Over the past 10 years, 9 320 publishers, producers and developers visited the Digital Dragons Conference. It began as a niche, intimate event – now it’s a brand recognized all over the world. This year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of this event, continuously organized by the Kraków Technology Park since 2012.
We’ve been supporting the game industry for more than 10 years!
This unique community gains a new forum for discussion and idea exchange, as well as a space to present their achievements and gain business contacts” – this is how we announced the first edition of Digital Dragons back in 2012. The interest outgrew our own expectations – at the last moment we had to find a bigger room to fit in all 300 participants… These past ten years were a time of intense and dynamic development – both of the industry and our event. Year by year, the number of participants grew. For Anna Krampus-Sepielak, who became the chief of DD in 2013, it was clear that the event – which started thanks to a partnership project between the European Union and the Lesser Poland Voivodship – must begin commercializing. The first ticketed event happened in 2014. The next milestone was changing the location and moving the conference to the ICE Conference Centre. The aim of all these actions was to prepare a worthwhile offer for the industry, including a space for presenting their works and opportunities to learn about making games. For KPT, this was also a big chance to build a friendly space for the game industry, create a business platform for companies and investors, as well as those searching for employees and new projects. We wanted to utilize the city’s potential. It was clear to us that the offer’s business aspect is most important; that really big investments will be born here in Kraków. Today, many of our early guests are now running companies known all around the world and often listed on the stock exchange. The value of the game industry has risen multiple times and at this point has outgrown the value of the film and music industries. In 2012, the Kraków Technology Park was one of the first institutions to notice this sector’s potential; today, such events are multiple.
Barbara Wityńska-Słącz, Chief of Promotion at the Kraków Technology Park, who has been with the conference from the very beginning
Indie Showcase – awaiting submissions until the end of February!
Due to the pandemic, indie games at Digital Dragons moved to the Web through the Indie Celebration. While we missed meetings offline, we grew attached to this formula. Thus, this year’s Indie Showcase is a bridge between these two formats, providing opportunities to exhibit games before the wider international audience on Steam, as well as live at the ICE Congress Centre. After careful observation of trends and tendencies in the gaming market, we decided to open a separate category for mobile games. Additionally, all games presented at the conference can be voted for to receive the Community Vote award – a category particularly treasured by creators.
Jacek Wandzel, video games and exhibition coordinator
Digital Dragons Awards – voting has begun!
Last year may have ultimately lacked a hyped up „gigapremiere”, but this doesn’t mean that finding games worthy of recognition was much of a challenge. 2021 was a very strong year for the Polish game industry, with a cornucopia of great games and experiments from industry veterans and newcomers – crafting this list was filled with pleasant surprises for me. The main idea behind the Digital Dragons Awards is to find what’s the best among Polish produced works – with the help of both the Polish gamedev and our own jury. There’s a reason why give devs a lot of say; they’re the ones able to recognize the most promising design, or a title which escaped the notice of even the most dedicated bloggers and journalists. We care not only about finding the biggest financial and critical hits, but also putting the spotlight on real surprises. This is why we first ask representatives of Polish gamedev – founders, designers, QA, interns, freelancers, veterans, beginners, jammers – for help. Help us nominate the best works and studios; point our expert jury to the games worthy of our dragon eggs at this year’s Digital Dragons Awards. We have also invited Łukasz Warna-Wiesławski - a representative of the Film Music Festival to this year’s jury. Video game music has organically found its way to FMF in previous years and together we decided it’s time to cooperate more closely.
Jacek Wandzel, video games and exhibition coordinator
Kraków Technology Park (KPT) has contributed to the development of proper conditions for the development of entrepreneurship for 20 years. For 10 years it has managed the Technology Incubator for IT start-ups. The KPT inspires the start-up community by organising numerous events including workshops, hackathons, and conferences that help to verify business concepts. Besides these, it runs KPT ScaleUp acceleration programme. Companies may count on the support of seed funds, tax reliefs offered by the Polska Strefa Inwestycji (Polish Investment Zone) programme, and preferential office space rental conditions. The KPT is particularly focused on Industry 4.0 and the video games industry. It is the leader of the hub4industry consortium aiming to provide comprehensive support for companies wishing to implement Industry 4.0 solutions. The KPT also organises Digital Dragons – the leading games industry event in Europe.
