Pocket Gamer Connects took place in San Francisco on 14 and 15 May and was a smashing success. The two-day event took place at Bespoke in San Francisco’s Westfield Centre and brought together 850 industry professionals in the process.
The event featured a host of great talks from the sector’s brightest minds, as well as the Big Indie Pitch for both PC and mobile developers, the Big Indie Zone, an IGDA Mentor Cafe and numerous networking opportunities throughout the event and via the event’s free matchmaking service. In the 0evening of the first day was the packed Global Connects Party which took place at the stylish – and thematically appropriate! – Coin-Op Game Room.
Also making its grand debut was our inaugural B2B conference for the blockchain gaming industry Blockchain Gamer Connects. The two events took place side by side.
Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco entertained 566 companies and 135 speakers, across which 42 nationalities were represented.
Among the host of speakers were High Fidelity co-founder and former Second Life boss Philip Rosedale, EA group GM Katherine de Léon, Super Evil Megacorp CEO Kristian Segerstrale, Zynga COO Matt Bromberg, Super Game Chain CEO Toni Xu and Niantic AR mapping lead Ross Finman and many more. There were tracks about esports, influencer marketing, acquiring/retaining/monetizing users, among others.
The expo area had 44 exhibitors, of which 22 were indie developers in a dedicated Big Indie Zone. They also participated in a cracking Big Indie Pitch which saw local developer Defend the Cake take the crown. Defend the Cake is a cute and tactical tower defence game with a confectionary theme. Second place went to Colombia’s Studio Bando and their Super Best Ghost Game.
A big thanks to all the people who supported us, our sponsors, participants, speakers and delegates. Watch out for videos from the conference, featuring the best of the events’ talks, in the very near future.
Pocket Gamer Connects will return to Helsinki in September.