- Connecting with new areas, sectors and professionals is essential to maintain a bonus within the shortly evolving video games trade.
- International video games trade occasions like Pocket Gamer Connects London on January nineteenth to twentieth give trade leaders first-hand perception into trade traits and sentiments.
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In an period of digital content material overflow, it’s not onerous to return by highly effective quotes from trade leaders summarising the important thing to nice success.
One theme working like a thread by way of many of those anecdotes is steady curiosity. One thing that marks out firms constantly outperforming the market is their leaders by no means cease studying or shrink back from adopting new and greater views. These are leaders who perceive the broader system, not simply the bubble they’re at the moment working in.
“In my coronary heart, I’m a gamer”
About 20 years into his profession, 20 years in the past, the late Nintendo CEO, Satoru Iwata, acknowledged that “On my enterprise card, I’m a company president. In my thoughts, I’m a recreation developer. However in my coronary heart, I’m a gamer,” in a keynote discuss at GDC. With that, he bolstered the concept of staying related to your objective, your imaginative and prescient, and being always curious.
Because of the sheer variety of spontaneous conversations, curated networking alternatives and superior talks and perception trade, world trade occasions are an optimum channel for leaders seeking to broaden their perceptions, problem their preset views and high up their management abilities.
CEOs, specifically, can extra instantly choose up essential perception into rising traits, gauging the place the trade is heading and which course funding is flowing. Recognizing sentiments like uncertainty, optimism, desperation, and anticipation can turn into game-changing if early sufficient.
Targeted trade occasions additionally have a tendency to draw leaders and delegates keen to unravel issues and share their options with different like-minded friends. Are you engaged on the identical resolution simply in several methods? Are you behind or forward of your rivals? It forces a wholesome strategic examination.
Know the tradition first-hand
Native market dynamics strongly affect the video games trade. Tradition, infrastructure, platform availability, regulation, and spending patterns are simply among the areas tough to understand with out one-on-one interplay with locals and on-the-ground analysis.
Talking face-to-face with builders, publishers, policymakers, and traders gives a extra coherent view, laying the bottom for higher choices and methods.
To realize a radical understanding of any new market, you’ll want to be in that area in particular person, interacting with the individuals you’re hoping to succeed in, professionals already serving the realm and getting an unfiltered view of cultural preferences and distinctions.
As Satoru Iwata additionally stated in his discuss: “One factor that has not modified – and won’t change – is our nature as a type of leisure. Like another leisure medium, we should create an emotional response with the intention to succeed. Laughter, concern, pleasure, affection, shock, and – most of all – accomplishment. Ultimately, triggering these emotions from our gamers is the true judgment of our work. That is the underside line measurement of success.”
Particularly in immediately’s oversaturated video games market, profitable builders more and more pinpoint the problem of creating video games that stand out and resonate emotionally with gamers. Understanding your viewers’s cultural triggers are key to reaching them.
Join with native, regional and world recreation ecosystems
Pocket Gamer Connects is about to shut out probably the most expansive yr throughout its 12 yr lifespan. In 2025, it reached 4 new places, working eight occasions in whole, and launched a brand new occasion format devoted to connecting and supporting various recreation sectors in each nook of the world.
From acquainted locations reminiscent of London, San Francisco, Dubai and Helsinki to new places like Barcelona, Shanghai, Korea and Aqaba, the occasions bridge world, regional and native recreation sectors one world b2b video games occasion at a time.
As one CEO, Clever Options’ Denis Pertsev described PG Connects Helsinki 2025: “So many gifted, artistic individuals in a single place. The vitality was excessive and the concepts had been flowing. I walked out with contemporary views and an extended checklist of individuals I wish to be taught from. Really an eye-opening expertise.”
Druids.ai CEO and co-founder Miguel Oliveira commented on the Dubai GameExpo 2025, powered by Pocket Gamer Connects: “Gaming within the MENA area is booming; not simply in income, however in manufacturing high quality, studio ambition, and homegrown expertise. Dubai GameExpo is certainly an occasion price attending, particularly if searching for native expertise or concentrating on the native market.”
Following the Investor Connector matchmaking occasion at PG Connects London 2024, Exedra Video games CEO Oren Bennett stated: “I used to be blown away along with your Investor Connector program and actually didn’t count on any conferences from it. Your calibre of gaming traders was the cream of the crop.”
On the similar occasion, Geeklab CEO and co-founder Jesse Lempiäinen commented: “It was nice to reconnect with so many pals within the trade, and I am excited concerning the new pals made.”
“The occasion gave us an actual pulse on the place the trade is headed.”
So are you a video games government seeking to elevate the bar and widen your online business horizons in 2026 and past? Get on board the Pocket Gamer Connects occasions tour in 2026, kicking off in London on January nineteenth and twentieth.
Realise your untapped potential and fulfill your curiosity with keynotes, solo talks, and panels from consultants all sharing essential trade information on the way to lead your recreation firm to success. Meet over 3,000 trade delegates for 2 days of targeted conversations, curated networking and two extra associate occasions, taking you into the transmedia panorama and world apps market.
Tickets can be found now, register yours immediately.
