Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency (President Lee Eui-jun) and the Korea Mobile Game Association (Chairman Hwang Seong-ik) signed the’ 2024 Indie Craft Joint Hosting and Hosting Agreement’ in February and have announced that they will participate in Indie Craft, the best festival for selecting outstanding indie game developers. On the 29th, it was announced that it was recruiting developers.
In particular, this year, based on the experience held with a new spirit after COVID-19 last year, an exhibition event is scheduled to meet users in earnest and an international conference for indie game developers and industry officials. In addition, we plan to show changes such as changing the method of commercialization support to suit the needs of developers and seeking more effective support measures for developers through the dualization of events.
■ Any domestic indie game developer can apply
The most significant advantage of Indiecraft is that it provides exhibition space for developers and commercialization support, ultimately helping developers advance into the global market by using it in various fields such as game content development and marketing. Any domestic indie game developer or team can apply for entries this year.
In particular, due to the success of the ‘Challenger (for college students)’ field, which was first recruited last year, the number of developers selected in the Challenger field this year was expanded. If more than 50% of the team members are college students, they can apply as challengers, raising expectations for a more diverse mix of game content. In addition, we are preparing to select excellent developers by significantly expanding the number of judges for selection to strengthen fairness further.
■ Expand commercialization support tailored to developer needs
Indiecraft’s commercialization support for selected developers has also changed significantly. In particular, the ‘commercialization support fund’ was limited to specific fields when paying chosen developers. Still, this year, it was changed to a prize form to expand the use of the money for developers and enable flexible operation.
In addition, we have strengthened the ‘marketing solution’ that was first implemented last year and prepared to enjoy various benefits through user reward marketing, pre-booking promotional marketing, etc. In addition, we plan to continuously provide unsparing support for developers by holding the ‘Mentoring Networking Day’, which is always well-received by developers, a private networking day that emphasizes communication between developers, and an IR pitching demo day in October.
■ Together with Seongnam City, GXG with INDIECRAFT
The B2C event will be in conjunction with the ‘GXG 2024’ event held in Seongnam City in September. GXG (Game culture We plan to participate in the exhibition. It is worth looking forward to the September exhibition in Seongnam, a city specializing in games.
Director Lee Eui-jun of Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency said, “Recently, indie games have been showing successive successes in the global market. Many stakeholders are paying attention to indie games as a new growth engine for the game industry. Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency provides effective and continuous support to the game industry. “We will bring vitality to the game,” and urged active participation, saying, “We look forward to the passionate participation of indie game developers with novel ideas.”
Hwang Seong-ik, Chairman of the Korea Mobile Game Association, said, “It has already been six years since an event for small and medium-sized game developers was held under the name Indiecraft in 2019. “We have tried to prepare various support projects and exhibition stages to help small and medium-sized indie game developers advance into the global market and grow, so we hope you will apply a lot,” he said.
The recruitment of entries for the Korean indie game festival’ 2024 Indiecraft’ will be held from March 29th to April 22nd at 6 PM. The meeting site ‘Onoff Mix’ and the Indiecraft official website provide detailed information. Inquiries regarding other events and sponsorship participation can be made through the Indiecraft Secretariat.
