GCAP 2024
2024-10-07..2024-10-09
Melbourne, Australia
GCAP ·
[GCAP 2016, GCAP 2017, GCAP 2019, GCAP 2020, GCAP 2021, GCAP 2022, GCAP 2022: Ambition, GCAP 2023: Empower, GCAP 2024, GCAP 2025]
who it's for
indie studio founders, producers, live service engineers, marketing managers, narrative designers, user researchers, audio composers, recruiters
topics
ages system game design; multi-platform cross-save and cross-play; publisher pitching and due diligence; self-publishing funding model; mega-server live service scaling; market-led wishlist campaigns; dramaturgy audit for narrative; public playtest pipelines and analytics; certification and platform compliance; electronic game score production
| title | author | length |
|---|---|---|
| Fireside chat: Team Civilization VII | Andrew Frederiksen, Jam Walker | 53m |
Development for Civilization VII centers on an explicit decision to restructure time into an ages system that forces design tradeoffs, requiring art and civ… | ||
| The Funding Gap: Publishers, Pitching, and the Backup Plan | Simon Slee | 49m |
Market is saturated — about 14,000 Steam games a year — and commercial reality bites: 90% of indie games on Steam make under $10,000. Publishers immediately… | ||
| Keynote: How WINGS' Self-Publishing Model Creates a More Diverse Games Industry | Astrid Refstrup | 39m |
WINGS funds women and gender‑marginalized devs to self-publish rather than sign with a publisher, provides platform introductions, keeps developers on… | ||
| Closing Keynote: How'd You Get Here? A Veterans Panel | Morgan Jaffit, Amanda Schofield, Liam Esler, Kim Forrest, Naresh Hirani, Anna Tito, Tony Albrecht, Roger Clarke, Taylah Walker, Ross Symons | 01h 11m |
Claims experienced Australians offer concrete entry routes like QA entry route (no qualifications needed at one studio) and show a studio-level internal… | ||
| Keynote: Built to last: 10 Years as a Live Service Game | Rich Lambert | 53m |
The game launches in April 2014 after a studio founded in 2007 and then shifts from mandatory subscription to buy‑once plus optional Crown purchases, adding… | ||
| State of IP in Australia - Working with Big Franchises | Je Alipio, Ella Macintyre, Ben Kelly, Manea Castet | 54m |
Australia’s indie studios are landing big franchises by showing clear creative fit, fan-level knowledge and delivery capability; brands ask for pre-alignment… | ||
| I Think I Need a Writer: Tools for Troubleshooting Narrative | JoJo Zhou | 50m |
Explains a practical late-stage workflow: run a dramaturgy audit of premise, mechanics, art, UI and existing text; extract a single dramatic question that… | ||
| 60k wishlists in 6 weeks, Market-led Game Design | Julian Bieboer | 50m |
A market‑led process turns idea into a polished 2‑month test: a fake but believable 2.5D prototype, a two‑sentence pitch, short social videos and a mailing… | ||
| Keynote: Say Less: How I Learned to Write Less to Do More | Karrie Shirou Shao | 52m |
Covers concrete tactics: how League of Legends uses in-game interactions, voice lines and a two-week champion cadence to seed lore (the Ionia story match adds… | ||
| Playtest-A-Go-Go, Baby! | Cheryl Vance, Anthony Massingham | 51m |
Public playtests run four times for two-to-four weeks and push about 150,000 players through pre‑alpha builds using Steam request codes, Coupon Carrier coupons… | ||
| Working On Your Character Sheet: Job Application Tools for Mid-Senior Developers | Lucy Mutimer | 54m |
Practical checklist for mid‑senior game devs: use a single‑column PDF resume, 2 pages ideal (up to 3), and structure reverse‑chronological so recruiters can… | ||
| Evolving Game Scores Through Electronic Music | James Landino, Kevin Penkin | 51m |
Showcases concrete processes: wrote 20–30 character themes for Omega Strikers, builds hybrid tracks by treating acoustic violin and piano like synths using OTT… | ||
| The Value of Value: how to effectively use tone. | Tessa Monash | 48m |
Argues that value (tone) is the primary tool for readability, shows concrete workflows: use the squint test and an information hierarchy to rank player… | ||
| Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs of Motherhood in the Games Industry | Ellen Hansen, Jessica Lyon, Kendra McCarthy | 54m |
Panelists report concrete wins and recurring failures: studios that hire enough staff and end crunch keep parents; flexible hours, hybrid work and paid… | ||
| Screen Australia Funding: 2 Years & 100 Games In | Lee Naimo, Amelia Laughlan, Chad Toprak, Dakoda Barker | 49m |
Screen Australia says it has $12 million over four years (about $3M/year) and has already funded 62 games in the early expansion phase and supported 120+… | ||
| Know Your Audience: Deep Dive into Game Design and Audience Research | Emre Can Deniz | 53m |
Aggregated analysis of 1,200,000 game-dev tweets, 2,000,000 player reviews and 180,000+ Steam pages uses hypothesis tests and data cleaning to show market… | ||
| Building more efficient locks | James Mitchell | 52m |
Shows a practical implementation that reduces a mutex to a single-byte lock using futex/parking-lot ideas and an embedded hashmap of per-address wait queues… | ||
| First Nations Story Agency | Ben Armstrong, Brooke Collard | 01h 04m |
A First Nations game gets developed through remote collaboration across states, prioritising full-time paid roles and community investment rather than studio… | ||
| Neopets’ Multi-generation IP: From 90s to Gen Z | Dominic Law | 48m |
Neopets is relaunching as World of Neopets Limited and shows concrete moves: a new plot (first in a decade), a revived classic via the Ruffles emulator that… | ||
| Keynote: Starting Over & Over: The Story of Hyper Light Drifter & OFK | Teddy Dief | 01h 05m |
Argues that time is the riskiest currency and describes concrete time practices: using timers, a 52-week layout, weekly vocal training for two years and… | ||
| Rules and regulations: Assuring you’ve constructed a Certification ready game | Megan Summers | 47m |
Start reading platform requirements by Alpha and maintain a single source of truth (spreadsheet) that tags every requirement as yes/no/unknown, maps test cases… | ||
| Opening Keynote: 10 Years Crossing the Road: These Lanes Will Keep Changing | Clara Reeves, Ron Curry, Sav Wolfe | 55m |
A studio postmortem of ten years that gives numbers and outcomes: the team grows to 30 people, Crossy Road adds 18 million new players this year, Crossy Road… | ||
| nothing matches | ||