We’re no stranger to lauding momentous video games trade milestones upon these pages, but it surely’s doubly good to have the ability to increase a glass to one in every of our personal as we sit up for the tenth anniversary of our dwell PG Connects conferences.
On twentieth January 2014, the primary ever PG Connects opened its doorways to the video games trade at Vinopolis London. After a number of years of serving up drinks through events, pitches and cellular mixers, and sharing information on PocketGamer.Biz, the Metal Media staff took the plunge to impart much more information, facilitate enterprise connections and customarily play an much more lively function in supporting the unimaginable video games trade with a fully-fledged convention.
Our mission then was merely to carry collectively a cross-section of the video games trade, to champion the perfect and brightest, assist the upcomers and innovators and customarily assist the enterprise develop.
Initially, the main focus was squarely on cellular, however in later years, the imaginative and prescient grew to become extra holistic with particular tracks after which entire facet occasions targeted on different codecs and new applied sciences akin to PC, console, VR/XR, blockchain/web3 and the metaverse.
By the numbers
While it’s not right down to us to guage the success of our endeavours, the truth that the occasion remains to be going sturdy, and in reality stronger than ever, hopefully tells its personal story.
The numbers even have a story to inform. We’ve got welcomed over 45,000 delegates by way of the doorways of 45 conferences in 14 totally different cities (and throughout the perfect a part of 4 continents), facilitated effectively over 100,000 enterprise conferences (formally at the least, add within the informal encounters over coffees and beers, and it will be many instances bigger!) and performed some half in contributing (from what we are able to collect) to actually billions of {dollars} price of offers.
Notably, within the time the worldwide video games trade has additionally expanded from c. $81.5bn of which $25bn was cellular (Newzoo, 2014) to 2023’s expectation of $188 billion in whole, of which round half, c. $93bn, will come from cellular.
Share your PGC tales
In the end although, PGC has by no means been obsessive about numbers; it is at all times been in regards to the folks first. The superior people who make the video games, who craft the important instruments and companies, who do the offers that make the video games trade the most important and greatest leisure media on the earth. It’s in regards to the individuals who journey the world to have interaction with our occasions and assist create that particular ‘video games trade household’ vibe that has turn into the hallmark of our exhibits.
For those who’re studying this, then the possibilities are excessive that you just’re a type of folks! And in that case, we wish to hear from you for a collection we’re calling PGC Tales.
With PGC Tales, we’ll be celebrating your blissful recollections, tall tales, and the life-changing offers from Pocket Gamer Connects passed by and sharing them with our group. To participate, you possibly can simply fill out the shape right here, or share your recollections on LinkedIn.
Whereas we’re celebrating the illustrious previous, we additionally must take care of the challenges of the present market and sit up for the alternatives of the long run, which is exactly what we’ll be doing once more in 2024, beginning with our flagship present PG Connects London on 22-23 January.
The complete 2024 anniversary occasion schedule might be launched quickly, however forward of that, we nonetheless have alternatives to attach in 2023, happening in Jordan (Nov 4-5) and Saudi Arabia (5-6 Dec) within the quick rising MENA video games market.
