Games Industry Conference & Legal Summit celebrate successful start in Poznan

The Games Industry Conference in Poznan, Poland, the associated legal conference and the largest Polish B2C games fair, Poznan Games Arena, bring together the Eastern European games industry and global players. The GIC Legal Summit gets off to a successful start.

One of the most important events of the Eastern European games industry started yesterday, 5 October, and runs until Sunday: the Games Industry Conference (GIC) in Poznan, connected to the largest games B2C event in Poland, the Poznan Game Arena (PGA). The GIC is the second largest B2B conference in the country.

The GIC was introduced by the Legal Summit, which took place on 5 October and the first half of 6 October. International talks on the legal structure around games featured experts in contract law, EU regulations and copyright in panels, talks and Q&As. The Summit was introduced by Michal Pekala of Rymarz Zdort Maruta, one of the main sponsors of the event. The spotlight of the Legal Summit this year was on cross-national differences, not only in law but also in culture. For example, Vlad Micu from the GIC team, David Greespan, Californian games law lecturer and author, Michal Pekala and Nav Sunner from Navatron, who also gave a law talk on the topic at gamescom congress 2023, discussed the differences in contract law between the EU, UK and the USA. The talk "Nightmare of multi-jurisdictional copyright lawsuits" was similarly transnational, with Yaraslau Kot from BelGameDev, Aexandre Rudoni from Allen & Overy, Barnaba Rud-Chlipalski from Rymarz Zdort Maruto and Franceso de Rugeriis from LCA Studio Legale discussing copyright in cross-border contexts. Jari-Pekka Kaleva from the European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) also spoke about EU regulations for the games industry.

Part of the programme was also created with German participation. Part of the panel "How dare U(nity)?" about the impact of Unity's new business plan on indiedevs was Simone Ines Watzinger, Teamlead of Games/Bavaria. The GIC's Business Lounge is sponsored by Marchsreiter Communications. Silver Sponsor of the GIC is Wooga from Berlin, who are also on site with a stand in the Exhibitor Area, where companies present their services and products and devs pitch their games.

At the GIC, the international and Polish games industry present also showed their opposition to Russia's attack on Ukraine. Closing the Summit on the morning of 6 October, Kate Edwards of Geogrify and SetJetters, geographer and consultant on culture and geography in games, gave the talk "How Company Values Influence a Game's Global Success". With her experience of working on, among others, "Age of Empires" at Microsoft and "Dragon Age: Dreadwolf "at BioWare, she pointed out differences in the localisation of films and games that, for example, change borderlines on maps to comply with national regulations of, for example, Russia or China. She pointed out the balancing act between opening up markets and the moral integrity of development teams and publishers, also in the context of regulatory social media campaigns with which users criticise companies. Despite pointing out this balance, Edwards found clear words against the Russian attack and Chinese policy towards Taiwan.

Following lunch, which concluded the Legal Summit, the developer-focused part of the Games Industry Conference began, which included both international English and Polish-language talks. Speakers this Friday included Fast Travel Games, People Can Fly, Google, Playtika. Chris Proctor from Bungie is also part of the top-class international line-up with a technical talk on the physics of projectiles in "Destiny 2".

The GIC and the associated B2C trade fair PGA will run until Sunday, 8 October.