The first WN Conference of the year will be held in Abu Dhabi on February 15-16. Among its participants are representatives of companies such as Ubisoft, Unity, Leonardo AI, SuperScale, Savvy Games Group and many others. More about the future event is in our material.
About the conference
The upcoming event is the debut of the WN Conference in the United Arab Emirates. It is held in cooperation with the government organization Abu Dhabi Gaming, which aims to turn the Emirates into an international gaming hub.
The organizer of the event, WN Media Group, expects about 800 participants, primarily representatives of the GCC gaming industries (countries that are members of the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf).
About the program
About 20 presentations of various formats were announced — traditional reports, interviews and round tables. Just below, note some of the points of the program.
- Nick Phipps, senior game designer at Ubisoft Abu Dhabi, will make a presentation on how the game mechanics go from idea to actual implementation, as well as what efforts it requires from the team.
- The present and future of generative AI will be discussed in a joint discussion by Oz Silahtar, CEO of Leonardo AI for Europe and MENA countries, and Yassine Tahi, co-founder of the Kinetix service, which generates animations based on video.
- Saad Hameed, who heads the Game District publishing house, will talk about the current state of publishing hyper-casual projects. He promises to share, among other things, not the brightest sides of it.
Representatives of Artisan Studios, TikTok, Google, Savvy Games Group, Xsolla and many other companies also confirmed their participation in the role of speakers.
Expo zone, showcase and competition
The exhibition area of the WN Conference Abu Dhabi 2024 will include both stands of sponsors (AD Gaming, Yandex Games, Moloco, Google, GEM Capital, Xsolla, TikTok and others) and a showcase of game developers for 30 projects.
The conference will also traditionally host a competition for the best game projects. Its jury will include Johnnemann Nordhagen, one of the authors of Gone Home, Jason O'Connell, the lead designer of Doom Eternal levels, and Keaton White from Riot Games.
Tickets
Tickets start at €369 for an indie developer without access to parties. A ticket with access to the pre-party will cost €639, and a premium ticket will cost €829.
Those who cannot attend in person but want to chat with the participants can purchase an online ticket for €329. We are talking about access to the WN meeting system, within which you can meet and communicate with all the guests of the event, as well as access to streaming lectures from the main hall.