The Game Industry Conference has once again become the European heart of game industry

This year, more than 3200 participants and business attendees gathered in Poznan, Poland, to attend Eastern Europe’s most important gaming event.

Poznan, Poland – October 10^th, 2023: Last Sunday, 08.10, the Game Industry Conference (GIC) closed its doors in Poznan, Poland. This year marked the 16^th edition of GIC, and the conference has truly established itself as the biggest and most significant business event in the region’s gaming industry. A record number of over 3200 business attendees and participants gathered for hundreds of high-quality talks and networking opportunities.                                      

Over the course of a few days, 150 professional talk sessions, panels, and roundtables were being held, featuring over 200 speakers. Additionally, the conference offered many side events, such as e.g., the Yet Another Pitching Event, and the Women in Games Breakfast. Other highlights of the conference were the GameDev Investment Forum, the VR summit, and the traditional, free city tours that take GIC visitors to Poznan’s most beautiful sightseeing spots. The conference again offered a daycare room hosting almost 30 gamedev kids speaking in three languages.

GIC 2023 yet again attracted numerous sponsors from the gaming industry. The biggest among them were Invest in Skane, Product Madness, Playtika, and Techland. Not only did they support the event financially, but also actively participated in this year’s conference.

“This was my first time visiting the GIC in Poznan and I must admit I was overwhelmed by the size and the quality of the Conference. A lot of great speakers, excellent organization, and infrastructure to make industry-wide contacts made for a perfect melting pot of gaming ideas. To top it off, the Central & Eastern European Game Awards honored all the creative studios from the region and gave them an impulse to make even greater games in the future!”, said Milos Hetlerovic, Manager at Ebb Software, Awarded in the Best Art category for Scorn at the CEEGA Awards. 

“GIC was always a great place for learning and networking, but this year’s event has surpassed anything I’ve seen in past editions – both in the speaker lineup, conference agenda, and organization. This event is growing to be one of the best and most worthwhile in the game development world”, added Jakub Rokosz, CEO of Fools Theory, GIC speaker, and exhibitor.

The Game Industry Conference once again partnered up with the event networking app GRIP, which not only digitalized the ticketing system but also facilitated the planning of business meetings on-site and online and gave attendees the ability to personalize their event schedule on their mobile devices. 

On Friday evening, all GIC attendees had the chance to attend the Epic Game Music concert, featuring orchestral adaptations of some of the best-known soundtracks of games starting with one of the first live performances of Baldur Gate 3 but also Doom, Battlefield, Assassin’s Creed, Horizon: Zero Dawn, League of Legends, Dragon Age, Apex Legends.

The day after, it was finally time for the Central and Eastern European Game Awards (CEEGA). Hard West 2 by Ice Code Games won the prize for “Best Game”. The awards emerged from the cooperation of 16 industry associations in Eastern European countries, thus strengthening the entire local games industry. The awards in full:

• Visual Art – Scorn (Ebb Software)
• Audio – Layers of Fear (Bloober Team/Anshar Studios Inc.)
• Design – Hard West 2 (Ice Code Games)
• Narrative – Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (Frogwares)
• Technology – Gloria Victis: Medieval MMORPG (Black Eye Games)
• Hidden Gem – Midnight Fight Express (Jakub Dzwinel)
• Best Mobile – Railbound (Afterburner Studios)
• Best Game – Hard West 2 (Ice Code Games)

For more information, please visit https://gic.gd/