The first Philippines Game Development festival to be held in September

The first ever Philippines Game Development festival will be held at the University of Philippines Diliman campus in Diliman, Quezon City from 14th to the 18th of September 2010. The festival intends to promote the Game Development profession for the youth by showcasing the various exciting achievements of the local game development industry, the products of local game development companies and the various game development courses that that institutes and schools have to offer.

Speaking to AnimationXpress APAC was Cesar Tolentino, Executive Director of the Game Developers Association of Philippines as he said, "The Summit for students will focus on the career opportunities in the game development industry whereas the summit for professionals will focus on the various aspects of game development like game programming, designing, art and production. The sessions are focused for students as well as professionals. We are expecting at least 15000 professionals and 18000 students to attend the festival."


The Expo will start on the 14th September as the Summit for students will be on the 17th and the summit for professionals will be held on the 18th. Click here to download the session lineups.
Various renowned speakers have been invited for the event including luminaries of the international video game industry who have worked on games like 'FIFA 2003', 'Heroes of The Pacific' and 'Pirates Plundarrr'.



The speakers for the sessions are a blend of professionals from local game development companies along with experienced international speakers namely Allan Simonsen, Co-founder of Boomzap Entertainment, Ali Kojori, Senior Producer at Outblaze, Shawn Hammin, Fun Guy Studios and David Tene, Owner, Guide Du Jeu and Video Games Consultant.

A number of game development companies from Philippines will be featured during the Expo. The featured companies are as follows:

- Animation Vertigo Asia

- Anino Games

- Cheq Systems

- Digital Art Chefs

- Fun Guy Studios

- Gameloft Philippines

- Glyph Studios

- Komikasi

- Moanima

- Podd Corp

- Sungame S.E.A

- Suspended Animation Media

- Techfactors

- The Studio of Secret 6

- Zeenoh Games


An event like this will certainly yield a lot of fruit for the Philippines game development industry which has shown remarkable growth in the past few years and is striving to be one of the big players in the APAC and international gaming markets.

Cesar further added about the Philippines gaming industry and its developments in the past few years by saying, "The Industry has been growing in revenues at CAGR of 85% from 2002 to 2010. This trend is expected to continue from 2010 to 2012. During this period, revenues rose from less than USD 0.1 Million in 2001 to about USD 7 Million projected by the end of 2010. The man power and headcount is also growing at a CAGR of 46% from 2005 to 2010. This trend is expected to continue from 2010 to 2012. During this period, the industry's head count rose from about 45 in 2005 to almost 860 projected by the end of 2010."

These figures clearly indicate that the Philippines Gaming industry is reaching newer heights as the revenue generated is increasing each year. An event like this will surely benefit the Philippines gaming industry and will encourage more and more students to opt for game development as a serious career opportunity.