With Pocket Gamer Connects mere days away and our schedule fully confirmed, we’re feeling properly excited to have 800 of the industry’s finest minds along to join in the fun.
But where and what do you start with when you reach the conference hall?
What highlights stand out from the schedule from our perspective? And what might you be missing if you’re not in attendance?
Here are six of our personal highlights from the schedule that we think you'd be mad to miss out on.
Throughout both days of the conference, we have a series of big hitting names helping to lend weight to our crammed schedule.
On Day 1, we’ll be gathering around the fireside to chat with Peter Molyneux at 2pm about his experiences in mobile as part of our Best of British track.
And on Day 2, we’ll be having Rami Ismail from Vlambeer on our Indie Survival Guide going head to head with Robert Xiao from Chinese publisher Perfect World, and Manish Agarwal from Indian outfit Reliance Games.
2
Learn about the user life cycle
For those of you of a mobile marketing bent, we’ll be keeping you well stocked with leading experts from across the mobile advertising industries and beyond to help you guide your game to glory.
Following Eric Seufert’s keynote speech at 9:35am, we’ll have leading figures from Google, Facebook and Twitter taking to the stage on our Acquire, Engage, Monetise track on Day 1, as well as reps from AppLift, Vungle, Fiksu, AdColony and more speaking.
And with three panels focused on acquisition, engagement and monetisation respectively, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to get a holistic look at the entire user life cycle during the show.
3
Some surprising bonus talks
During our first day Bonus Track, we’ll be shedding light on some of the more interesting and surprising things happening during the day.
Starting off with a talk from Dutch Airliner Royal KLM about their soon to be released mobile game (yes, an airline releasing a mobile game), at 11:00am Ian Hamilton will be explaining how to design your game for as wide as possible, while Adrian Hon of Six to Start will be talking about his perspective on wearable gaming at 12:20am.
And if you think that the mobile gaming media is too serious, our panel at 10:25am featuring journalists from Wired, The Guardian, AppSpy and PocketGamer.biz will be trying to argue why they’re still relevant in this UA driven world.
4
Investors in the house
On Day 1 we’ll be hosting a super secret invite only investment afternoon, as ten of the hottest Finnish gaming companies pitch for Series A funding from 50+ investors.
But once that is done, they’ll be wandering the floor of the conference on the lookout for the next big thing.
So keep your eyes and ears ready while you’re out and about during the show as you never know when you could bump into one of those deep pocketed and important people…
5
Education, Education, Education
And our last highlight is the Education track on Day 1, which will be taking a look at all angles of the mobile gaming education equation with the help of our sponsors Kuovola.
In the section dedicated to using mobile games to teach children, the highlight is ex-Pocket Gamer and current Guardian and Apps Playground curator Stuart Dredge talking to Hopster, Nighttime Zoo and The Studio Liverpool about their experiences at 10:25am.
And after we’ve heard from the likes of Sony, Next Gen Skillset, UCL and BUGS about how governments and corporate companies can help shape the education agenda, Jesse Freeman of Amazon will be kicking off two hours of practical developer-focused talks at 12:30pm with the likes of Unity, Photon, PlayFab, Apportable and Chilliworks sharing their expertise.
So those are some of our major highlights from Pocket Game Connects. If you’ve bought a ticket, we'll see you there next week and if you haven't, you can still grab one at our ticket site here if you're speedy.Â
George Osborn (no, not that one) has been ensnared by PocketGamer.biz to write words for them on pain of death/in return for money. He works with the events team to produce pitch perfect editorial for Pocket Gamer's ever-expanding events schedule, as well as working on advice features and articles to help game developers make the most of mobile.
