Report from KRI #1: First Impressions

May 15th, Hotel Cosmos, the first day of the Eleventh Game Developers Conference, or simply, KRI, and our initial impressions of it.

Immediately noticeable is the reduction of the exhibition area. Here, you can still find booth babes, who are eagerly photographed by participants and the press, but the number of booths is quite small.

Navigator Game World Editor Igor Boyko taking pictures of booth babes

As noted in our conversation with Maxim Maslov, one of the KRI organizers, the number will continue to decrease in favor of more intimate zones where conference guests can communicate in a relaxed atmosphere.

Presentations are being made, as they were at yesterday's FlashGAMM, in four streams. And in many of them, unofficially, without any mention of iOS and Android, the influence of the mobile market is felt. So, it's like people aren't talking about smartphone and tablet games, yet they are. It's amusing.

According to Maslov's estimate, the number of conference guests will range from 1,400 to 1,600 people. Next year, the event might take place not at Hotel Cosmos, but on the Digital October platform.

We will discuss the first presentations a bit later in a separate post. Stay tuned for updates.