The Bilbao International Games Conference 2023 has closed its second edition. It has done so with record attendance, with more than 1,200 registered professionals who have held 873 networking meetings. “We are very happy, very grateful and we humbly pick up this year’s conference with the feeling that we have taken a very important step forward. The BIG Conference is now established as the most important congress in the Spanish video game industry,” said Antonio Santo, co-director of the festival. For Alfonso Gómez, co-director of the Bilbao event, the event “has fulfilled all our expectations as an organization. We have also seen and certified that it is an event that has every reason to be for the sector itself”.
Anna Guxens, narrative designer for Baldur’s Gate 3, one of the most prominent games of this 2023, spoke about the importance of narrative design, especially in a game where the story, and the player’s role in it, plays such an important role. Guxens recalled the importance of having a hook, a development and an end result that live up to the promise made to players.
“You need to create emotions that affect the player: whether it’s gaining or losing power or a change in a relationship. The stories must be interesting for the player, not forced, so that they are the ones who decide what they want to focus on,” she explained. Guxens reminded that storytelling is not just about the script: “It’s also gameplay. You have to give players the tools they need to be creative in their relationship with the story. You have to say yes to the craziest ideas, like creating a column of wooden boxes to get around a wall.” The end result, she reminded, must have an impact on the game world. “A good result doesn’t have to be positive for the player, it has to be satisfying,” she concluded.
Tatiana Delgado has unveiled the secrets of puzzle and narrative design based on her experience developing American Arcadia “We like to hide details that you only understand once you have completed the game; which gives a special magic to the second round.”
“The game has been five years in development, it has cost 400,000 euros and half of it has gone to localization” explained the members of Deconstructeam about their latest work, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, in a talk that has collected all the problems encountered during development but also all the successes.
“We call it The Theater of the Mind, because it’s all in our heads” Cissy Jones, voice actress on titles such as Baldur’s Gate 3 or Firewatch, related her experience in the industry “I never work with my scene partner, so I have to imagine the person I’m talking to, the situation, the tone. Everything”.
The Andalusian Odders Labs have presented their latest release for virtual reality, Les Mills XR Dance, during the BIG Conference 2023. Ana Molina, CEO of the studio, recalled that the opportunity of virtual reality comes right now, in an industry with a great capacity for growth: “VR is a growing industry, but a niche one. Even the manufacturers don’t know the specs we’ll be handling five years from now.”
Rosie Taylor, from Safe in Our World, and David Canela, from Tequila Works, have discussed the importance of mental health in the video game industry. And they did so taking into account the importance of taking care of it both within the studio and in the products that a company launches on the market: “Reflecting a mental health problem in any game means taking it into account in all aspects of development: from the script to the mechanics, including the art”.
Elena Flores and Pablo de la Nuez from Raiser Games have offered their experience on how to calculate sales projections by making the most of the analytics offered by digital sales platforms: “The essence of any game; the indispensability of development, is the basis from which the success of any launch is guaranteed. Studios must ensure that this is maintained from the beginning to the end of development”.
Selling a game is much easier with a good trailer and a well-defined art style. Gameloft’s Elsa Reig reminded us of the importance of ‘less is more’ when creating a good promotional video: “Sometimes we want to cram too much information in”. Mohammed Bakir, artist at Brainwash Gang, reminded that having a very special aesthetic can be both a problem and a blessing: “If your game has a very unique aesthetic, it will be harder for you to find artists. It can be both a strength and a weakness.”
GT : Worlds of Aria – Official Narrator Trailer (ft. Laura Bailey)
