Gamelab: Reflections

During the second half of last week I flew out to Northern Spain to attend this year's Gamelab event, taking place in Gijon.

I'd not been before, and would admit that my knowledge on the industry in Spain wasn't as strong as other markets within Europe - such as the UK, France or Germany - so it was great to understand more about the individual business challenges, and meet some of the key people involved.

On the face of it, an event that's primarily conducted in Spanish (although translated into English) and focusing largely on that country's industry isn't going to leap out as something that's relevant for everybody - particularly as the event calendar has become more and more crowded in the past couple of years.

But I do think that it's important on an ongoing basis that key events continue to see the support of the international industry - and from now on I'd include Gamelab in that list.

Principally, that's because Gamelab, now in its fifth year, has done a very good job of bringing national developers and other talent together to discuss the challenges and opportunities - and in that respect it reminds me of Nordic Game or Develop in the past.

While the timing and location might not be ideal for international development and publishing superstars to head over, those elements may be flexible in the future.

It's been a longstanding ambition of mine that GamesIndustry.biz will be able to reflect and represent much more of the videogames business taking place in the individual markets around Europe over time - and to that end I hope Gamelab can play a vital and ongoing role.

Meanwhile, we'll be publishing a few more articles from the event on GamesIndustry.biz in due course.