A record year for GamesIndustry.biz: Letter from the Publisher

Two and a half years ago GamesIndustry.biz had a bit of a relaunch.

We didn't really call it that at the time, but that's effectively what it was. We had a new team, a new website and then just started doing lots of new things. 

It wasn't just new things. We did more of the old things, too. More interviews, more analysis, more news stories. And that's unsurprisingly led to more readers. We've just posted our best ever half-year audience results. We're up 60% over our previous best (way back in 2013) and surpassed our 2018 half-year readership by a brilliant 100%.

That growth has come internationally. Although our home is the UK, only 15.5% of our readership are based on these shores. North America represents 45% of our readership, which is a statistic that's been steadily growing over the last 24 months. In fact, we are now read by a huge number of developers, publishers, investors, analysts and retailers in over 50 countries worldwide. 

It's nice to see those figures. It shows that we've increased our reach and influence, but we're not a media brand driven by traffic. We're all about content that specifically supports games industry professionals like yourself (or soon-to-be games industry professionals). That's why the 9% growth in registered industry users (now over 142,000) is the number we are really excited by. Not to mention the 57,500 subscribers to our email newsletter (also up 9%). 

"Although our home is the UK, only 15.5% of our readership are based on these shores. North America represents 45% of our readership"

Going out and engaging with our readers directly has also been a big focus for us. We attend almost every video games industry event of note (from very local summits, to international trade shows). Since the start of 2017, we've established three new GamesIndustry.biz events - the GamesIndustry.biz 100, Marketing Summit and the Best Places To Work Awards. These events are entering their third year now, and each one has been bigger than the last and (we think anyway) better.

We also relaunched (again, we didn't call it that) our Investment Summit in 2017, and we've grown attendance by 300% since then. In fact, following our acquisition by PAX organisers ReedPOP, we've managed to take these Summits to the US. We've already done one in Boston, with our next one set for Seattle this August. Over the course of the last three Investment Summits, we've spoken to and (hopefully) helped some 500 independent game developers.

We've done a bunch of other cool things, too. We've put on some free conferences like our Changing Channels event in May. We've run quizzes, parties and meeting rooms at shows like EGX. We have created specialist newsletters and our GI Podcast. We've even gone physical and created the GamesIndustry.biz Magazine -- we just published our third edition of that last month.

We've been having so much fun chasing the shiny new things, that we are perhaps guilty of not standing still and just looking back at all that's happened. 

The GamesIndustry.biz team is changed to the one that was here three years ago. The editorial team is led brilliantly by Matt Handrahan, who has two veteran B2B specialists in Brendan Sinclair and James Batchelor supporting him. Haydn Taylor and Rebekah Valentine are our exciting young journalistic talent keeping us older folk on our toes. Charlotte Nangle, our trade events manager, has been relentless in making sure our events are the best out there. And then there's Chris Buckley, our expert sales manager, who ensures our clients are also benefitting from all this exciting growth. We shouldn't forget, either, our supporting cast of freelancers such as Rob Fahey and Jamie Sefton.

It's been a great few years, but the job is far from done. We know we can improve, develop and do even more new things that can help the games industry. Those growing UK events will soon be coming to other territories (including the US), and we have some extra website sections in the works -- such as an all-new jobs board, which we expect to have finished by the end of the year.

And you're encouraged to take part in all of this. In fact, here's how:

If you're interested in getting involved commercially, and to check out our advertising options, then drop Chris Buckley a line at Chris.Buckley@gamesindustry.biz. If you want to hear more about our events, then Charlotte Nangle is the person to speak to via Charlotte.Nangle@gamesindustry.biz. And for editorial, the best way to reach the whole team is via editorial@gamesindustry.biz

Thank you for being our reader. We've enjoyed having you, and we hope to keep supporting you and your business in the years and years to come. 

Christopher Dring