Google announced on the 2nd that it will hold the ‘7th Google Play Indie Game Festival’ to support content advancement and overseas expansion of domestic indie game developers.
The purpose of the event is to discover promising domestic indie game developers who will lead the mobile game ecosystem and support their entry into the global market and business success. From June 1st to July 1st, participating developers are recruited through the official website, followed by an online screening process to select the Top 20 and Top 10, and the final Top 3 developers are selected in the finals held online in September.
The Google Play Indie Game Festival, which started in Korea in 2016, has been expanded to a global program held in Japan and Europe. In the meantime, as of 2021, a cumulative 1,507 developers in Korea participated in the Google Play Indie Game Festival and submitted 1,632 games.
Google Play provides various benefits to indie game developers selected as finalists for one year, including game promotion, mentoring and consulting, and marketing campaigns. In particular, this year, Heidier, an indie developer that was selected as a Top 3 at the Indie Game Festival 2021 and succeeded in attracting an investment of 20 billion won from Neowiz, is supporting the success of indie game developers full of potential by supporting subsidies for junior indie game developers.
Along with this festival, the 10-week online indie game accelerator program is also recruiting companies to participate as a global program to support the growth of indie game developers. The program provides customized master classes and expert mentoring for indie game developers, as well as various know-hows for game design, launch strategy and growth.
The Indie Game Festival and Indie Game Accelerator Program are Google’s support programs for indie game developers, and you can apply for overlapping support. Through these two programs, Google actively supports domestic indie game developers to promote more systematic and continuous business growth and to gain global competitiveness.
After the game submission deadline on July 1st, the Top 20 games will be announced in early August when the Top 20 are selected through the evaluation of the first jury composed of Google and external judges. Afterwards, a user jury composed of general gamers and a professional jury composed of experts from Google Play and industry experience the Top 20 games, submit experience reviews and feedback for each game, and vote for the games to be selected as a total of Top 10 developers. .
In the online finals to be held in the online metaverse space in early September, the Top 10 developers introduce their games through individual presentations and answer questions from the jury. The top 3 developers will be finally selected by summing up the results of the judges’ evaluation on that day.
Apart from the Top 10 and Top 3 selections, the ‘Popular Game Award’, which is decided by direct voting by Google Play Store users, is conducted through users’ votes in the Google Play Store, and anyone can participate in voting. Popular Games award winners will also be announced in the finals.
Meanwhile, the top 3 developers of Google Play Indie Game Festival 2021 are Cat and Soup (HIDEA). Cats Going Home: The Way Home (CONCODE). Rally on the way home from work: A record competition (Soeun Game) was selected. (In alphabetical order, the name of the developer is in parentheses) The popular game award selected by the user’s direct vote went to the Animal Doll Shop (Funnyeve), which was well-received for its cute picture and easy-to-access gameplay. In particular, Heidier, a cat and soup developer, was acquired by Neowiz, and is recording high growth, with global downloads exceeding 20 million.
Lee Hyung-won, head of Google Play’s Korean game partnerships, said, “The Google Play Indie Game Festival has been held for the past six years, with numerous indie companies that are performing well overseas, such as Heidi, a developer of ‘Cat’s & Soup’, and Playhard, a developer of ‘Hero Factory’. We have been discovering developers and continuing to support and collaborate for them,” he said. “With the Google Play Indie Game Festival, which celebrates its 7th anniversary this year, domestic indie game developers, such as hidden gems, are reaching a wider stage and reaching out to global users. We will spare no effort to support the creation of practical business outcomes.”
