What happened at the WN Conference in Moscow

On October 13-14, a business conference for publishers and developers of video games WN Conference was held in Moscow. We tell you about how it was.

After a break of a year, the WN Conference (hereinafter WN) returned to Moscow. This time the event was held two steps away from Moscow City – in the large—scale spaces of the Expocentre exhibition complex.

The large site was not chosen by chance. Despite the ongoing situation with covid, more and more people from the industry are ready for personal meetings, for active communication. From working at home, in isolation, most are tired.

And WN showed it perfectly. It was very crowded throughout the conference. Sometimes it was impossible to find a place to discuss something sitting down. This is not to mention the fact that some guests and stands regularly lined up to “chat”.

This was especially noticeable in the central part of the expo, where the sponsors’ platforms were located, where not only business cards and contacts were exchanged in Telegram and Facebook, but also various activities were constantly going on. The central place according to the old tradition was occupied by the Appodeal stand.

The stands were often equipped with sofas and armchairs. The participants of the conference actively shared their expertise, told each other about their projects and possible options for cooperation. In the middle of the first day, a Happy Hour from AppsFlyer was held on the site, giving participants the opportunity to make communication more informal.

A special place in the exposition was given to the exhibition of developers. Its stands were all around the perimeter of the conference. A total of 52 teams personally participated in the conference. We have already talked about the most interesting projects from the exhibition in a separate publication.

Lectures were also held on two days of the conference in two streams. There were also performances by Yandex.Games, SayGames, Belka Games, Dark Crystal Games and even a whole track dedicated to the legal aspects of game development, which was supported by Semenov&Pevzner and Prospectacy.

We have already published brief extracts of some reports:

• Playrix — a case about launching games on AppGallery;
• Nexters — a report with business tips for developers;
• The Games Fund — a report on how to choose the right partner;
• Snap Games — a story about the achievements of the HTML5 gaming platform;
• Pixonic — a story about why and how the graphics of the War Robots game were changed;
• TikTok for Business — some tips about working with the platform;
• Banzai Games, AdSide Media and RoasUp round table on working with creatives.

A little later, all the performances will be available for viewing on the WN Hub. Including, for example, a curious report by SberGames about the future of children’s gaming applications in Russia.

In conclusion, we note that the conference was personally attended by more than 1200 people. This is significantly more than it was on WN last summer.

“The event was very successful. People miss live communication, if possible, personally discuss and conduct transactions. At the same time, many noted that new faces have appeared in two years, the industry has been noticeably updated. The area of the expo zone has also increased compared to 2019, when the WN was held in Moscow for the last time before the pandemic.” — said Yulia Lebedeva, Executive Director and Partner of WN Media Group.

By the way, like the summer session, WN in Moscow was held in a hybrid format. Lectures could be followed online on the WN Hub platform. It also allowed the guests of the event to communicate with each other, make appointments both “on the spot” and online.

The next WN will take place in November, in Seattle (you can join it online).