A pioneer in the Canadian interactive entertainment industry and a seasoned entrepreneur, (on the left in the main photo) has been Senior Creative Industries Advisor at CEIM since 2015. Pierre has developed, in more than thirty years in business, an enviable expertise in video games.
He was Vice President of Megatoon (Behavior), President and Founder of ArtMedia Studios, and Producer at Ubisoft. For nine years, he was Vice-President of Corporate Strategy at Frima, which has become the largest independent studio in Canada. Pierre Moisan has developed an important network of business contacts around the world. For several years now, he has been organizing international missions (North America, Europe, Asia, etc.) and has given conferences in Egypt, Panama, France, Belgium and the United States.
Having just returned from his annual trip to Gamescom in Cologne, Pierre is honored to share his impressions below:
Devcom & Gamescom: The Two Go Together!
Over the past ten years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to organize several prospecting missions abroad for independent studios in Canada in collaboration with Global Affairs: Tokyo Game Show, Paris Game Week, GDC, Busan Indie Connect, I have been around and more than once.
Among these trade shows, the huge Gamescom has always been a must-see with its B2B and B2C components, and the massive participation of key players in the industry and the general public.
The studios are less familiar with Devcom, a conference that grew up in the shadow of the high mass and which takes place a few days before.
I arrived in Cologne on August 17. To Europe, we leave Montreal in the evening and arrive early in the morning at our destination. Jet lag hurts and it’s always good to take a day off to get over it. Small problem: the hotel rooms don’t welcome us before 3 p.m. Since this is my eighth visit to Cologne, I know the city well and always go to sleep in a quiet park at the end of Severinstrabe. But everywhere the grass is wet because it is raining this year… So I went to eat a shawarma and try to sleep sitting in the lobby of the Lyskirchen while waiting for my room to be ready.
After a short nap, work begins. Just go on Facebook to see who has already arrived on the terraces of the Heumarket, sitting behind huge bottles of Kölsch, a good beer that is the pride of Cologne. So I will go and join a group of Swedes.
Devcom took place from 18 to 20 August at the brand new Confex in Koelnmesse in Cologne. The Confex is brand new and adds to the already gigantic convention center. The first time I attended Devcom was in 2019. The event did not look like much and gave the impression of being aimed only at juniors, who were not very numerous. It has risen a lot since then and I can confirm that the event has now become a must-see!
This year, more than 5,000 participants.es attended Devcom, a 45% increase compared to 2023, making it the largest video game conference in Europe and the second largest in the world after GDC. 350 speakers took the floor. The conference attracted 1,660 companies from 83 countries. Of these, 10% had more than 2,000 employé.es and 27% had between 100 and 2,000 employés.es.
The topics covered were very diverse, ranging from “Demystifying Creativity” to “Code Power-Ups: 10 Game-Changing Programming Hacks” or “You Must Self-Publish: The Future of Indie Funding”, the latter given by our friend Jason Della Rocca.
Beyond the conferences, it is the networking aspect that appears to be decisive, although it is little known from here. Devcom always starts with the famous “Speaker & VIP Networking Dinner” which took place this year at the historic Walkenburg building. This event is proving to be one of the most rewarding in our entire industry for networking with major publishers and investors. To become a VIP, it costs 1,300 Euros. It’s expensive but worth the cost. It is during this evening that the recipients of the Indie Awards are revealed. My thing? I stand at the top of the stairs and welcome long-time amis.es and new acquaintances as they appear.
Another interesting part of Devcom is the “Speaker Survey” which allows us to identify trends and strategic points of view on the state of our industry. Among the 100 people who responded to the questionnaire, 57% believe that layoffs will continue at the same pace or even accelerate over the coming year. In terms of the main challenges facing our industry, 55% point to the saturation of the market while 46% mention the increasingly high development costs.
It looks like we’re not out of the woods yet. The post-COVID turbulence is not over, far from it. In fact, I have noticed during my many business meetings that publishers invest much less money per project and bear much less than before. While 12,000 titles were released on Steam last year, it is understandable that the competition is increasingly fierce.
A little hope? A record 335,000 people attended this year’s Gamescom expo. The general public loves video games and wants to continue to get them.
This is why, while waiting for better days, we must continue to network and make our companies and projects known.
In this regard, Devcom has really taken off. I was able to meet very relevant people among the who’s who of the industry while attending very enriching conferences. I recommend adding it to your agenda on your next visit to Köln!
Photo and text credits: Pierre Moisan
