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Pocket Gamer Connects Vancouver gets off to a flyer with over 600 mobile game professionals

What happened?

Pocket Gamer Connects Vancouver gets off to a flyer with over 600 mobile game professionals

The latest new instalment of the PG Connects series touched down in Vancouver this week with well over 600 mobile games professionals signing up to share information, pitch and network at the inaugural event against the glorious backdrop of Vancouver Bay.

Jam-packed schedule
As usual for a PG Connects event, there was a pretty packed schedule on offer.

More than 100 speakers engaged the crowds over seven tracks covering everything from fund-raising, UA and surviving as an indie developer to the potential of VR, esports and opportunities in Asian markets.

Talks from global heavyweights like Activision, EA, Wargaming, Fox, GREE, Colopl, Twitch, NCSoft, Kabam, Super Evil Megacorp, Netease, Pocket Gems, Seriously, Namco Bandai, Tilting Point and Gamevil interspersed with local stars such Iugo (discussing the success of Walking Dead with Skybound and Scopely in tow), East Side Games, Hothead, Roadhouse and more.

Meanwhile the Made in Vancouver track brought together the local and regional governments with a wave of successful talent to celebrate the success stories of the region and outline why its so attractive to game-makers (coming on the back of recent events in Europe this may be even more pertinent than usual!).

Pitching and Matching

The Big Indie Pitch was as talent-packed as usual, making life hard for a talented judging panel including the usual mix of publishers, media and experts with generous support of Chillingo, Corona and Nvidia. 

The 2020SpeedMatch was if anything even more frantic, connecting developers and publishers in high tempo negotiations, which was all the more impressive coming as it did merely hours after many returned home from the awesome networking party the night before (huge thanks to Kabam for that).

Suffice to sat our business matching system was working overtime too!

We'll be back!

Steel Media's Managing Director Chris James was understandably in bullish mood.

"We'll definitely be back next year and it's going to be even bigger and better. The city is a phenomenal place to visit and the vibrbant Vancouver games community and local organisations have been very supportive, but we know we can do even better in 2017."

Obviously none of this would have been possible without the support of sponsors, so special thanks are due to gold level backers ZPlay, Unity, Creative BC and the Vancouver Ecomomic Commission plus silver sponsors IUGO, IGG, Corona Labs, GameSparks and Kabam.

Plenty more to come in July and August!

You can expect a lot more news from the show over the next few days, including track videos, session write-ups and indie pitch results and if you're looking for more networking opportunities don't worry, we've got a lot lined up.

The Big Indie Pitch comes to Develop in Brighton in July, followed by a Mobile Mixer in Shanghai at Chinajoy and a PG Party and another BIP in Cologne for GamesCom in August, all providing a nice lead in to our next big show PG Connects Helsinki, taking place on 5-6th September.