How a Team of Two are Trying to Fix the Game Industry with a Free Conference
WHY GduX?
As we close in on the end of another decade, we sit right in the midst of a paradigm shift in the game development industry. The globalization of gaming and game development is happening right before our eyes at a pace to rapid to measure. Like never before we’re seeing gaming communities live and thrive in the furthest reaches of the planet. Gaming has gone from niche to cultural acceptance and further now to create careers and international mega-celebrities. Where parents less than a decade ago would preach against the idea of playing games all day, now have to contest with the idea that there are self-made millionaires who do little more than play games all day. Entire continents of people online partaking in furious real-time polygon frenzy every single day. Video games now exist in just about every language. America and Japan are no longer the ONLY places to call home because now as a game developer you can live just about anywhere on this planet and create and release your own video games. It is absolutely crystal clear that the whole world loves games.
How we play games is breaking all boundaries and barriers in order to connect people for the sole purpose of play. Sadly though, access to information for game development is not growing and expanding at the same rate. While we are proud to see Epic Games and Unity making their top quality tools available for free, we don’t have the same availability for top level support in regards to education in the game industry. Our best game centered universities have priced themselves out of contention for too many. Our biggest industry conference and networking opportunities cost far too much money when nearby hotels and travel alone costs thousands in addition to a thousand dollar plus entry fee. We simply believe, for the good of our industry, this has to change.
In order for companies to hire diverse candidates to fill their ranks, we need more diverse candidates to choose from. We need more opportunities and more avenues for diverse candidates to even exist in the first place. Our products, so beloved by the entire world, need to allow for the entire world to share in their development. We do a disservice to us all as fans of great games when we make it financially and logistically impossible for fellow developers to learn and grow as well. We simply believe, for the good of our industry, this has to change.
The Game Dev Unchained Expo is born out of necessity. We are building a conference offering insight from some of the biggest and most impactful minds in game development today, and streaming their stories with the world for free. In this age, where an encyclopedia’s worth of information can exchange in a second, where hobbyist and professionals have access to the exact same tools, where game developers literally live on every single continent, and yet all of our biggest networking and educational events are fundamentally exclusive and mostly designed to make a profit, instead of a difference….
We simply believe, for the good of our industry, this has to change.
About GDUX
From June 4th through the 6th, GDUX will live-stream over 18 hours of game development seminar content across the world for no cost required by the viewer. We want to make absolutely sure we can reach the most game developers possible, as convenient as possible. After the live event, our archives will continue to provide free access to any interested parties for their viewing pleasure.
We’ve hand selected every speaker and seminar we’re broadcasting. The entire event curated to ensure the most benefit and inspiration for the viewers to share in experiencing through the recollection and presentation of our speakers with translations available.
Seminars
As of this writing, we have confirmed 18 esteemed speakers to present during our 3 day event with the next batch of invitational meetings on the books. We’ll be working with industry veterans to deliver presentations that literally couldn’t be told by anyone else but them. We’re not delivering any technical analysis of a process or tutorials on content creation, we are focusing on the stories that they lived through in their careers in game development that will serve as lessons and inspiration for our listening audience. An example topic would be “How getting into the game industry almost killed me, and why it didn’t”
Beyond GDUX
Our aim for this seminar is to be a semi-annual but always free live stream event. We’re looking to continue to build support for this event and further increase the value of the free experience for all parties involved.
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For our viewers: We want them to look forward to a free three day game development seminar event twice a year with new topics and interesting people presenting them. We want each viewer to take lessons and inspiration and applicable wisdom to their life and career choices after our events.
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For our speakers: We want them to have an opportunity to help serve a large and diverse grouping of developers while also having an increasingly more valuable chance to grow their reach through our platform, as the platform itself continues to grow.
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For our sponsors: We want them to be able to count on a growing viewer base that looks forward to streaming these semi annual events religiously. We want this free event to always be an increasingly valuable promotional opportunity for any company or brand that decides to invest in helping us make GDUX possible.
Who is GDUX
The Game Dev Unchained Expo is an event by way of the Game Dev Unchained podcast, hosted by game developer Brandon Pham. As of now this weekly podcast has been in syndication for 5+ years with a strong message against taking advantage of and lying to game developers. It’s been the primary focus of the Game Dev Unchained podcast to entertain their game developer audience while also empowering them and providing both opportunities and resources in audio form. Continuing down the path of servicing our development community, we’ve come together to plan, produce, promote and present the Game Dev Unchained Expo.