Looking Ahead: GC Asia
LMI Asia MD Jorg Zeissig on what to expect from this year's Singapore event, and its growth since 2007
In a couple of weeks Games Convention Asia will open its doors to conference delegates and public visitors alike - the third time the Singapore event has featured on the industry's calendar.
We spoke to the MD of organising company Leipziger Messe International, Jorg Zeissig to find out what's planned for this year's showing, and how it's grown since 2007.
Well it started in 2005 - we had a lot of contacts in the industry that weren't just in Germany or Europe, so we thought about doing something not only in Germany but also another key market, and Asia specifically.
So we took a closer look at the region and identified a couple of locations which have some ties to the games industry, and good locations for hosting an event. Finally, for several reason, we picked Singapore to host the event and create a spin-off of the Games Convention brand in Asia-Pacific.
We then created the concept in 2006 and put together the first event in 2007, calling the whole thing GC Asia.
Well, looking at that year we had 70,000 public visitors to the show, and about 80 exhibitors. Last year we had 92,000 visitors and over 100 exhibitors.
Meanwhile we also had the conference - because the concept has two parts, the public and business areas - and we do expect the public area to grow again this year, with four days of the show as opposed to three days last year.
And on the business part, we're looking at raising the quality of the speakers this year, not just having more of them - that's not going to bring in more attendees. This year the conference will definitely be of even higher quality as we bring in DICE to the event as well - that will take place on the first day of the conference, while the second day will be the regular multiple-track event, similar to the past.
We have four tracks on the second day, focusing on mobile development and iPhone development, as well as production and technology tracks which will have some really good stuff in there - for instance the Ubisoft guys will talk about the making of Assassin's Creed. Things like that are really important to the business in the region in terms of learning how to build a business from scratch.
There will be a business development track as well, on how to run a business - not just being creative, but how to make money. And the fourth track will be art and design, so there will be a couple of good games that have been developed in the region but the art and design was not that perfect - so people will step in those sessions and listen to what the big names will have to say.
Well I hope that we'll now be targeting a slightly different audience now - we're thinking about an additional 200 people, minimum, to attend GC Asia this year, because they'll also be there for the DICE Summit.
It's a slightly different track system, and different level of person we're speaking to - that's really the senior executive level. We do have, for example, the senior VP of Sony Worldwide Studios out of Tokyo, Kobayashi-san, and Chris Taylor will be there, the chief creative officer of Electronic Arts... they're really good names, and there will be two more to come, so we're got five or six top people speaking and sharing their knowledge with the audience.