Games Gathering 2024 Lviv

This year’s (the first one this year) Games Gathering was symbolically held on the first days of spring, so it managed to not only bring everyone together in an inspired mood but lift everybody’s spirits as well. Even though Lviv greeted the conference guests with drab windy weather, the “Dnister” hotel (and the Beer Theater “Pravda”!) turned out to be warm and welcoming enough to accommodate all who were there. So how was the event and did it fix its predecessor’s mistakes?

Crowds are a Games Gathering tradition at this point, as each year more people want to join this festivity of networking and lectures. Although it’s fairly obvious that fewer people travelled to Lviv than did to Kyiv previously (moreover, there was a “Kurhan i Ahrehat” concert in the capital the day before), that’s a good thing! It meant that even in a crowded lecture hall you were still able to breathe, the beer line didn’t become a literal barricade in the middle of the lobby, and most of us even made it in time for lunch (it was even easier on the second day, as those who only got a sandwich the first day, decided to try their luck elsewhere). Another huge plus was the fact that most of the activities were held on the basement floor, so in the case of an air siren you could still feel somewhat safe. Overall, the organizing side was much more thought through this time around, and the mistakes of the past were mostly fixed. We probably won’t have anything to complain about next time.

The indie area was, as it always is, surprising everyone with the amount of cool and different games on display for all kinds of people. There were fantasy titles, games about drones, horror games… It’s almost impossible to describe, you need to play them! Many indie devs were gladly telling us about their creations over lunch or coffee, so you were guaranteed a certain amount of impressions wherever you went (and bulk up your future wishlist).

Partner stands were slightly fewer this time around, but they made up for it with entertainment and interesting activities! For example, at the QS Games stand, you were able to make a cool photo that was instantly printed out and given to everybody. InText were offering a spin of the language wheel and a greeting in the selected language for a chance to win stickers and cute cats with candy. Zagrava traditionally provided writing implements for the participants.

We would also be remiss not to mention the UA Comics stand, where you could find our translations for MAL’OPUS.

The most interesting part of the conference was probably the lectures. Job hunting is a popular topic currently, so on the second day every speaker in the Earth Hall shared their info on preparing a resume, interviews, necessary soft skills and burnout. But most of all this year, everyone was waiting to hear about the creation of Cyberpunk 2077, as there were supposed to be two of them: 1) Ania Bulavina (Senior Environment Artist) shared the experience of creating a location for “Phantom Liberty” with unique examples; 2) Mariia Strilchuk (Localization PM & Engineer) told the story of how Cyberpunk started speaking Ukrainian ♥. Both lectures were incredibly informative and interesting, they were highly coveted and filled the halls. It’s interesting to note that the organizers put the lecture of Leonid Stepanov (Senior Gameplay Designer) from Remedy Entertainment in parallel with Mariia’s lecture, which made many people face a difficult choice.

There were interesting speakers in every hall overall, so none of them were empty at any time. We’d also like to remind you that all the lectures will be available to view on the Games Gathering channel in about a month.

Well, the traditional SBT meet-up also happened (how could we go without it)!

Astarion said hello to every Baldur’s Gate, wishing for everybody to visit more interesting events in the future!

Games Gathering 2024 Lviv welcomed everyone with a great atmosphere, interesting lectures and lots of inspiration for further work. We hope that the next conference will be even better and will have even more lectures on Ukrainian translations for some large projects.