BERLIN: Stats, Links & Jingle
The Summit in Berlin is over, and while we wait for the official photo gallery (Simas took 29.921 shots throughout the event; he'll select 2K for review, and we'll trim down to 600-900 to arrange and release by end of June), we already have some stats, links – and music files – to share.
The Berlin Jingle
Before sharing anything else, I want to get the jingle out: you can download the MP3 through this link (WeTransfer), or listen to it one more time here:
This is the first time when we commissioned a jingle for the conference. We worked with A.Fruit, who does a stellar job creating SFX and music for our studio's games over the last 10 years (including all the tracks for Gremlins, Inc.).
This jingle is based on the key art, which shows a Japanese costumed parade: we listened to a bunch of music from the Japanese street festivals for reference, and then added the name of Berlin 'pronounced in a foreign language' (Berlin –> Berurinu –> ベルリヌ). It's a made-up name, because in Japanese the city is called ベルリン, with an 'n' (ン) and not a 'nu' (ヌ) at the end – but we made up 'Berurinu' because we needed the signing to end with a vowel.
Those of you who attended the Conference Spotlight on June 4, have already heard the Porto Jingle – also based on the key art for On Tour IV. I'll share it in one of the next issues, where we'll also explain how the key art came about, and what it represents (it's all connected!).
The Chronicles
Thought the Summit, we share daily reports with photographs from the conference. This format evolved from us being able to post a few photos to demonstrate that the event happens, to us posting at least one photograph from each session and, finally, to us posting photographs that show every speaker on each session.
It's the most taxing part of the job for Simas – I get his daily galleries very late at night, once he's done with he edits (he loses 3kg per each edition of the conference: if you want to achieve the same result, you can join as his assistant in Porto!).
Here are the daily chronicles of the Summit from this edition, with every panel listed and every speaker tagged:
Games Industry Law Summit
Games Industry Law Summit
Games Industry Law Summit
We will continue to post on LinkedIn once more Q&A material comes in, as this is handy for connecting with new people (at the cost of seeing ads, whelp).
The Stats
Summit XI became the biggest event that we've ran so far (we say "360 attendees", but in reality it's 357, as there were 3 no-shows – 2 due to medical issues, and 1 GC who exited the studio before the event, and forgot to inform us).
In terms of major games regions, we had counsel from 🇺🇸 USA, 🇨🇦 Canada, 🇬🇧 UK and 🇨🇳 China (including 🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR). We also had great representation from the industry clusters in 🇵🇱 Poland, 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇮🇪 Ireland, 🇨🇾 Cyprus, 🇫🇷 France, 🇹🇷 Turkey and 🇸🇬 Singapore.
South of Europe was represented with both law firms and studios: 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇪🇸 Spain and 🇵🇹 Portugal. The same is true about the north: 🇩🇰 Denmark, 🇫🇮 Finland, 🇸🇪 Sweden had both studios and law firms on the ground. Speaking of the north, we also had the honor of hosting 🇮🇸 Iceland – famous for being the home to Jochen and to Fenris Creations (formerly, CCP Games). 🇨🇭 Switzerland, The Crossroads of Europe (as I'm reminded every time I have to buy e-vignette), was also represented by both studios and by law firms this time.
From Latin/South America, we've had 🇲🇽 Mexico, 🇧🇷 Brazil and 🇨🇴 Colombia.
Despite the distance, we've had 3 people from 🇦🇺 Australia (very thankful to Michael for coming to speak!) and, courtesy of Legal Challenge, a counsel from 🇳🇿 New Zealand (Emma is one of the captains from the semifinals; she flew from Auckland).
Once again, we were lucky to have a direct connection with 🇯🇵 Japan (thanks, Arata-san!) and, through Kazuki at TMI, one foot on the ground in 🇲🇾 Malaysia (TMI services Japanese clients in Malaysia). As always, Brian and Kipeum provided the connection to 🇰🇷 South Korea.
Speaking of long distance connections, this time we had not 1, not 2, but 3 counsel from 🇿🇦 South Africa (I think of them as our community's bridge into the whole continent). Sadly, nobody from India this year (but already have 4 counsel from both Mumbai and New Dehli signed up for On Tour IV in October).
Other strong industry clusters that may get less visibility than they deserve, but are already quite strong and growing stronger: 🇷🇸 Serbia, 🇧🇪 Belgium (Jasmin!), 🇨🇿 Czech Republic and 🇳🇱 the Netherlands. Precious connections with other growing clusters: 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇧🇬 Bulgaria, 🇸🇰 Slovakia and 🇸🇮 Slovenia.
From the smaller markets, we had 🇱🇹 Lithuania and 🇱🇻 Latvia present (missing Estonia for a couple of years, though Christine is now their consul, so maybe that counts!), as well as 🇲🇹 Malta (Hi, Paul!) and 🇬🇷 Greece (γεια σου, Stefanos!) – very helpful, as sometimes you need a local IP expert, and already having a trusted connection there goes a long way.
🇦🇪 UAE and 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia were both at the conference – I don't think I need to explain the weight that these regions acquired in our industry in the recent years (Saudi Arabia's population is above Australia, did you know that?); and from 🇮🇱 Israel, we had tech-focused Ariel.
Finally, for the first time since, I believe, 2016, we had a counsel from 🇭🇺 Hungary! Home to several studios, including Gaijin Entertainment, it's been missing piece of the puzzle (welcome, János!).
And now about the missing regions (I hope you like this picture as much as I do):
This year, we missed our friends from 🇨🇱 Chile and 🇦🇷 Argentina – despite Argentina being a pretty sizable market (at least on Steam), with a few local studios as well. We hope to see them in 2027, since Porto is a bit closer to their home bases.
Nobody in Berlin represented 🇷🇺 Russia, 🇺🇦 Ukraine or 🇧🇾 Belarus. I feel like we're losing the connections there, despite the regional industry clusters – and Russia's consumer market – remaining vibrant (where, do you think, the developer of the latest chapter in the Heroes of Might & Magic series comes from, with 1M+ copies already sold on Steam? Yup, those lands got talent!).
In all these cases, the main challenge is the difficulty of travel. The relocation of the Summit from Lithuania to Germany removed the barrier for having the holders of RU and BY passports attend, but overall, travel from those regions to Europe still carries a high burden. And the divisive rhetorics doesn't help either. Have you heard that Roblox is has been unblocked in Russia, as of today? I wish we had a counsel present at the conference to tell us more about this.
Still wanted: local counsel from 🇻🇳 Vietnam and 🇲🇾 Malaysia. How many of you are compliant with the local regulations there? And how many wish to be? If you know of law firms with games experience in those countries, please page us!
One of the KPIs that we have, is how many studios and firms are represented in the overall pool of attendees. As many of the law firms know, we always say – please don't bring a colleague from the same office, please bring someone from a different region, so that we can add new experience to the hive mind!
This year, we've hit a new record: 235 studios and law firm offices represented. This is great news. This means that we grow by adding new perspectives.
The gender ratio has been 35/65 (F/M) this year, an improvement from 30/70 at the last edition. And among the studio counsel, while last year it was 37/63, this year we've achieved 46/54 – the in-house scene shows the way, thanks to every leader of the studio team who makes it possible!
Here's who attended from the studio side –
Here's the executive cluster:
And here are the law firms (a flag indicates a regional office present; DLA Piper and Bird & Bird take the prize for the breadth of the representation!):
This year we had 12 sessions on the agenda, with 65 speakers (a few of them presented twice). The highest Audience Choice Award score exceeded the previous record – either the quality of the content keeps increasing, or you guys now like each other so much that you're voting 3/3 whenever you see your friends present 🤝.
Next year, we aim for the same amount of content. But, perhaps, with more focus on "requires serious industry experience to chew" approach, where the leads already expect you to fly alongside their spaceship as they start their presentation.
Getting Calls
Anecdotally, many attendees told me the same story in Berlin: their first year was "getting to know the people", their second year was "learning and contributing", and their third year was "getting calls from the community contacts about a project they need help on".
There's plenty of research that shows different values for how long two people need to spend together to become friends – I've seen as low as 25 hours for students, and as high as 200 hours for parents of teenagers. Me, I try to spend at least 5 minutes talking to the school's principal every time I see him, so that I can accumulate enough points to later ask that our kids to be allowed to skip lessons and go with us to the Summit 🤭.
All of this to say: at this edition, we had 75 first-timers. That's 20%, one in five. I hope you guys have been on your best behavior!
Conference Partners
In a regular year, sponsorship makes about 30% of our revenue and allows us to book such extravaganza as the roulette table, or order a bunch of titles from Bitmap Books for the prize fund.
For the Berlin event, this part of the budget was not just an add-on, but mission-critical: given the high costs, we wouldn't have made it without the support of all these firms, and organizations. From all of us here at Charlie Oscar, who spent today settling invoices for such things as "washing the glasses which didn't get washed but were booked nevertheless" and "opening the doors to the temporary office" – a big, huge THANK YOU!
Thank you, the top-tier partners –
Thank you, the core partners of the event –
And thank you to all the regional partners, you've made an impact!
Action Points
- If you attend 🇵🇹 On Tour IV, please book a hotel. Alma has all the details. We now have 141/200 registrations, and the 2 official hotels are getting booked left and right.
- If you want to join the next season's judge panel of the moot court (its 10th, imagine that!), please get in touch. We form the panel next week.
- Finally, we now have the first 20 registrations for 🇵🇹 Summit XII next June. I don't think we'll issue any invoices before On Tour is over – but it's good to know who's in, so that we can plan the program.
See you in a bit, when the official gallery is ready!
– S|CO –
