Going to MIGS!
2025-11-27
We travelled to Montreal to go to MIGS, it was late fall so of course the snow hit shortly after arriving. Although the snow only made it more picturesque and it was beautiful the first day. It was a bit of a struggle the next morning when we had to walk to the conference in the snow but luckily we had registered the night before so we were able to walk right in! This was our first event as a studio and personally my first conference like this. It was a great experience and I loved the whole thing.
We got to stay in a beautiful hotel in the old part of the city, so walking out into the sights was just a footstep away. So of course we spent some time walking around to see the old buildings and check out the ferris wheel on the horizon (of course).
We had our own table setup in a booth with the other studios from our area! It was great to have several other studios to hang out with and have around, we were able to make a promo video that had all of our games and projects in it and it felt VERY OFFICIAL. We also had our very first logo printed out on the wall and given that I had only drawn it a few days before sending it over, suddenly all the flaws came forward, but it was okay enough for a version 1.0 of our logo!
I learned a lot about our physical promo materials, we had some signs and graphics that I built in preparation. We had wooden table signs and were able to put promo for both of our upcoming games! We had several stickers, some that we already had from previous projects and new ones with our studio logo and we put together lots of sticker sets and gave them out to anyone who wanted them. I know that stickers don't mean a ton, but I personally love getting stickers and putting them on things, so I loved passing them out!
There were a lot of booths and tables for meeting up with people, and we did a lot of that as well! Since we had our own booth, people were able to meet with us directly at our spot, which was great. We were in the VIP area but there were a few other areas, one for Indie Devs (which we also are!) and one for the content of the conference, lots of panel talks.
There were three different stages for talks and across the two days we went to all three. Several of the speakers got delayed or cancelled due to the snow at the beginning but there was still some really interesting stuff to listen to. One day it would be super cool to talk at a conference myself!
The Indie zone was really cool, lots of studios had game demos set up to play right in the room. The energy there was chaotic but vibrant and filled with interest. I saw several games myself that I already wishlisted and can't wait to see the release of! Waves of Chess is available for wishlist and it was during the conference as well, and everyone was so supportive about it, it felt nice to feel like a part of the bigger, and more professional game development community.
We learned a bit (or a lot) about how to network with other companies, people and opportunities and it was fun! We met a lot of really fun people and made lots of new contacts (if you're someone we met, hi!) and I can't wait until the next one.
We gained some XP and I'm excited to gain some more!
- Sarah