Develop:Brighton 2023: First Speakers Announced & Super Early Bird Passes on Sale Now

Wednesday 16 March, 2023: Tandem Events, organisers of Develop:Brighton and The Develop:Star Awards, has announced the first set of speakers for the 2023 conference, including representatives from Creative Assembly, Hi-Rez Studios, Splash Damage, Sumo Digital and Ubisoft Reflections.

The Develop:Brighton conference has something for everyone with eight tracks covering every discipline, as well as the free Indie BootCamp and Roundtables.

“Develop:Brighton 2023 will once again feature the game dev community’s best and brightest delivering high-quality, high-value talks, firesides and roundtable discussions, offering valuable insights to delegates no matter their level of expertise,” said Tandem Events Managing Director Andy Lane.

“This year’s conference and expo will be better than ever following extensive refurbishments to the Hilton, with an enlarged expo back in its traditional location which will allow better air flow and movement throughout.

“In addition we’ve expanded the ever-popular Meet@Develop meeting area. We’re very excited to welcome these speakers to Brighton, and the game dev community as a whole.” 

Among this year’s first round of speakers is Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian, who will host a roundtable discussion of DEI initiatives in the games industry.

Elsewhere, Creative Assembly’s Guy Davidson looks at 20 Years of Total War Engineering, and representatives from Deep Silver Dambuster Studios host a talk about Dead Island 2’s gore system.

“The first wave of talks we’re announcing today covers a wide range of topics across fields, disciplines and platforms that we know our delegates want to hear about. These range from character art to developing new IP, from diversity in game narratives to TikTok, with plenty more to be announced in due course,” Lane added.

Conference passes are available now. Secure your place at our Super Early Bird rate (with prices frozen from 2022) until Thursday 6 April. Digital passes are also available, offering access to livestream sessions and online networking through our dedicated event platform.

As ever Expo Passes are free and include access to Indie Bootcamp sessions, Roundtables and more.

For more details on passes, visit the Develop:Brighton website:

https://www.developconference.com/event-info/passes-pricing

The first Develop:Brighton 2023 sessions to be announced include:

Art

The 3D Character Art Workshop
Shayleen Hulbert, Freelance Artist

The Innards of F.L.E.S.H: Dead Island 2's Gore System Dissected
Dan Evans-Lawes and Aaron Ridge, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios

Style, Trends, Immersion and Abstraction - Developing UI Art Direction
Leanne Bayley, Atomhawk Advance

Audio

I Know What You Did Last Somerville
Matteo Cerquone, Jumpship
Jay Steen, SweejTech

A Daily Practice - Safeguarding Your Audio Team’s Mental Health & Wellbeing
Steve Brown, Sonorous-Audio

Presenting an Authentic F1 Audio Experience: Insight into an Asset Heavy Cross Disciplinary Pipeline
Will Augar, Frontier Developments
Tim Bartlett, Frontier Developments
Andy Hair, Frontier Developments

Business

Farming Simulator Production Pipeline
Ken Burgess, GIANTS Software

AI in Art and Marketing Pipelines - How We Integrated AI to Create Reliable Commercial Returns
Kosala Ubayasekara, W.R.K.S Games

Middle Management: Congrats! You Are a Middle Manager! Now what?
Marc Espinola Berestein, Sumo Digital

Coding

Sustainable Coding with a Mental Health Mindset
Geraldo Filipe Garcês do Nascimento, Lively - A Keywords Studio

Cloud Native Development Level Up for Smaller Teams
Yoyu Li, Infinite Whys

20 Years of Total War Engineering
Guy Davidson, Creative Assembly

Design

How to End the World: A Post-mortem of RuneScape 3's 2022 Season Finale
Diana Flindt, Splash Damage

In The Room: Running and Participating in Modern Writers’ Rooms
Paula Rogers, Sweet Baby Inc.
Amy-Leigh Shaw, Sweet Baby Inc.

Challenges in Creating a Completely New IP
Josh Grier, Ember Lab
Mike Grier, Ember Lab

Discoverability

Mastering Discoverability: How to Attract and Nurture Your Game's Audience
Federica Nocerino, Freelancer Marketer for Gaming & Tech

TikTok Game Dev: The Eldritch Horror - How to Create Powerful Content
Oliver William Walker, Ubisoft Reflections

Spreading an Indie Game on Social Media from Announcement to Release & Beyond
Brynmor Harmon Richards, Super Rare Games

Indie Boot Camp (Free to attend)

Tips for Successful Game Development in Unity
James Stone, Unity

How to Avoid a Bad Steam Score?
Agnė Vitkutė, G.Round

They're Just Not That Indie You: Five Mistakes Devs Make When Pitching to Press
Rachel Macpherson, Neonhive

Mobile

The Desire Path: Our Journey from Perpetual Pivots to Record Retention
Jade Ostle, Trailmix

How to Successfully Kill a Mobile Game
Allan Stowe, Outfit7

The End of Small Studios: A Pocket Burger Post Mortem
Mitchell Smallman

Roundtables (Free to attend)

Are Your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives Helping or Hurting?
Anita Sarkeesian, Feminist Frequency

Where is Your Safe Space Within the Games Industry?
Benn Wiebe, Safe in our World

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome
Estelle Bailly, Hi-Rez Studios

The Develop:Brighton Expo will run on Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 July, and include the Indie Showcase competition. The Develop:Star Awards also take place on that Wednesday and will celebrate the best and brightest of the game developer community.

Entries for The Develop:Star Awards are now open. The deadline for submissions is Friday 31 March.

For more information on The Develop:Star Awards and how to submit nominations, please visit: https://www.developconference.com/awards

For the latest on speaker announcements, the Develop:Star Awards, and everything Develop:Brighton visit: www.developconference.com and follow @DevelopConf on Twitter.