With less than two weeks to go, Gamescom is all set at Koelnmesse in Cologne for Europe's annual gaming event, which has become the world's leading event of its kind after the demise of E3. However, also taking place on the same dates (in fact, it starts a little earlier) is the Devcom Developer Conference, a meeting between developers and members of the industry where business meetings are held as well as conferences on game development and studios, game post-mortems, and much more.
Now the organisers have confirmed two new sessions that will take place this year, namely the YouTube comedy group Viva La Dirt League, entitled "Viva La Game Dev: How a YouTube Empire Became Indie Game Gold", and Mario Kart World: Beat the Pros, a live tournament with game professionals and content creators.
If you were thinking of something more directly related to game development you have, of course, many more confirmed options, which are as follows:
Letters from Malevelon Creek: Narrative Design of the 'Helldivers 2' Galactic War by Stephen Flowers (Arrowhead Game Studios)
My 25-year journey through the video game industry, by Minh Le (Ultimo Ratio Games)
160 GB of Resistance: A 'S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2' Post-Mortem, by Ievgen Grygorovych & Mariia Grygorovych (GSC Game Worlds)
Picking Things Up: First Person Interactivity in "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle", by Zeke Virant (MachineGames)
The annual Speakers survey has its first official results, with 33% of respondents opting to minimise or eliminate the use of AI at any stage of game development, the trend in future publishing being towards temporary exclusivity or non-exclusivity, and the Early Access model remaining viable and even more favourable in certain game genres and communities.
This year Gamereactor will once again be a Media Partner of the Devcom Developer Conference, in a face-to-face coverage in addition to Gamescom, so very soon we will be bringing you exclusive interviews and much more about the hidden side of games that we love so much. Stay tuned.