for your audience. Session Takeaway: - Understanding your audience is the key to monetization - Never sell your most exciting options to cheap - Be prepared for some rude surprises
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Nico Nowarra (Gamebook)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
How Drones find their way in The Surge
How do you make drones to move properly in your game when the rest of your enemies are stick to the ground? How do you do that without spending too much money licensing an external software? We will try to explain the process we followed and why it was worth it for us.
Showfloor Stage
Talk
 Carlos Torija (Deck13)Arturo Cepeda (Deck13)

12:30 PM
2:30 PM
Spatial Audio in Forza Horizon 4’s Initial Experience (+ Showcase)
This session aims to form an overview of Forza Horizon 4’s opening audio moments. A particular focus of the talk will look at how Spatial Audio was used to enhance the overall experience.
Dolby Atmos Stage
Talk
 Fraser Strachan (Playground Games)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
How Hadean tackled a Gaming Record
Earlier this year, tech start-up Hadean teamed up with MMO developer CCP Games to create EVE Aether Wars, a massively ambitious project that aimed to bring thousands of players together in a single-shard world. With Phase Two about to take place, Hadean revisit the original Aether Wars and share fascinating insight into running a massively multiplayer tech demo that dared to go where no-one in the industry had gone before.
Hall 11 - Stage 2
Talk
 Aidan Hobson Sayers (Hadean Supercomputing LTD)

12:30 PM
1:30 PM
The Psychology of Live Ops (Presented by Microsoft)
For the growing number of games that are always online, managing live operations is increasingly essential. Live Ops expands the fun with continual engagement and connected experience. Growth depends on the satisfaction of the players and modular features that can operate independently. We’ll explore how player psychology impacts your design and live operation.
Hall 11 - Stage 4
Talk
 Mark Val (Microsoft)

1:00 PM
1:30 PM
Videogames and High Culture: Multidisciplinary Reflections and Connections
Videogames and High Culture: Multidisciplinary Reflections and Connections What are, but most of all, what could videogames be? To what extent old and new generations are influenced and “educated”, whether directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, by video-recreational applications developed for the global market? What is the existing relationship between High Culture, in the complexity of its own definition, and the world of digital entertainment? In 2018 Fabio Belsanti, game designer with a historian background, Roberto Talamo, a literature theorist and lecturer, and Elisa Di Lorenzo, CEO of Untold Games, questioned themselves and, at the same time, asked a first group of scholars/academics and developers, these and many more questions with the purpose to feed the international debate on the complex and multifaceted universe of videogames. In their talk, Elisa and Fabio share their our experience and vision about videogames and high culture (beyond the functional dynamics of development and business), the multidisciplinary methodology we have decided to use, the many questions that remain open and the results so far achieved. Takeaway Videogame developers rarely stop to contemplate their work, rarely have a philosophical or existential view of what they are developing, and we believe that this is an obstacle to the evolution of this incredible medium. Attendees should come away from this talk with a lot of new questions about their work and the (high) cultural implications of what they create
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Elisa Di Lorenzo (Untold Games)Fabio Belsanti (P.M. Studios)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Original meets Reboot: Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom
The iconic arcade platformer ’Wonder Boy’ by Japanese creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, released in 1986, turned out to be the headstone of a long-lasting, popular series, called ’Monster World’ with later releases. 32 years later, Game Atelier and FDG joined forces to continue this critically acclaimed series with ’Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom’. Join the fireside chat of two generations of game creators who worked on the same legendary series. Learn about what the challenges of making games were back then, how they changed up until today, and how it feels to have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to continue a series you’ve been playing and loving as kid - with a team spread around the globe and speaking 4 different languages!
Offenbachsaal
Fireside Chat
 Ryuichi Nishizawa (Freelance)
 Fabien Demeulenaere (Game Atelier)
 Tomoko Miya (Flamebait Games)
 Philippe Döschl (FDG Entertainment)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Animating Creatures with Body Mutations in Phoenix Point - Same Character, same Animation Set, different Movements (Sponsored by akeytsu)
Taking you behind the scenes of one of the most anticipated titles by the game designer Julian Gollop, the animator Elena Nikolova will talk about the challenges of animating multipede characters, building a workflow in a growing independent team and how to find solutions when hitting a wall.
Europasaal
Talk
 Elena Nikolova (SNAPSHOT GAMES)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Debunking the Myths & telling the Truth about Player Retention
Is Day 7 more important than D1? Why is 65% D1 just about good enough for hyper casual and 36% D1 good enough for others? In this session Oliver will share some of the truths and myths around player retention and how Lockwood Publishing, the makers of Avakin Life broke with D1 retention to double their player base every 12 months for the last 4 years.
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Oliver Kern

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Revitalizing an MMORPG after 20 Years of Service
In January 2019 Tibia turned 22 - it is the oldest commercial continuously running MMORPG worldwide. Within the last three years we could stabilize a declining player base and increase the revenue of the game by more than 50%. This talk shows the amazing developement and describes some of the key changes that made this success possible: - Extending the freemium monetization model with microtransactions and an ingame store and keeping the community in the process - Solving a long lasting cheating problem by implementing BattlEye anti-cheat service - Solving a long lasting DDoS problem by combining a self developed technical solution with professional DDoS protection services - Including the community in feature selection and development
Hall 11 - Stage 2
Talk
 Martin Eglseder (CipSoft)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Your Brand is the Key to your Survival
When players consider buying your game, they don’t see what you see: there are 100s of new games and ALL the top sellers are sequels and part of established brands. Whether you’re pitching investors or selling to gamers, your brand needs to communicate instantly that THIS game is a quality package - and show the buyer what emotional experience is on offer. The question is how to do that? Christian Fonnesbech will dive into the secrets of impactful brands and long lasting IPs. Takeaways: - Why your Artistic intent is your core business - How brands are built - The components of long-lasting IPs
Hall 11 - Stage 3
Talk
 Christian Fonnesbech (Leverage)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Stories To Go: Guidelines for effective Narrative Design in Mobile Games
Do mobile games need ‘a story’? A game’s narrative design deeply influences player experience and can provide a sense of purpose and motivation. But due to the nature of the medium, mobile games have to fight over players’ attention in a way that other games don’t. This forces us to rethink how we deliver narrative. This session will take a look at mobile players’ behavior and best practices to make your game’s narrative work with few words, using Candy Crush and other games as examples.
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Valentina Tamer (King)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Man in a Box: How to be effective working remotely
Why be a man in the box? Otto Kivling, Lead programmer at Redhill Games, will answer the question and share his experience of coding onsite and remote in different gaming companies. Have you ever thought of being remote? Otto has tips for you!
Showfloor Stage
Talk
 Otto Kivling (Redhill Games)

1:30 PM
2:30 PM
Making grown Men cry - Working with difficult and emotional Topics in your Games
Sarepta Studio creates thought-provoking and emotional titles, such as BAFTA award-winning “My Child Lebensborn”, - a story-driven nurture game about children born of war. In this talk you will get insights into how to work with difficult and emotional topics as a basis for your games. Hear about choices made in the development of My Child Lebensborn, and get a sneak peek into the current goals and challenges of our newest project, - A first-person psychological drama.
Hall 11 - Stage 4
Talk
 Catharina Due Bøhler (Sarepta Studio)

2:30 PM
3:00 PM
The Next Wave in Mobile Gaming Monetisation (Presented by App Annie)
The leading mobile data and analytics platform shares the latest trends on the gaming industry globally: from the movers and shakers of 2019 and top publishers of the last year to the monetisation strategies pushing publishers to the top of the charts. Mobile gaming is set to hit 60% market share of consumer spend in 2019, among all gaming including PC/Mac, handheld and home consoles. While mobile gaming continues to eat into consoles’ market share, the future of mobile gaming is changing faster than ever before; App Annie reveals the trends to watch. 
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Tomek Chudzinski

2:30 PM
3:00 PM
Creating Impact Without Shaky-Cam
Adding screen shake to convey mass and impact in your games is one of the first tricks you learn about when going into game development. But what if there’s more than just screen shakes to juice up the feel of your game? This presentation aims to teach you about other effective delivery techniques to add that much needed "oomph" in your game’s design by introducing and teaching you how to convey impact through time scaling, freeze framing, color flashing, shape deformation, texture swapping, jittering, gamepad rumbling and much more! All in runtime! After this presentation you’ll have a plethora of effective methods to deliver the ultimate sense of mass and impact to the player.
Cre
Hall 11 - Stage 2
Talk
 Fabian Rastorfer Ben Miller (Fabraz)

2:30 PM
3:00 PM
Machines of Loving Grace - Human-Computer Interaction w/ DL
Recent advancements in deep learning open up new opportunities in human-computer interaction. Game designers can facilitate a more natural interaction between players and games. Speech recognition, natural language processing, object recognition, body and face tracking or even emotional state estimation are becoming available to developers and have the potential to change the way we interact with interactive media. Especially in the emerging areas like VR or augmented reality, deep learning is fostering the emergence of new design and UX solutions, allowing for a more natural way of interacting with the media we create.
Hall 11 - Stage 3
Talk
 Andrzej Wojcicki (Lighthouse)

2:30 PM
3:00 PM
When Indie Developers meet (actual) Rock Stars
What happens when a metal band with zero game development experience decides to make an album as a video game and somehow manages to bring actual rock stars ((ex)Guns N’ Roses, Epica, Within Temptation and others) on board? A lot of mess, rock n’ roll, crazy stories and important life, team management and development lessons.
Hall 11 - Stage 4
Talk
 Arnold Nesis (Capricia Productions)

2:30 PM
3:00 PM
’War Stories - Action Is for the Moment, but Stories Can Empower or Haunt Far Beyond the Game’
In this talk I will share how my own experiences as a war journalist and how the experiences of my team have shaped the storytelling in our games and simulations. Providing a glimpse behind the scenes, I will explore how we use the power of stories to create truly authentic, deeply engaging characters, worlds and intensely immersive experiences. By taking a look at the neuroscience and psychology of immersion I will discuss why and how these experiences allow us to empower, inspire and in some cases even enable our players to rewire their brains, creating an impact that lasts far beyond the game. Finally I will take a look at our most recent story-telling challenge: creating equally immersive and engaging stories for VR. Audience The talk is aimed at writers involved in developing game narratives but equally addresses overall design challenges and approaches to games and how they influence their players minds. Therefore it is relevant to a wider range of professionals involved in game design and creation
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Antonia Koop (corncutter.games Ltd)
 Kite Rider (Strategic Adventures Ltd.)

2:30 PM
3:00 PM
Offloaded A.I. Processing: How SpatialOS and Multiserver Architecture transforms PvPvE Gameplay in Unreal Engine (Presented by Improbable)
Looking to build an online multiplayer game? The SpatialOS GDK for Unreal solves the hard problems of online game development for every type of online experience - from 4v4 session-based games to 1000-player MMOs. Not just for building the bigger game worlds of tomorrow, SpatialOS allows developers today to focus on gameplay whilst its suite of services handle networking, hosting and online services to accelerate your production. Come hear the latest features additions to the SpatialOS Game Development Kit (GDK) for Unreal and how features such as simple matchmaking and AI offload has enabled Midwinter Entertainment to take a faster and more flexible approach to creating an online game during the development of its upcoming PvPvE shooter Scavengers.
Showfloor Stage
Talk
 Paul Thomas (Improbable)

2:30 PM
3:30 PM
Microsoft Spatial Sound Platform: Fundamentals, Best Practices and Content Ideas
This talk will focus on the fundamentals of the Microsoft Spatial Sound platform on Windows and Xbox, what the platform offers for developers and users, and show the basics of integrating spatial sound into a title. We will also discuss deeper middleware integration including use of dynamic objects and non-virtualized sounds, best practices for integration, and ways to use spatial content to bring deeper immersion to a title. 
Dolby Atmos Stage
Talk
 Robert Ridihalgh (Microsoft)

3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Leading Game Teams With Emotional Intelligence
A lot of has been said about the efficiencies of teams and how process, tools and technology can be improved to help us make games. Yet our greatest -and often only- asset is the talent that we work with. Leading talent means engaging our team members as individuals and human beings who are guided to a large degree by emotional factors. Often this softer side is undervalued and overlooked. Yet, the efficiency of a team requires leadership to understand that emotions exist, they play a key role in individuals and teams’ performance. Over the last 20 years Matias has worked with game teams of various sizes around the world. He will share his learnings on the importance of emotional intelligence and illustrate these with some personal examples. He will also highlight a few common laws of emotional intelligence. The hope is to help leaders deliberately lead with emotional intelligence in mind. 
Offenbachsaal
Talk
 Matias Myllyrinne (Redhill Games)

3:00 PM
3:30 PM
Global Trends: Analysis of 3 Billion Mobile Gamers
GameAnalytics present their latest research into the global mobile gaming market, with fresh data for H1 of 2019 covering more than 70,000 games and 850 million monthly players. In this talk, they reveal the latest industry trends for KPIs like retention, session length, ARPPU, and conversion - all at the genre level. This is the most comprehensive piece of first-hand analysis currently available in the gaming market, with essential insights for developers, studios, and publishers of all shapes and sizes.
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Shariq Manji (GameAnalytics)

3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Player Dreams: Designing the Dictator Fantasy in Tropico 6
When thinking about your game`s USP, it is helpful to understand the “dream” you are offering your players for their time and money. Whether you are offering the chance to ride on the back of a pterosaur, to operate manly harvesting machines or to become an outlaw in the Wild West, the clearer and more meaningful the (childhood-) dream, the easier it is to stick out and to be seen as an experience worth the players` attention. In the talk Johannes and Marcus will share theory and methods to create a strong player dream for your game and illustrate those with practical examples from the development of Tropico 6 with the goal to strengthen the dream of “ruling as a dictator on a tropical island”. Additionally they will explain how to “measure” the strengths of your player dream and go into design decisions in Tropico 6 and how they fulfill the dictator fantasy.
Hall 11 - Stage 2
Talk
 Johannes Reithmann (Limbic Entertainement)

3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Inside Steam’s Expanding Services
Come hear how the Steam platform is evolving, including an advance look at the big changes coming to the Steam Library and the tools available for game developers to stay connected with their customers. We’ll explore the ways that Steam can help developers reach new customers, keep their players engaged and up-to-date, and get the most out of building an audience. Plus, a look at Steam Labs and some innovative new store experiments we’re trying out.
Hall 11 - Stage 3
Talk
 Alden Kroll (Valve Software)

3:00 PM
3:30 PM
Artistic Challenges in creating VR Games
What is it like to work for a studio that develops exclusively for VR? Deniese Datema will tell you all about her experience as a Concept Artist working for VR developer Vertigo Games and the unique design challenges VR brings. Taking examples from their knowledge gained with Arizona Sunshine; one of the most popular games on VR consoles, and working towards their upcoming title After the Fall, Deniese will share unique insights into lessons learned, creative problem solving and how this applies to creating an immersive experience in VR.
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Deniese Datema (Vertigo Games)

3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Why the Games Industry should be afraid of Cloud Gaming (Presented by Blade)
The promise of Cloud Gaming Platforms is the same across the board these days: Play your favorite game titles on max settings, from any device, wherever you want. Cloud Gaming will allow gamers seamless access to all the games they love with no strings attached. Low specs and exorbitantly priced gaming hardware will no longer restrict any gaming experience in the near future. If today, the top 35 game companies account for 82% of global games market, what are the strategies to adapt to this burgeoning industry?
Showfloor Stage
Talk
 Carolin Rother (Blade)Maxime Mouret (Blade)

3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Forge of Empires – LiveOps for a 500+ Million LTR Game
Forge of Empires is a popular online strategy game that has been growing its player base for over 7 years. This means 7 years of live ops and extensive content updates for millions of players to enable constant growth. Stefan will provide insights into key learnings from his role as Product Head, leading a team of more than 35 colleagues. He will dig into procedural-, structural- and design-changes during this time. Ultimately, it’s all about the game and enabling the team to strive for creativity, as well as efficiency, at the same time.
Hall 11 - Stage 4
Talk
 Stefan Walter (InnoGames)

3:00 PM
4:00 PM
Evolution of RayTracing in Metro: Exodus
4A Games’ Senior Rendering Programmer, Benjamin Archard, discusses how RTX works within the 4A Engine, including an update covering the newly implemented features that will be available within the soon to be released DLC for Metro Exodus, The Two Colonels. Benjamin will also provide insight into how working with RTX has evolved the working processes of the 4A Games development team. 
Europasaal
Talk
 Benjamin Archard (4A Games Ltd)

3:30 PM
4:00 PM
Rewarded Ads: The Marriage of Engagement and Monetization
No indie started great, but every indie can get there! We walk you through our sure-fire process for building, then monetizing amazing games. Remember, always put the player first!
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Nathaniel Barker (Kolibri Games)

3:30 PM
4:00 PM
Cascadeur: Making our own physics-based Animation Software (Presented by Nekki)
Why would we need physics in animation? Is physics popular among animators? Why create our own animation software? I’ll answer these questions based on our experience and will tell you the reason why we decided to develop our own physics-based animation editor: Cascadeur. We’ll also look at the challenges we faced while creating and adapting our physics tools for real-life usage. Take away: In this session we’ll find out what problems arise, when you want to make realistic 3d animation by hand and how to solve them.
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Aleksandr Grishanin (Nekki Limited)

3:30 PM
5:00 PM
Dolby Atmos in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (+ Showcase)
Simon will talk about the feedback the team got from the first game, and how that led to integrating Dolby Atmos support, along with the creative and technical challenges the team faced while doing so. There will be a brief overview of the Division 2 Wwise project, and the talk will also feature a live demo, showing off how Dolby Atmos improves the player experience.
Dolby Atmos Stage
Talk
 Simon Koudriavtsev (UBISOFT )

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Adding personal Touches to a gigantic and well-known World in Marvel’s Spider-Man
Lead Environment Artist Jason will share his insights into how Insomniac Games created their version of Manhattan in Marvel’s Spider-Man, and filled it with life - from diversity, LGBTQ & civil rights, and religion, to the scale of certain districts, as well as specific fan service. 
Offenbachsaal
Talk
 Jason Hickey (Insomniac Games)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Adapting Call of Cthulhu into a Video Game without losing your Sanity
Call of Cthulhu: the Official Video Game has been praised for its faithfulness to both the Chaosium RPG and Lovecraft’s mythos. Pia Jacqmart, lead narrative designer on the project, will define the benefits and constraints of working from a literary work: increasing your project’s consistency, its quality, and providing the team with a strong vision and rich cultural background. That is, if you crack the code of the original material.
Europasaal
Talk
 Pia Jacqmart (Cyanide)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Behavioral Economics for Games: Cases of User Data Analysis
This session will introduce three cases of applying behavioral economics to analyze game users with a massive amount of data. Sentience’s Co-founder and Research Lead, Hyeyon Kwon, will describe meta-model of player’s motivations, which reflects four basic human needs of rewards - personal satisfaction, personal rewards, social interaction, public recognition - and elaborate 1) how to quantify and parametrize each motivation from data, 2) build econometric models, and 3) analyze the data to draw implications.
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Hyeyon Kwon (Sentience)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Collaboration is Key: Build a Community and cooperate with fellow Devs
Collaborating with people outside your own team, be it players or fellow developers, is not only beneficial for financial success, but provides you with valuable feedback and can help to push through the tough times of development. This talk consists of two parts: • A step-by-step guide on how to start, maintain and activate a community around your game in development • Tips and tricks on how to collaborate with fellow developers Topics include exhibiting your game, crowdfunding, indie collectives, community hubs, cross-promotion, and Steam Early Access. 
Hall 11 - Stage 2
Talk
 Philomena Schwab (Stray Fawn Studio)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Essence of Play: Accessible Player Experience
Game design has primarily resulted in the addition of accessible options and features after crucial design choices have already been made. The dearth of knowledge around HOW to develop an accessible game is a significant driver of this approach. But what if there was a way to consider accessibility from the inception of a game’s development? The AbleGamers Charity seeks to catalyze a new wave of accessible game design that focuses on the removal of access and challenge barriers to promote accessible player experience (APX).
Hall 11 - Stage 3
Talk
 Mark Barlet (The AbleGamers Charity)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
10 surefire Ways to f*** up your Studio
Since the early days publishers and development teams have always sought the most diverging approaches on their way to the top during times of prosperity. However, the mistakes that led to the downfall of quite many of them are surprisingly identical and few in numbers on the other hand. History seems to be repeating itself year after year. And this becomes the more obvious the longer you work in this crazy industry. In his talk Ralf will try to illustrate the 10 most commonly made mistakes he saw studios of all shapes and sizes repeatedly do again and again throughout his now more than 25 years long lasting career, independently from any platform, genre or business model. Ralf will show examples of first-hand encountered F***-Ups to each and any of these failures. But he will also try to give good practices how read the sign of times before it’s too late, and also how to arm yourself against failing the same way so many others did before (when at the same time there are such exciting new ways to screw up no one has tried before ;-)) Audience addressed: Senior management, executives, leads and directors Level: Intermediate/Expert Takeaway Best practices and learnings how to avoid running into the same pitfalls so many teams did before, when trying to build a studio that will withstand the test of time.
Hall 11 - Stage 4
Talk
 Ralf Adam (Tiger Team Productions)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
Designing Farming Simulator - A Lesson in Balancing Realism
Creating a simulation game is more than just copying reality. It is a balancing act to achieve the realism the vocal community desires while still keeping the game approachable for the majority of players. If the same title can be enjoyed by casual players, children, farming enthusiasts, and even professional farmers, some compromises have to be made to keep everyone satisfied. This talk describes our journey to design a simulation that is played by an extremely widespread community and demonstrates our design philosophy to straddle the line between realism and accessibility.
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Renzo Thönen (GIANTS Software)

4:00 PM
6:00 PM
The LiveOps Starter Guide (Presented by Microsoft)
There’s a lot to consider when designing and building a live game. From retention, to monetization, to content updates get practical advice to help you set up your game for LiveOps success from the start.
Production & Team Management
Workshop
 Crystin Cox (Microsoft)

4:00 PM
5:00 PM
SMS Digital / SMS Group Beer Reception
devcom Piazza
Beer Reception
 Christina Seelye (Maximum Games)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
How to improve the public Perception of Games and Game Creators
Following her 5 years serving as Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association, and being an active industry advocate since that time, Kate Edwards has gained a unique perspective on global attitudes towards games and game developers. Despite being a massive socio-economic and cultural force, games still struggle to gain respect as a creative art form and as leaders in evolving entertainment. Game creators have lost control of the public narrative of their profession and it’s up to us to be our own best advocates. Kate will illustrate the path for how each of us can become better advocates and actively contribute to changing our industry both internally and externally.
Europasaal
Talk
 Kate Edwards (Geogrify)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
Improving Monetisation through Behavioural Economics
April 2019, Transformers: Earth Wars’ gross booking appeared to be declining faster than predicted — overall, key KPI’s looked good — but something was clearly wrong! This session will focus on Mental Accounting and how it contributed to our decline in bookings, how we discovered it, and what we did to address it. Most importantly, we’ll discuss how you can use this knowledge to improve monetisation on your own games and features!
Hall 11 - Stage 1
Talk
 Andrew Munden (Space Ape Games)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
From Zero to Hero: Behind the Scenes of the Creation of ‚Moonlighter‘
In his session, Javi Giménez, CEO of Digital Sun, explains how they evolved from a struggling and unexperienced game outsourcing company into the successful independent game studio that recently released Moonlighter. Javi shares the team’s lessons learned within the areas of business strategy, production, game design, financials, team building, and more.
Hall 11 - Stage 2
Talk
 Javi Gimenez (Digital Sun)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
Organizing Dialogue in Games - it’s just Text, right?
Game development means juggling a lot of data, a lot of tools and complex workflows. Nothing should be easier to handle than some ingame text and dialogue. Sure, writing itself is an art form, but organizing text into the game development process shouldn’t pose any problems. It’s just text, right? Of course, it’s not that easy. There are many ways to work on the many kinds of text that are needed during game development, especially when localisation and audio recordings come into play. In this session experienced writers discuss challenges and best practices how to make handling text in gamedev as easy as possible.
Hall 11 - Stage 3
Fireside Chat
 Falko Löffler
 David Fox Marcus Bäumer (Backwoods Entertainment)
 Jehanne Rousseau (Spiders)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
Your Game Trailer s..ks - here’s why and how you can fix it!
Game trailers are very successful marketing assets that can really help you to promote your game. Sooner or later you will need to have a proper game trailer and it doesn’t need to be a painful task resulting in a boring 5-minute recording of a gameplay. I will show you some of my personal tips and tricks on how to invite players into your world by making the videos more interesting, and will also share my experiences from the perspective of both a filmmaker and game developer.
Hall 11 - Stage 5
Talk
 Juliusz Zenkner (Robot Gentleman)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
Conscientious Character Design post Sexism
Three artists - three sketchbooks - three different approaches Female characters in digital games have been hyper-sexualized and objectified long enough. Recurring design patterns for armors, useless bikini-types of clothing and generic poses make most of these characters disposable. So how do these three artists counter this from an artists type of view? Join Vera, Johnny and Seren when they show their individual approach on creating female character concepts from scratch. In this interactive session the three artists will openly discuss and give insights into how to get rid of stereotypes, boring tropes and elaborate a new perspective on character creation. Feel free to join us in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where all three artist will interactively be sketching on the big-screen together with the audience. The choices will be made by the audience. The results will be discussed in the later half of the session. Afterwards all artists will be available for a chat and a beer at the reception.
Hall 11 - Stage 4
Talk
 Seren Besorak (TriTrie Games)
 Vera Velichko (Owl Studio)
 Johannes Weber (Cologne Game Lab)

5:00 PM
6:00 PM
The uncomfortable and familiar topic of game violence: How to handle realism in violent games
Game DesignCultureCommunity
Offenbachsaal
Panel
 James Portnow (Extra Credits / Rainmaker Games)
 Dean Takahashi (GameBeat at VentureBeat)
 James Portnow (Extra Credits / Rainmaker Games)
 Dean Takahashi (GameBeat at VentureBeat)
 Tsahi Liberman (Simpool)Antonia Koop (corncutter.games Ltd)
 Kite Rider - (Strategic Adventures Ltd.)
 Catharina Due Bøhler (Sarepta Studio)
 Timo Ullmann (YAGER)

6:30 PM
8:00 PM
devcom HEROES Award 2019
Congress Saal 4th floor
Award Ceremony

7:00 PM
7:30 PM
Oculus Indie Spotlight at devcom HEROES Award 2019
Congress Saal 4th floor
Award Ceremony

8:00 PM
1:00 AM
devcom Sunset party
devcom Piazza
Official Party


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