Google has finally decided to hold a gaming-centric event and the first one will actually be coming up rather quickly. The event, which will be an indie gaming festival, will be held in San Francisco this Fall and you can be sure that we will be getting our collective asses over there when it begins.
Officially titled Google Play Indie Games Festival and developers who want to have their game showcased at the event can begin submitting their titles to Google now. This event will be a single day, which will be September 24th, and will showcase around 30 recently released (or upcoming) indie games for Android. Top submission will also receive rewards, although what those are haven’t been revealed yet. The whole goal of this event is to help support indie developers with their games on Google Play.
“Google Play is the largest store for digital content; 65 billion apps and games were downloaded over the past year. It’s an immense platform that we have, and along with that is an opportunity to better support the indie games community.” – Google’s Jamil Moledina, a strategic lead for Play Games
One thing most large app stores suffer from is discoverability, or to be more specific, the lack of discoverability for indie developers. Large development companies have no problem, but when it comes to the great indie games, unless you know what to look for on your app store of choice, it’s hard to just stumble onto great indie games. So this is to help bring a few of those titles to the limelight.
If you’re a developer looking to submit a game, Google is mainly looking for fun and innovation in the titles that they will be choosing. They are expecting to see plenty of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality submissions to happen as well, but don’t let the stop you from submitting something that doesn’t fall into the two categories. Another qualification is that games must have been released in 2016, whether they are out now or plan to be out before the end of the year. Your studio must have 15 or less full-time employees and it can not be a public company.
Lastly, your development company must be located in North America. Since this is the first festival, Google is starting in North America, but if this is a success, which it should be, then there could be other festivals like this held in other regions. Submissions are open right now and will be accepted up until August 14th.
If you’re planning to attend this festival, like we are, you’ll be able to vote on your top choices out of the remaining 30 games/developers. The Top 15 will then move on to pitch their game formally to a panel of judges who will then pick the Top 7. Those Top 7 will all win prizes, but the Top 3 will also receive Top Honors. Prizes include Tango devices, I/O 2017 tickets, ad support for their games on Google’s networks, and other goodies.
More details about how to attend will be arriving soon, and we will post an update when they are revealed. As for developers, you can submit your games now here! Best of luck and we will see you in San Francisco!
Indie Game Festival: Game Submission
Website Referenced: Engadget
