The Nexus Games Conference was held on the 25th - 26th of September 2024 and Imirt were delighted to have a presence at the event. The event was a huge success and around 300 attendees got together to learn about and discuss current issues and opportunities surrounding our industry.
Some of the indie devs attending the event gathered for a group photo.
The first segment of the event actually happened the night before, a drinks reception hosted by Havok, where attendees had a chance to mingle before the event.
On the 26th, the main body of the conference started with a welcome speech by Elaine Dowman (Head of Games and Creative Industries at Barclays and MC for the occasion). After that the morning was filled with games business insights from representatives from companies such as StoryToys, Meta (The corporation formerly known as Facebook), Black Shamrock, Scopely, Xbox, Unity (Impromptu) and other international experts like Tommy Thompson and business people from all over. As I mentioned before there was also an excellent panel moderated by Imirt CEO Colm Larkin.
State of Play panel. From left to right: Rick Kelley(Moderator), Emmet O’Neil (StoryToys), Thomas Shibley (NetEase) and Elaine Reynolds (Black Shamrock).
After lunch, the conference switched to a more participative format; two sessions of several simultaneous roundtables, in which attendees had a chance to discuss important issues with other attendees and the tables’s moderators, and since many of them were speakers in previous panels and talks, this also served as a form of Q&A for their previous talks.
One of the Roundtables featured in the second half of the conference.
At the end of the day, the flock of games industry people migrated to a nearby pub for another networking session to close the event.
IMIRT at Nexus
Imirt was a part of the Nexus Games Conference, and it was a huge success. First off, Imirt’s CEO, Colm Larkin hosted a panel on the opportunities and challenges of the Irish games industry, how it has developed and how to continue fostering its growth. The rest of the panel was composed by Justin O’Connor, StoryToys’s Head of Finance and Imirt Board Member; Chris Vossen, Larian’s Head of Narrative and finally, Donal Travers, IDA’s Head of Technology, Consumer and Business Services, representing the government.
Colm Larkin’s panel. From left to right: Colm Larkin (Imirt and Gambrinous), Chris Vossen (Larian), Justin O’Connor (Storytoys and Imirt) and Donal Travers (IDA).
Imirt also hosted two roundtable sessions. The first one by Imirt Board Member Dr. Maria O’Brien, where she answered questions about applying to the Game Development Tax Credit, and explained the more complex aspects of it. Imirt CEO Colm Larkin moderated the second one, which was also attended by some Imirt Board Members, this time dedicated to discussing Imirt’s policy course directly with members of the games industry.
This is an important conference to have in Ireland, and we hope next year’s is even bigger. Kudos to the Gamerfest Team, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland for getting this event off the ground!
The IMIRT Newsletter
What you just read was an excerpt from the Imirt Newsletter from September 2024. The Imirt newsletter gets sent out at the end of every month and features stories like these, along with other news, to give you insight into what’s happening in the games industry in Ireland. Remember, if you have any news you'd like us to share via this Newsletter, send them to contact@imirt.ie with the subject line "Newsletter Contribution".