GermanDevDays Unveils Preliminary Programme and Exhibitors

Although there may be some changes before the start of GermanDevDays, the preliminary programme for the unusual conference is now online. The organisers have also announced which eight indies will be able to exhibit for free.

This year's GermanDevDays will be particularly exciting, as the new timing means they will take place just two weeks before gamesocm. At least there will be continuity in terms of content. The organisers offer a wide range of interesting topics and insights as the preliminary programme shows, which is now available online. As always, classic topics from experienced speakers will be mixed with specific presentations or current trends from young developer, newcomers and industry outsiders.

For example, Björn Pankratz is planning a talk on 'Games can do anything but annoy you', Claudia Stricker on 'Dark Pattern', Valerie Kenntemich on 'Diversity in game development' and German industry veteran Teut Weidemann on 'The bad side of the games industry'. And these four topics were just a selection from the first day. Other speakers from the provisional programme include Christopher Schmitz, Ian Stewart, Nina Kiel, Michael Schade, Laura Kaltenmeier, Falko Löffler, Severine Dumagny, Johanna Janiszewski, Tom Putzki, Prof. Marion Plank, Rudolph Thomas Inderst, Adrian Kaiser and Maria Maneck.

Visitors admitted to the conference can also look forward to some wired stuff that Assemble Entertainment founder and GermanDevDays initiator Stefan Marcinek comes up with every year, such as the surprise lecture and the surprise panel that he organises together with Stephan Reichart from devcom. Or the closing panel, where they talk about everything over a drink. It will also be interesting to see Stefan Marcinek interview Uwe Boll. The director has adapted numerous game IPs for the big screen and has often failed to live up to fans' quality expectations.

But what sounds like fun (and is fun), is also business. As every year, eight indie teams will be given the opportunity to exhibit for free and network with industry professionals. This year, Pentapaw, Pipapo Games, Zotoarts, Schleuder, Pixelpanic, Stellar Cartography Interactive, Nightingames, Neptun Interactive, Apetense Interactive, Pillards of Eridian, Selkries Interactive and Soulven made it through the selection process.

The GermanDevDays will take place on 7 and 8 August in Frankfurt. As a national dev conference, only a few presentations are planned in English. Anyone can apply for tickets, or rather an invitation. However, one does not guarantee participation. As space is limited, there will be a selection process to decide who is invited to the conference.