July 11-15, 2022 :: Online event :: Fourth Edition
Powered by
DISCO:MTL IS BACK THIS JULY!
WHAT IS DISCOVERABILITY? In this day and age, having a great game is only half the battle. The need for being discovered and achieving market visibility is a constant challenge for game developers. You need an exceptional strategy for getting your game noticed so that it won’t be lost amongst thousands of other new releases. Interested in learning how to tackle this challenge head-on? Then you’re in the right place!
TELL ME MORE! After three successful in-person editions and an outstanding online version, Disco:MTL is back with another online edition! GamePlay Space is proud to present the 4th edition of the only summit dedicated exclusively to discoverability and marketing for video games!
Disco:MTL is bringing you an action-packed week filled with expert-led talks that will reinvigorate your marketing strategies, help you develop your community in engaging and inclusive ways, teach you how to build momentum for your game and leverage it for launch, master the use of social media, and much, much more! Our world class speakers will delve into how the attention economy functions in the gaming industry, along with how to invest your time and energy wisely when it comes to your marketing operations.
WHEN? WHERE? HOW? Join us from July 11— 15, 2022 for a full week covering hot topics like discoverability, marketing, benchmarking, community management, and more! The summit will be held online save for our in-person Cocktail Party, where you can kick back, enjoy a beautiful summer night and unpack the talks with fellow developers attending!
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our 2022 edition of Disco:MTL. We had a wonderful time and we hope you'll keep an eye out for next year's edition!
In the meantime, check out the archives below to see all the topics covered in previous editions. ☄
Disco:MTL features an incredible lineup of experts joining us during the conference to share their knowledge and insights with you on various discoverability topics. This year, we're welcoming (by order of presentation):
Philomena Schwab Stray Fawn Studio
Validate, Hype, Release - A Strategic Approach to Reducing Your Next Game’s Risk of Flopping Monday, July 11, 2022 2-3:30 PM EDT Philomena Schwab is a game designer and community manager from Zurich, Switzerland. She wrote her Master’s thesis on “Community Building for Indie Developers” and went on to co-found the indie game studio Stray Fawn in 2016. In 2017, Philomena was named a 30 under 30 in Technology in Europe by Forbes. As a vice president of the Swiss Game Hub, she helps the local game industry grow.
Tavrox TavroxGames
Market Analysis: Benchmarking Your Game to Know if It Is Worth Pursuing Tuesday, July 12, 2022 2-3:30 PM EDT Tavrox has worked in the industry for 9 years. He has worked as a marketer on games such as Battlerite, Double Kick Heroes and Legend of Keepers. He is now the creative director at TavroxGames, the company developing Neurodeck.
Victoria Tran Innersloth
Budgeting to Build Your Community Wednesday, July 13, 2022 2-3:30 PM EDT
Victoria Tran is the Community Director at Innersloth, creators of Among Us and The Henry Stickmin Collection. Her past experience includes serving as the Community Strategist for the game Unpacking, and as the Communications Director at Kitfox Games for projects like Boyfriend Dungeon, Dwarf Fortress, Pupperazzi, and more. She is constantly exploring ways to create kinder game community spaces and how tech and compassion interact, which she shares on her newsletter and blog at victoriatran.com.
Dylan Gedig Red Nexus Games
Using Demos to Build Momentum for your Game Wednesday, July 13, 2022 2-3:30 PM EDT
Dylan Gedig is an avid member of the games industry. He is the founder of Red Nexus Games and the designer of Peglin. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Global Game Jam, as the Regional Organizer for Canada and the US PNW for the IGDA, and regularly volunteers with Games For Our Future to help organize impactful gamedev events.
Hanna Fogelberg Landfall Games
Throw your game at the internet and see what sticks Thursday, July 14th, 2022 10-11:30 AM EDT Hanna Fogelberg is the head of community at Landfall Games, an indie game studio from Stockholm, Sweden and the makers of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Stick Fight: The Game, Clustertruck, and more.
Marcela Huerta KO-OP
It’s Our House: Using Custom Discord Bots Practically & Joyfully Thursday, July 14th, 2022 10-11:30 AM EDT
With her experience in event and literary community building, Marcela is an outsider to the gaming sphere that has brought a unique perspective to her work as a Community Director. At KO_OP, she strives to create inclusive spaces for queer and BIPOC gamers and devs. Her goal in marketing KO_OP as a company is to champion not only the games they make, but the individuals who make them. She is also the author of Tropico, a 2017 poetry and creative non-fiction collection from Metatron Press.
Jacob Blommestein KO-OP
It’s Our House: Using Custom Discord Bots Practically & Joyfully Thursday, July 14th, 2022 10-11:30 AM EDT
Jacob works as a developer specializing in tools, networking and audio programming. He made the switch to a co-op games studio from a more traditional corporate software track and is very happy having done so. At KO_OP, he feels the motivations and structure of the work have a much more positive impact and footprint compared to the tech industry as a generalization.
Together with Marcela and Ramona, they've explored ways to try and adapt modern social media into neat little narrative experiences.
Chris Zukowski How to Market A Game
Live Steam Page Critique Friday, July 15th, 2022 2-3:30 PM EDT Chris Zukowski is a game marketing consultant and strategist. He has helped Games as a Service companies, indie publishers, and small to single-person teams understand their audience and communicate with them in a more personal way. He specializes in optimizing your marketing for the Steam algorithm, creating fantastic Steam pages that sell themselves and setting up email marketing campaigns that your fans will look forward to opening.
Jason Della Rocca Execution Labs
Jason is Disco:MTL's MC! Jason Della Rocca is a game industry entrepreneur, funding advisor, and cluster expert. He specializes in business/partnership development, pitching/funding, and ecosystem/cluster development. As the co-founder of Executions Labs, he was a hands-on early-stage investor to over 20 independent game studios from North America and Europe. Between 2000-2009 he served as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). He was honoured for his industry-building efforts with the inaugural Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Conference. In 2009, Jason was named to Game Developer Magazine's "Power50", a list that profiles 50 of the most important contributors to the game industry’s state. As a sought-after expert on the game industry, Jason has lectured at conferences and universities worldwide.
Agenda
Click on the image above to add the talks to your calendar!
Monday, July 11, 2022
Validate, Hype, Release - A Strategic Approach to Reducing Your Next Game’s Risk of Flopping
2:00 - 3:30 PM EDT
Maintaining an indie studio is a tough challenge. With roughly 1,000 games launching on Steam every month, it’s just too easy to be overlooked. After releasing two profitable PC games and gathering over 400k wishlists for their upcoming game “The Wandering Village”, the Stray Fawn Studio team has now identified the approaches that are crucial to their success.
In this talk, Philomena will share her studio’s best practices to validate interest in a project early on, build up hype around the game and focus the momentum at launch. Join Stray Fawn Studio in the dissection of their strategies related to crowdfunding, social media, social news, community building and events.
Philomena Schwab from Stray Fawn Studio
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Market Analysis: Benchmarking Your Game to Know if It Is Worth Pursuing
2:00 - 3:30 PM EDT
In this talk, you’ll join Tavrox from TavroxGames to learn how to benchmark your game and analyze if it is worth pursuing. The talk will feature an extensive case study, and will dive into understanding how past, present, and future projects in that market will perform!
Tavrox from TavroxGames
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Strategies for Cutting Through the Noise and Setting Your Game Up for Success
2:00 - 3:30 PM EDT
With so much going on online and thousands of new game releases each year, it can be hard to pinpoint what strategy to use in order to get your game noticed. In this talk, we will have our duo of speakers tell us about different strategies that can help studios cut through the noise.
Victoria Tran (Innersloth) will talk about how to set up your community management for success (including how to budget for it), and Dylan Gedig (Red Nexus Games) will explain how demos can be used to rocket your game to the top.
Victoria Tran from Innersloth and Dylan Gedig from Red Nexus Games
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Managing Your Community: How to Engage Players & Create an Inclusive Environment
10:00 - 11:30 AM EDT
Join Hanna Fogelberg (Landfall Games), Marcela Huerta and Jacob Blommestein (KO_OP) as they talk about different ways to manage your community. Learn about how social media can be used to engage your players, and get an insight into how Discord bots can help to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for your community.
Hanna Fogelberg from Landfall Games, and Marcela Huerta and Jacob Blommestein from KO-OP
Disco:MTL Presents: Rooftop Cocktail Party
6:00 - 9:00 PM EDT
GamePlay Space is hosting its very own Cocktail Party from 6-9PM on Loto-Quebéc’s rooftop terrace. Join us and over a hundred industry professionals for an evening where we'll meet and mingle, unpack the talks we've just heard, and decompress among friends!
Let's spruce up your Steam page! In this live critique, professional Steam page builder Chris Zukowski will review your Steam pages and give you gentle suggestions on how you can improve them. You will also learn what Steam shoppers are looking for and how the Steam algorithm can be influenced by your page.
Chris Zukowski from How to Market A Game
Tickets
Get your ticket now and benefit from our early bird ticket pricing!