GamesBeat Summit 2024 will have platform for indie game devs

When it comes to indie game devs, we’re trying something new at GamesBeat Summit 2024, our annual game conference which takes place on May 20 to May 21 in Los Angeles.

The event at the Marina del Rey Marriott will focus on the theme of resilience and adaptation, zeroing in on the relevant real-world issues facing the game industry.

We’d like to invite more indies to become attendees, speakers and sponsors. To that end, indies can register here to attend for $147, which represents a significant discount to our usual registration fee. To qualify, the company should be 25 employees or less and be less than three years old and have less than $2 million in revenue.

We also have our “Rising Stars” stage for indie speakers. This third stage will have seats for around 40 people and we’ll have a number of short talks in this room where indie speakers can pitch their companies and games.

Those who wish to sponsor can apply to join the Rising Star stage for a sponsorship fee of $12,000 here. Indie sponsors can also get visibility in our official mobile app, air a 30-second brand highlight video, get their logo included in our web site, get five complimentary passes to the event and get a five feet by five feet exhibit space with a high-top round table.

Indie speakers

Our speakers include Alex Seropian, who is running an indie game studio, Look North World, who spoke last year about the opportunities around user-generated content platforms such as Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). Seropian will be back this year to talk more about it and offer some results.

The studio aims to bring players together in unique high-quality social games and entertainment, driven by experimentation and exploration. Seropian said in an interview with GamesBeat that he is intrigued by the business model that Epic Games created with creator-driven games via UEFN. Game makers get a cut of revenues based on how much people play on their custom Fortnite “islands.”

Resilience and adaptation

Our theme this year is resilience and adaptation. We know that the game industry has had a rough year and an even rougher first two months of 2024 regarding layoffs. Why is this happening? Is this part of a cycle, or is there something structurally changing in the game industry? And how can companies and people be more resilient and adapt to the change?

More speakers

We’ve also announced a number of speakers including the GamesBeat team’s Rachel Kaser, Jordan Fragen, and Dean Takahashi.

On top of that, we have Purnendu Mukherjee, Founder and CEO of Convai; Caroline Stokes, founder/executive coach of Forward; Mark Chandler, founder of TIGS; Songyee Yoon, president and CSO of NCSoft; Ed Fries, general partner at 1Up Ventures; Eric Goldberg, cofounder Playable Worlds; Kim Kunes, vice president of Trust & Safety at Xbox; Mike Morhaime, CEO of Dreamhaven; Alina Soltys, cofounder of Quantum Tech Partners; Amir Satvat, director of business development at Tencent; Lisa Cosmas Hanson, president of Niko Partners; and Jim Huntley, associate professor at USC School of cinematic arts.

I’m also looking forward to a chat about creators with Jia Shen, who cofounded RockYou way back when.

Return to Los Angeles

Last year, our event in Los Angeles at the Marina del Rey Marriott drew more than 900 people. We’ll shoot for a more intimate audience this year but we remain committed to getting some of the most interesting speakers in the gaming world, including fresh faces.

Our conference will address how to adapt to a rapidly changing world, and will address big topics like GenAI, cross-media adaptations (games and Hollywood), and the challenge of layoffs in an industry that is becoming part of mainstream culture. We’ll look at how the industry is responding with innovation, creativity, resilience, and collaboration — and what to do about layoffs.

We’ll have another Women In Gaming Breakfast on the morning of May 21, sponsored by Xsolla. And we aim to get about half of our speakers coming from diverse backgrounds. Women can sign up here.

As Matthew Ball noted in a long piece on the game industry, gaming has strong secular tailwinds that signal good years ahead. The new generation of kids plays a lot of games and they’re replacing generations that rarely played games. Players are getting access to more platforms with access to quality games.

Gaming culture is being elevated to the mainstream, and gaming is evolving as an art and tech platform. Access to high-quality gaming devices continues to improve. Gaming culture continues to proliferate, and the art form of gaming continues to evolve. But these tailwinds do not guarantee that every year will see uninterrupted growth, significant growth, or profitable growth.

In other words, growth isn’t guaranteed. We have to work at it. We’ll bring the top minds in the industry to discuss these topics in an interactive format.

Larger companies can pitch us on speakers/sponsorships at this link. You can also sign up here to attend using You can get 25% off with this discount code: gbs24dean25.

We appreciate the support of our sponsors including our longtime partners Xsolla, Playtika, Modulate, TikTok, Scopely, Fastspring and Heroic Labs. But we could use more support to make the conference into a great event that will be as memorable as last year’s event, which featured Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead. You can contact us for sponsorship information here.

The gaming media has struggled as well. We are not immune to that, but I believe our events have a real community following and something special to offer. I hope you’ll all continue to see value in supporting GamesBeat as it also supports the game industry.

We could also use sponsor support and speakers for our other events, including GamesBeat Next on October 28 to October 29 in San Francisco and GamesBeat at the Game Awards on December 12. We’ll be launching signups for those events as well. Our sponsorship team is at sales@venturebeat.com.

Also, I’m recruiting judges for the Visionary Awards now.