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The long-running games industry conference series launches its first ever Seattle event to a strong turnout and positive feedback.

Press release:
Seattle, Washington, USA (May 21st, 2019) – This week saw the launch of a brand new venue for Pocket Gamer Connects and PC Connects, the international b2b games industry conference series. Heading to the capital of coffee and grunge music for the first time, the Seattle launch was a huge success.

Uniting some of the biggest names in global games with local legends, Connects’ superb sponsors and an army of indies, the Grand Hyatt hotel was rocking with talks, pitches and the sound of business being done on Monday, May 13th and Tuesday, May 14th.

More than 130 speakers including luminaries such as Ed Fries, Chris Taylor, Valve, Riot Games, Jam City, NCSoft, Bandai Namco, Epic, Niantic, NBCUniversal, Roblox, NetEase and Nexon M shared their insights alongside super indies like East Side Games, SpryFox, Metamoki, Hyper Hippo and A Thinking Ape to generate over 45 hours of content on stage.

Meanwhile, more than 50 exhibitors showed off their wares including many awesome and diverse indie titles – there were even some old school arcade games on show courtesy of FlowPlay’s chill-out area.

Over 10 hours of developer pitching sessions and fringe events took place including SpeedMatch, Investor Connector and two awesome Indie Pitches. Serious business was done at the show thanks to the many hundreds of Pitch & Match meetings that ran through our system and filled the dedicated hall.

Sponsors of the event included FlowPlay, Mintegral, App Annie, Facebook Gaming, Microsoft / Azure PlayFab, Vungle, deltaDNA, Minimob, GameAnalytics, JoyPac, Genvid Technologies, Leia Inc, MobPower, ChilliConnect, Jam City and Virse.

Videos from the talks and panels will be available on PocketGamer.biz’s YouTube channel in the coming weeks.

CEO Chris James commented: “We had a great time in Seattle and were literally overwhelmed by the support, openness and enthusiasm of the local community and those who flew in from around the globe to speak, meet and connect in this awesome city.”

There were glowing testimonials from attendees, with the event being described as “Well organized and intimate”. One attendee said, “In an industry in flux and growing rapidly, it is a great way to keep ahead of the curve”, while another added, “The speakers were top rate. Informative, jargon-free and relevant.”

One of the developers in the expo area commented: “It was an extremely fruitful conference for me and my game will be much-improved thanks to it. With so many Seattle Indies games and developers in attendance, it was a huge boon for the community.”

The event provided a great basis for future activity in Seattle. Steel Media is planning to return to the region with an even bigger, better conference in 2020.

In the meantime, Pocket Gamer Connects and partner event Blockchain Gamer Connects will be heading to Hong Kong in July (17th to 18th). Get involved at https://www.pgconnects.com/hong-kong/

Further down the line, the Connects series is planning to visit Helsinki in October (1st to 2nd) and Jordan in November (2nd to 3rd) before PGC London 2020 (January 20th to 21st).

About PG CONNECTS
More than 18,000 industry professionals have attended the Connects international conference series since 2014. Since then, the roadshow has landed in the UK, the USA, Canada, Finland, and India with a genuinely international client base.

On average, delegates from more than 50 countries attend each event. Not only have previous delegates voted Connects the ‘best value conference’, but 97% would recommend it to a colleague and 96% say they’ll come back for more.

Previous speakers and delegates from all the key industry players include Supercell, King, Tencent, Telltale, Apple, Rovio, Disney, Wargaming, Kabam, NTT Docomo, Ubisoft, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Sega, Capcom, Unity, Twitter, Twitch and many, many, more.

About STEEL MEDIA
Steel Media Ltd is a leading technology online publisher and international events company based in the UK. The company is best known for producing Europe’s biggest mobile and handheld gaming website, PocketGamer.com. Its business-focussed partner site PocketGamer.biz is the bible of the mobile games publishing scene.

The brand also extends to the world-renowned Pocket Gamer Connects conference series, with other events including the Big Indie Pitch and the annual Mobile Games Awards. In 2018, BlockchainGamer.biz became the latest addition to Steel Media Ltd’s growing portfolio of b2b portals (PocketGamer.biz, PCGamesInsider.biz, TheVirtualReport.biz and InfluencerUpdate.biz).

Links to other Steel Media Ltd’s sites and services, including advertising and sponsorship opportunities, can be found at http://www.steelmedia.co.uk/

Jonas “O.J” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround