Ticket sales have started for Europe's leading B2B conference for the gamedev industry, Digital Dragons 2024, which will take place on May 19-21 at Krakow's ICE Congress Centre and Park Inn by Radisson Hotel. For the first time ever the event will last for three days. Tickets at attractive Early Bird prices are only available until the end of March. The organiser, Krakow Technology Park, has also announced the names of the first speakers.
Confirmed lecturers include Jason Hickey (Art Direction Consultant & Game Development Consultant) who worked, among others, on the hit game series about Spider-Man, Ahmed Salama (Content Creator from Ubisoft), Arno Schmitz (Lead Character Artist from Guerrilla Games), Borislav Slavov (composer, author of music for recent Larian Studios games including Baldur's Gate 3) and the duo Nika J. Bender and Kevin Moore from EA DICE, responsible for the development of the live-service game Battlefield 2042.
Lower-priced tickets available only until the end of March
Until March 31, tickets for Digital Dragons Conference 2024 are being offered at lower Early Bird prices. Tickets entitle you to attend the three-day gamedev event which features an expo zone, an independent games zone, talks by experts from the world's gamedev, networking and Digital Dragons Awards gala, where the best Polish games of the past year will be recognized.
A Regular Pass costs 999 PLN, a Business Pass 1200 PLN, while a special offer for a VIP Pass, valued at 3000 PLN grants participation in networking meetings and entry to an exclusive VIP Party.
Tickets for the Legal Summit powered by Anshar Studios & Fool's Theory have also gone on sale. Tickets for the Game Design Summit powered by Anshar Studios & Fool's Theory and the Marketing Summit will be distributed at a later date.
We know the first stars of Digital Dragons Conference 2024
The conference programme board has also selected the first speakers for the upcoming edition of Digital Dragons Conference.
Jason Hickey is an Art Director and producer with many years of experience. He has worked on AAA games such as the Marvel's Spider-Man series and Ryse: Son of Rome. His ideas on Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales earned him a nomination at the prestigious DICE award. At the conference, he will talk about the successful process of creating new elements for games.
However, it's not the end for those passionate about management and production in gamedev, as the duo from EA DICE, Nika J. Bender and Kevin Moore, will present the ins and outs of games-as-a-service management, using Battlefield 2042 as an example. Nika J. Bender is a game producer with ten years of experience in games-as-a-service management. She joined EA DICE in 2020 where she currently works as Lead Seasons Producer on Battlefield 2042, having previously worked for the company as Live Producer on Battlefield V. Her portfolio also includes a position as Product Owner on the Star Stable project.
On the other hand, her colleague Kevin Moore works as the Technical Director for Battlefield 2042. He started his career in the games industry with an internship at EA Vancouver, where he oversaw the NHL series and after graduating he joined EA, this time as a Software Engineer for the Origin platform. He later joined the EA DICE team where he worked on the latest iterations of Battlefield series.
Game developers looking for topics from the artistic/creative specialization will also not be left unsatisfied. Award-winning composer Borislav Slavov will speak about the audio layer. He is best known for soundtracks to games by Larian Studios, more specifically Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2. He also worked on the soundtrack for Crytek's Crysis 2 together with the famous Hans Zimmer. For the participants of the event he prepared a lecture on adaptive music and its active role in the narrative process of video games.
Those passionate about visual arts and their implementation into the world of games will be interested in a lecture by Arno Schmitz, who will talk about the evolution of character creation in Guerrilla Games productions, where he works as Lead Character Artist. His portfolio includes character designs for the games: Killzone Shadow Fall, Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West.
Among the names announced there is also a game design specialist. Ahmed Salama, as he is referred to, works as Content Director at the Ubisoft HQ and has previously worked at Guerrilla Games, EA DICE and Ubisoft Stockholm. His portfolio includes: Killzone: Shadow Fall, Horizon Zero Dawn, Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront. He also teaches a UX design course at the Future Games school. At the conference, he will share his experiences in game interface design.
More speakers are being recruited
However, this is just the beginning. The organisers of Digital Dragons Conference 2024 are continuing the call for speakers - proposals for the second call for speakers can be submitted until February 25 by filling out the form on the organiser's website.
The call for submissions for Indie Showcase & Digital Dragons Arena 2024, a part of Digital Dragons Conference 2024 and ecosystem aimed at indie game developers looking for investors and publishers, is also open until March 1.
Digital Dragons Conference 2024 is just one element of Digital Dragons ecosystem that the Krakow Technology Park has prepared for the gamedev sector. It includes incubation and acceleration programmes for young studios as well as training programmes, including Digital Dragons Academy for university students.
