Develop:Brighton 2024
2024-07-09..2024-07-11
Brighton, United Kingdom
[Develop:Brighton 2021, Develop:Brighton 2023, Develop:Brighton 2024]
who it's for
studio founders, producers, operations and HR professionals, game developers, investors and fundraisers, community managers, diversity and inclusion leads
topics
Unreal Engine ecosystem; ethical low-cost game AI; esports for mid-size studios; video games tax relief; debt financing and advances; kickstarter campaign lessons; XR monetisation and optimisation; youth onboarding and career pipelines; community safety and moderation; neuroinclusive workplace practices
| title | author | length |
|---|---|---|
| Embracing Esports for Small to Medium Sized Studios | Nils Heine | 40m |
Farming Simulator 22 sells over 6 million units, reaches 1.1 million daily active users and hits a billion extra‑content downloads; a bespoke Farming Simulator… | ||
| The Art of Leading Leaders | Charity Joy Criterion (EA) | 48m |
Covers six tools for leading senior experts with concrete techniques: habitually answer with questions, design a singalongable chorus for clear decisions, use… | ||
| Power Up Your Game Studio: The Essential Role of Ops and HR Support for Studio Success | Rebecca Sampson | 39m |
Operations and HR deliver concrete wins: they install NDAs, payroll, pensions, VAT and games tax relief processes, run office fitouts and remote set-ups… | ||
| Shaping Your Future: Ukie is Here to Help | Nick Poole | 42m |
Ukie lays out concrete offers: a 22‑person team serving 650 member companies, a video games growth program and accelerator, a partners directory with 80+… | ||
| Level Up Your Business: Navigating Debt Financing and Tax Credit Strategies in the Games Industry | Piers H. Hunt | 42m |
HH5 lends against contracted payments and UK tax credits using an accountant’s opinion letter as primary collateral, typically advancing 80–90% of expected… | ||
| Raising Money A Perspective from Both Sides | Nick Button-Brown | 45m |
Group called Games Angels has made 29 investments and promotes practical fixes via a Funding Quest UK five‑year plan with six strategic pillars tracked on a… | ||
| Maximising Impact with AI: Ethical Strategies for Developing a Top-Rated Game on a Modest Budget | Andrew Webb | 42m |
vTime Games builds Borderbots VR to a 4.9/5 rating using an ethical, low‑cost AI stack that actually ships: an in‑house TTS (Awson) for placeholder audio… | ||
| Onboarding the Next Generation of Games Talent | Nigel Twumasi | 45m |
Runs a youth-facing program (the Showrunners work experience) and a diversity campaign (do I look like a gamer?), reports the industry gave only 5.9%… | ||
| Stuck in the Middle With You: Translating Between Business and Creativity as a Producer | John Lau | 48m |
Argues production is literal translation between business and creative priorities, centring two concrete questions: when can we release and how much game can… | ||
| Designing with Community Safety in Mind | Tami Bhaumik | 40m |
Roblox runs on 77 million daily users and combines human and AI moderation with image review, auto-translated chat filters and an active real-time intervention… | ||
| BAFTA Games: How We Can All Level the Playing Field | Luke Hebblethwaite | 46m |
BAFTA publishes an 80‑page Invisible Barriers interactive guide and a UK games industry census showing the workforce 58% in London/south‑east, nearly double… | ||
| How to Make Money in XR - 10 Tips for Success | David Solari | 32m |
Clear, actionable takeaways: interactions drive XR success (Gorilla Tag’s 10 million players and ~$100M show the scale), estimate sales by 100 sales per… | ||
| How to Grow a Game Studio Through Challenging Times | Jonny Hopper | 46m |
Started with a £150k seed in 2015, ships Wonderorlds (2017), signs then loses an EA Originals deal for Project Toast, pitches a $5M project at GDC, pivots a… | ||
| The Unreal and Epic Games Ecosystem | Ben Board | 09m |
Epic is a 30 year game developer with ~4,000 staff across 15 countries and an ecosystem built around Unreal Engine, Epic Online Services and marketplaces… | ||
| Dropping the Mask - Neuro Inclusion for Wellbeing Productivity and Staff Retention | Terry Goodwin, Cindy Archer | 41m |
Lab42 reports 42% self-identified neurodivergence (industry survey ~18%), links higher burnout (Willis Towers Watson: 50% vs 38%) and stress (National Autistic… | ||
| Key Insights and Takeaways from My Kickstarter Journey | Elena Höge | 49m |
Raised £137,000 from 3,159 backers while using Kickstarter as marketing not just funding, with 51,000 TikTok followers but only 1,800 email signups—email… | ||
| Unreal Engine Development Update | Arjan Brussee | 41m |
Roadmap items and concrete ship plans: Nanite gets experimental skeletal mesh support in 5.5, foliage R&D targets far‑distance rendering, and PCG adds GPU… | ||
| The Games Industry 2024 Survival Guide | James Batchelor | 42m |
Industry reports 20,000 layoffs in 18 months and advice focuses on concrete tactics: extend runway, raise money when you don’t need it, and cut scope to hit… | ||
| The Truth About The 4 Day Work Week | Joe Brammer | 09m |
Derby studio Bulkhead runs a 4-day work week for over two years while building first-person shooters, rolled out as a six-month trial called project flex for… | ||
| You're Expensive for Just Dealing With Pronouns and Wokeness: The Real Cost of Workplace Inclusion | Leon Hijazi-Killin | 46m |
Companies cutting DEI face measurable risks: global studio layoffs hit ~10,800 in 2024 (≈30,000 since 2022), while poor workplace culture costs the UK economy… | ||
| nothing matches | ||