Russia Moscow White Nights 2017 Post Mortom
We are Anti Gravity Game Studios, an indie game developer based in Hong Kong. We joined the Moscow white nights 2017 on 10-11 October and would like to share some experience about this event.
Firstly, the venue is situated in Congress Park, right beside the Radisson Royal hotel (looks nice and standout, so it is super easy to locate). The actual layout is one big rectangle hall with the indie developer at the exterior wall surrounding the larger sponsors. There is another indie area which is separated out near the entrance. Initially we thought the position is poor, but after talking to other indie developers in the main hall, we have concluded that the overall population attending is not that high.
I would like to point out the attendee of this event, mostly are mobile ads/traffic redirection company, where they are looking for clients to buy their PR packages or place their ads in your game. The second-most is localization companies, then the indie developers.
Secondly, the booth is small, of course, we know it beforehand. The booth is 1m x 1.5m wall, which comes with two chairs, a cocktail table, wifi, and electrical outlet. To be honest, to showcase a mobile game/ console game, just bring 1 set of them. For VR booth, you will get a larger booth, 1m x 3m (width), but to be honest, at most there will be around 10 - 15 people try out your game throughout two days. Therefore if you are a VR developer and have to travel far to set-up, I would greatly greatly recommend you NOT to come, unless you live in Moscow and coming over is easy.
Thirdly, the cost makes sense, as the booth is free, only expense will be your traveling cost, buying the pass and the cost of printing your poster and business card. So think ahead what you want to achieve before coming. For the indie pass, it cost 125 USD, and if you are exhibiting, you get a 15% discount. For a regular pass, it's 250USD, and premium should be around 375 USD (able to attend the after and pre-party)
Fourthly, about the lectures, they are not that interesting for the year 2017, as there are more online GDC lectures nowadays, attending just for the talks isn't worth the price.
Fifthly, it is quite crowded throughout the first day, but the population drops dramatically on the second day like 40% left, and many indie-developer did not set-up their booth or even left early.
At last, there is a 2meet system where you can schedule time to meet developers/anyone; this is a handy tool to reach other related people, do utilize it!
In conclusion, it is worth coming to see the event, and the booth is free, so if you happen to be in Moscow, or decided to go anyway, you can set-up a booth and see if you can get anything out from it. The overall impression of this event isn't great as little international company was here, mostly local Russian companies, so the variety of people you can meet are limited. The up-side is there are free champagne, food, and drinks :)
