The Games Ground stages each bring their own unique vibe, bursting with energy and entertainment! From explosive shows and thrilling tournaments to live music, game demos, and audience interactivity—there’s always something exciting happening.
Step behind the scenes of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and discover how sound shapes immersion in a living, breathing medieval world. In this talk, I’ll share the creative influences that shaped my approach to audio, reveal how I captured authentic environmental sounds and ambiences in the field, and explain how they were transformed into a dynamic, adaptive soundscape using FMOD Studio. From muddy village streets to tense battles, I'll show how sound design can bring history to life and deepen player immersion.
When facing an enemy, one player might want to rush in swinging, another prefers to plan an ambush with traps, while a third schemes to bribe it with gold and flattery. This talk explores why it’s important to design for different playstyles and how you can do it by letting players choose between high-risk, low-risk, and unconventional options.
The Press Start: Games Founding Grant is home to a wide variety of founders. Four of them are sharing their journey so far and what they learned along the way. Successes, failures, lessons learned – this panel offers an honest and open conversation about what it means to not only develop a game, but build a business in the games industry in 2025.
The selected panelists are: Mareike Rescheleit from Project Dragonfly and Denise Koch from Monstersongs Interactive, who are representing solo developers in the programme. They are accompanied by Sara Shabani from Darya Studios and Sophie de Frenne from Rainbow Vision Studio, who are team founders. The event is moderated by Beck Niederländer from the Foundation for Digital GamesCulture.
About Press Start The Press Start: Games Founding Grant is a funding programme that supports the creation of new game development studios in Germany. 132 founders from all over Germany were selected for the project. Consisting of a grant combined with an educational and networking programme, it is designed to support games as a cultural asset. The programme is run by game – The German Games Industry Association in cooperation with the Foundation for Digital Games Culture and is funded by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media.
About the Foundation for Digital Games Culture
The Foundation for Digital Games Culture is an ambassador for games and the opportunities they offer. Since the founding in 2012, the Foundation has initiated projects and programmes highlighting the manifold ways games can contribute to society.
More information can be found at www.stiftung-digitale-spielekultur.de, on Instagram @stiftung_digitale_spielekultur, Bluesky @games-stiftung.bsky.social and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stiftung-digitale-spielekultur.
This IGDA led panel explores how community-driven initiatives — from mentorship networks and professional associations to local developer groups — can actively support career growth, resilience, and leadership development.
Join senior leaders and community builders from across the games ecosystem to discuss how we can better connect mission with practice — ensuring that both people and companies thrive.
The breakfast will open be the opener for the Impact track, organized and supported by Sustainable Games Alliance, Games Ground, INSTINCT3, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Fraktion Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, BoldBeetle Games , Remote Control Productions, Spielfabrique 360° UG
The goal of this collaboration is to jointly promote this track, advocate for a more responsible games industry, and empower developers to recognize their impact. Together, we aim to provide tools, foster understanding, and inspire creators to craft with intent.
The Impact Track panels will then start from 11am on in Cage Stage, adjacent to the Gallery area.
The games industry has been through a turbulent time on every front, but are we ready for what’s next?Join Charlotte Cook (CALM Consultancy) & Megan (Keywords Studios) for a no-fluff fireside chat on IP nostalgia, global shifts, the new generation of players and much more.Honest talk. Big ideas. Future focus.
Sometimes the sheer amount of possibilities can seem overwhelming when trying to come up with an interesting creature. But luckily there are some things that we can do as an artist to come out of this experience as stronger and more confident. This talk focuses on design thinking and hands on practical advice to bring out the best in your next creature design.
As game developers, we shape more than just gameplay—we influence culture, communities, and industry norms. This panel explores the multifaceted responsibilities we carry across the games we make, the teams we build, the business models we choose and the reverberation this has on the communities and people that are involved. We'll examine how ethical choices and responsible design can coexist with creative freedom, innovation, and commercial success.
Content & Representation: How do narrative choices, character design, and mechanics reflect our values?
Studio & Team Culture: Building sustainable, inclusive workplaces—what does responsible leadership look like?Business & Shaping Society: What is a responsible business model?
I’ll be giving a talk about creativity, design, art, ui and the magic that happens when they all come together in UI.We’ll explore how art creation inspires digital experiences, how design thinking fuels paths in UI, and how encounter creativity with a open mindset we can all nurture. Whether you’re a designer, developer, artist, or just someone curious about how ideas take visual form, this session is for you. Expect a mix of personal stories, visuals, real-life and imaginative examples that show how creativity shapes the way of story telling in UI and other visual platforms.
Player feedback can be insightful, inspiring—and sometimes brutally honest. In this unique session, we bring real Steam reviews to the stage for an exploration of how community perception shapes game development. Developers will read and reflect on authentic reviews, highlighting both praise and criticism, and discuss what developers can learn from these raw opinions.
Join us for an engaging, thought-provoking experience with surprised developers that examines the impact of user reviews on long-term success in the games industry and maybe some hurt feelings
This talk is meant for game devs and teams who want to make sure their content is not harmful to the larger audience, want to diversify their player base and get meaningful ways to craft memorable games. The talk provides tools to get acquainted with what Sensitivity Reading is and how it can actually help create games that are impactful to the larger audience, while avoiding backlash.
This session explores how sustainability can be effectively integrated into a company’s culture, leadership, and everyday operations—demonstrating that environmental responsibility and business performance are not only compatible but mutually reinforcing.
Participants will learn how aligning sustainability with core business strategies can enhance efficiency, strengthen resilience, and contribute to long-term success. Through real-world case studies from industry leaders such as SYBO, Ubisoft, Rovio, and CD Projekt Red, the session illustrates practical approaches to embedding sustainability into organizational processes and empowering teams.
Toukana Interactive, in their talk “From Idea to Success: Lessons Learned from Dorfromantik,” offers an exciting insight into the creation and success story of the indie game Dorfromantik. The presentation highlights concrete lessons learned from the game’s development and marketing. In addition, the speakers share initial insights from the concept and development phase of their second project, Star Birds!
Sandro Heuberger (Co-Founder, Managing Director, Game Designer) and Zwi Zausch (Co-Founder, Tech-Art Lead, Marketing Lead) from Toukana Interactive share their experiences from developing the successful game Dorfromantik. They discuss topics such as concept development, game design, project management, marketing, and publishing as a small indie studio — aspects that shape the working methods and philosophy of Toukana Interactive.
Building a game that wants to be published to your audience, is building a brand, and preparing a new IP to become a reality. Kickstarter is a great tool for testing out what resonates with your audience, for getting brand recognition early on, and for fundraising to realize an idea. We incentivice to think broader than just the video game release on Steam (or wherever). Think in brand expansions, through cards, comics, analog games, pins or books. Think about DLCs or second and third games based on the same IP. Together with 11 bit studio's Piotr Szcesniak, Michael Liebe, Outreach Games Europe Lead for Kickstarter, will explore opportunities, talk strategies, and highlight succcessful cases. Bring your questions! Let's talk!
PS: follow up session on Friday, Nov 14, at 15h CET, at the bar. With drinks, IP holders (aka developers and publishers), and us.
Two years from release, the team on Indiana Jones faced a hard challenge: how to flesh out 3 sandbox levels and create a living world. In this talk, we cover the design process behind mysteries, living world, and secret actions—how we created the immersive world of The Great Circle.
What does it mean to be responsible—as individuals, creators, and an industry—when the world is in crisis? This panel explores the idea of sustainability as responsibility: the responsibility to preserve creative economies, to protect the environment, and to stand up for human rights. The ongoing war in Ukraine is a stark and urgent case study, which challenges the people in Ukraine and the games industry as a whole.
Game marketing is the key success factor for indie games. With or without a publisher on board, marketing is a long building process that costs ressources and money. How new marketing tools based on AI could help indie studios to develop the most efficient Launch/marketing campaigns. How can these tools help publishers to provide stronger and cheaper services to indie studios.Let s discuss these topics with Investor Ramin Soleymani, marketing and publishing experts Zoran Roso and Soren Lass. Moderated by Thierry Baujard, co Founder of Spielfabrique.
Publishing deals can accelerate your game’s success — or limit its potential. So how do you decide? This conversation breaks down the real-world factors that go into the “publish vs. self-publish” decision: budgets, timelines, visibility, and long-term studio growth. Learn from publishers and self-starters who’ve seen both sides of the equation.
Developing your own game presents developers with massive financial challenges. This is where Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg supports newly founded start-ups as well as established studios. Joscha and Amanda will explain what steps you need to take and what requirements you have to fulfill to secure funding for your project.
With:
Joscha Neumann - Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
Amanda Förtsch - Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
After an exciting “Wwise Summer of Beta,” Wwise 2025.1.4 is officially here! Join us just one week after the latest release for an in-depth look at the new features and workflow enhancements introduced in Wwise 2025.1.In this session, we’ll highlight key updates and share how feedback from the interactive audio community helped shape the final release. We’ll also reflect on the evolution of the toolset from Wwise 2024.1 to today, showing how these latest improvements can enhance your projects right now.
Building a franchise is important if you want a sustainable studio. It is also the potential investors and publishers look for. Is there an ownable and protectable IP? Does it connect emotionally? Will it stand out? Is it protectable? Christian Fonnesbech will share the most common mistakes found from working with many developers and publishers across the world.
Everyone knows TikTok, YouTube and Instagram are where audiences spend their time, but most game developers still struggle with how to actually use them effectively to drive awareness and, ideally, Steam wishlists. This talk cuts through the noise and shows you how short-form video can become your most powerful marketing tool, even if you’re working with zero budget and a small team.Rather than abstract strategy, this is a practical, hands-on talk.
You’ll learn what kinds of content resonates with players, how to produce videos quickly without expensive gear, and how to lean into the quirks of each platform. I'll also be showing some case studies of how other small dev teams have done it.
Expect to come away with:1. A clear understanding of why short-form video is your best marketing bet.2. Practical tips for filming, editing, and posting using free or cheap tools.3. A sustainable content approach that works alongside development, not against it.4. Inspiration from studios already turning short clips into massive traction.
Why do so many talented graduates struggle to find their place in the games industry? Often, the issue isn’t ability—it’s misalignment. Academic programs may teach the right tools, but employers look for workflows, collaboration skills, and production-ready experience. On the other side, employers often underestimate the potential of early-career hires, overlooking candidates who could thrive with clearer guidance.This talk will explore the gap between what education provides and what industry expects. We’ll highlight where misalignment occurs, why it persists, and how both sides can work together to create smoother, more equitable pathways into the profession. Attendees will gain insights into building better pipelines for talent—and better careers for new developers.
A case for vibes and gut feeling over data and analytics in different aspects of indie games publishing.
This workshop will revolve around how to analyze your own life in or through the gaming industry and set it in a narrative context. In turn this can be used in an unusual way for setting up your own narrative to use it in your portfolio, social media profiles, etcetera. It will be a deep dive into more personal topics and how certain things in our life have impacted us. The goal of this workshop is to give the participants a new perspective on themselves, to empower them to tell their own story. This idea is based on a narrative structure which evolved out of a current game project about female game devs.
Data from the GDC State of the Industry Survey 2024 show that over 41% of game developers have been affected by layoffs — either directly or through colleagues and studio closures — a clear indication of how widespread the instability has become. Since that the situation has become worse: Across Europe and internationally, junior professionals in particular are facing reduced entry-level opportunities and high attrition, while mid- and senior-level professionals fight with studio consolidations and changing skill demands.
This panel aims to shed light on the real situation in the games industry when it comes to employment, layoffs, studio founding, and career-building across all levels — from newcomers and junior staff to senior professionals and studio founders. In light of the significant upheavals the industry has faced over the past 1–2 years, we’ll explore how to build a sustainable career amid increasing layoffs, structural shifts, and evolving expectations.
In this talk I'll cover useful techniques to improve your Unity game performance, reduce memory usage, streamline your development workflow, and speed up your builds and iteration times. With a few practical steps that you can implement in most projects, you'll be able to get the most out of Unity and your game.
Join Paul for a 30-minute deep dive into the creation of Thronefall, the minimalist tower-defense strategy game that blends the calm of building your own kingdom with the thrill of defending it. In this post-mortem talk, we’ll unpack the game’s development journey — from early design experiments and aesthetic decisions to technical challenges and community feedback that shaped the final experience. Learn what went right, what went wrong, and what lessons emerged along the way in bringing Thronefall to life.
UX is a mysterious and sometimes complex matter to solve for your video games, but I'm here to bring clarity to the confusion by bringing you 18 lessons from UX that anyone in games can use to up their skills in game making! From traps many devs fall into, how games work in players brains, tips and tricks that will save you time and tears, how to use the power of player feedback, and how to work like a UX designer to solve problems smarter. These nuggets of wisdom comes from 8+ years of working on 4 AAA games and in large teams across 3 studios.
Location: Press Start Booth in the Exhibition Hall!
Press Start Mixer
Join us for the Press Start Mixer – a vibrant opportunity for networking and exchange in the heart of the Games Ground community. The first half of the event is exclusively for Press Start grant holders and coaches, offering a focused space to connect, reflect, and celebrate progress. In the second half, we open the doors to all Games Ground attendees, inviting developers, creatives, and industry professionals to mingle, share ideas, and build new connections. Drinks, snacks, and great conversations guaranteed – we’re looking forward to seeing you there!
About Press Start
The Press Start: Games Founding Grant is a funding programme that supports the creation of
new game development studios in Germany. 132 founders from all over Germany were selected for the project. Consisting of a grant combined with an educational and networking programme, it is designed to support games as a cultural asset. The programme is run by game – The German Games Industry Association in cooperation with the Foundation for Digital Games Culture and is funded by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media.
About the Foundation for Digital Games Culture
The Foundation for Digital Games Culture is an ambassador for games and the opportunities they offer. Since the founding in 2012, the Foundation has initiated projects and programmes highlighting the manifold ways games can contribute to Society.
For more information, visit:
www.stiftung-digitale-spielekultur.de
Instagram: @stiftung_digitale_spielekultur
Bluesky: @games-stiftung.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stiftung-digitale-spielekultur
Whether you are an indie developer or a AAA publisher, community can make or break your game. Join industry veterans with backgrounds from Bandai Namco, Twitch, 2K, EA, Private Division to hear best practices & pitfalls on how you can leverage the power of community for your game.
This talk details the successful evolution of Idle Miner Tycoon's LiveOps, moving from a manual, monotonous system to a player-centric, agile, and data-driven approach. We will use the optics of our players and our own as LiveOps professionals to show the benefits of our approach for the game and its creators. We will share our key strategies and LiveOps Pillars for achieving sustainable content freshness, improved player engagement, and growing revenue
The European AI Act will impact every company that uses AI in their games or interacts with European players.
But what does this new law actually mean for you? Especially, if your studio isn’t based in Europe but still has European gamers, are you still allowed to release it?
How can you stay compliant without getting buried in paperwork or risking fines from local regulators?
In this workshop, you’ll gain practical insights and a best practice guide developed by Inholland University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands) and the University of Essex (UK), so you can focus on making great games, not compliance documents :).
You can also request the powerpoint and the supplieddocuments digital from theworkshop if you drop your business card.
Let’s build responsible AI-powered games together!
Note: This workshop is not about intellectual property or ownership discussions related to generative AI.
Our talk explores how games from Africa and other underrepresented regions can tell powerful, marketable stories without compromising their authenticity. Through concrete examples you may know, we’ll share our approach to game storytelling. What to do, what to avoid, and how local narratives can resonate globally.
Emergent Storytelling is often only seen as a by-product of a game’s design but could it be actually beneficial? Let’s explore the benefits of Emergent Storytelling that make designing for it a key but oft-overlooked asset in the battle for users’ time and money.
Press Start: Pitch Competition
Five selected game studios from the Press Start: Games Founding Grant will present their games to a live audience and a panel of three industry experts. Each team has a limited time to share their vision, highlight key features, and explain what sets their project apart.
The jury – consisting of Kerryn Frean from Fireshine Games, Tomoe Haga from Shochiku Games and Jan Halwe from ByteRockers' Games – will evaluate each pitch based on creativity, feasibility, and potential impact. This event highlights emerging talent from the Press Start programme: Rhenus Vina Musica, LEVEL BLUE, 4bpm, CHILIPIXEL Games, Dobiq Games. We invite you to listen, learn, and be inspired by the ideas shaping the future of
interactive entertainment. Nandita Wegehaupt and Thomas Heidtmann from the Foundation for Digital Games Culture will be moderating the event.
About Press Start
The Press Start: Games Founding Grant is a funding programme that supports the creation of
new game development studios in Germany. 132 founders from all over Germany were selected for the project. Consisting of a grant combined with an educational and networking programme, it is designed to support games as a cultural asset. The programme is run by game – The German Games Industry Association in cooperation with the Foundation for Digital Games Culture and is funded by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media.
About the Foundation for Digital Games Culture
The Foundation for Digital Games Culture is an ambassador for games and the opportunities they offer. Since the founding in 2012, the Foundation has initiated projects and programmes highlighting the manifold ways games can contribute to Society.
For more information, visit:
www.stiftung-digitale-spielekultur.de
Instagram: @stiftung_digitale_spielekultur
Bluesky: @games-stiftung.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stiftung-digitale-spielekultur
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
MEMBER OF:
