Event will support gaming developers.
Coventry University’s Serious Games Studio has signed up as a partner of Innovation Birmingham’s LAUNCH event series for digital gaming and mobile app developers.
LAUNCH is the biggest event programme of its kind outside of London, connecting and supporting the region’s burgeoning digital gaming sector. The highlight of the annual programme – which is now in its fifth year – is a two-day conference for over 300 indie games developers, held during November at the Innovation Birmingham Campus. The Serious Games Studio has signed up as a partner ahead of the conference on 20th-21st November 2014, in order to promote the ERDF funded support available to West Midlands-based gaming companies needing to develop a proof of concept.
Features of LAUNCH’s November conference include a ‘grads in games’ programme by industry recruitment specialists Aardvark Swift, as well as a dedicated session from Microsoft on cloud gaming.
Pia Pearson, Digital Marketing Manager and Head of LAUNCH at the Innovation Birmingham Campus said: “Working alongside Coventry’s Serious Games Studio is a natural expansion of the LAUNCH programme and a great way to promote the support on offer to indie games developers based within the West Midlands.
“LAUNCH has grown year on year and we are now close to having 1,650 gaming professionals signed-up. The benefits of being based in this region are compelling because of the collective strength of the gaming community, the calibre of the highly specialist university courses that are run in conjunction with local industry representatives, and also the technical advice, support and access to finance delivered through programmes such as Innovation Birmingham’s Entrepreneurs for the Future centre and by the Serious Games Studio.”
Paul Howe, Multimedia Designer at the Serious Games Studio said: “We have an established ERDF funded project which enables us to deliver five days of free technical support to indie games developers based within the region. This time can be used to develop the gaming application, proof of concept and the associated intellectual property, which can really accelerate the time it takes for new products to get to market. Being able to promote this service to the LAUNCH community is a fantastic way to spread the word and ensure the opportunities can be fully maximised by the regional digital gaming community.”
The next event in the LAUNCH series is the Indie Showcase, which is being held on Tuesday 30th September from 5:30pm at the Innovation Birmingham Campus. The speaker line up comprises; Abdullah Awan, Games Developer at Sync Interactive; Jolyon Webb, Art Director for Payload Studios; Adam Russell, Founder and Designer at +AsDesigned Games; James Biddulph, Games Developer at Jamo Games; Stephen Willey, Director and Producer at Incus Games; and Sarah Bowers, Project Officer for Innovation Networks at Coventry University Enterprises.
Over 80 people will hear from Sarah Bowers and the five digital gaming companies who have been established for between six months to three years. Topics covered will include developing and marketing a new game, access to finance, staff recruitment and available free support.
To register for this event and discover more about Innovation Birmingham’s LAUNCH event series, visit http://launchconference.co.uk/.
