International Game Camp was organized as the LTT activity of our 2021-2-TR01-KA220-YOU-000051441 project. Within the scope of the project, 84 people participated and a total of 650 participants participated. 53 cities and 51 countries from Turkey participated.
The camp program is shared below within the scope of the project.
Day 1
On the first day, our friends who participated in the camp were placed in teams where they could show themselves best according to their technical skills. For example, a 3D Artist friend was placed in a team that needed strengthening in 3D artist, thus increasing the motivation of the team to work with friends. Seeing this desire from the team, our foreign guest participant friends also presented their skills to their teams in the best way possible. The teams showed their different cultures together in their game ideas. Each participant created a new cosmopolitan game universe by combining their different cultures and views of life. In this way, the most important feature of the game was to be global. It was seen that the games presented by the teams with foreign guest participants were more universal. At the same time, friends were able to compare their skills with their peers from different parts of the world.
Day 2
In this training, step-by-step experiences of game entrepreneurship were explained to our participants. From the first revival of the idea of being a game entrepreneur to becoming a successful studio, the steps they will face such as gathering a team, establishing a company, legal and legal steps, achieving continuous and sustainable income, establishing and maintaining strategic partnerships were explained. The characteristics of game entrepreneurship were clearly explained to the teams by experienced people. It was explained that game entrepreneurship is not only about making games, but also about establishing a business management plan or the work necessary for the survival of a commercial structure that does not have a fixed and unmeasurable income. These trainings were explained in practice by experienced entrepreneurs or mentors who are experts in their fields. In the game entrepreneurship training, the turning points experienced by the teams were explained with options. For example, how a game startup that generates revenue should spend the revenue was explained in different ways. For example, different options such as whether the conditions of the existing team should be improved as capital, whether the team should be enlarged under the same conditions, or whether the money should be shared as profit among the founders themselves were discussed. The positive and negative sides of what will happen or not happen when each step is chosen were explained to the participants by the trainers who have experienced these steps. Participants were subjected to an interactive training during these trainings, that is, they expressed or asked their own opinions. Other participants agreed with these questions or thoughts or claimed otherwise and heard different thoughts for the events they will encounter in the future. In fact, these thoughts may be the thoughts of the company partners they will establish in the future. For example, in a company with 3 co-founders that generates a large income, one founder may want the money to be distributed to them, one may want to improve the financial conditions of the team, and the other may want the team to grow under the same conditions. In this camp, the participants have already heard the situations they may face in the future from the eyes of their counterparts and saw how the trainers solved or failed to solve them with their experiences. In this way, they were able to go to the future, see the problem in advance and prepare themselves for that day.
Day 3
Today the participants received technical training. This training was categorized according to their skills. While each participant was insisted to attend the training according to their own skills, there was no restriction for those who wanted to receive training in different fields. In other words, a member of the art team was encouraged to attend the classes of artist instructors, while a member of the design team did not face any restrictions when he wanted to attend a class of an instructor. Some trainings, especially mindset or business management trainings, were encouraged for everyone to attend because these trainings are value-added trainings for each team founder at this stage. When they become a company in the future, the co-founders, who will probably be co-founders in the teams they will establish in the future, should have this basic knowledge because they need to make decisions about the company, even though they need to specialize in their own fields. Apart from these, it was designed for the technical levels given to the team members. It was given in 3 different categories as beginner – intermediate and advanced level. Thanks to the technical learning and peer teaching of friends who entered the training at their own level, it was faster and no participant in the trainings felt backward and experienced psychological handicap. Participants who became aware of their own level during the camp were able to receive technical mentoring from their advanced level friends every day for every hour. In this way, the participants who received mentoring directly from people like themselves felt how far learning and knowing could take them.
The trainings took place under 4 main headings.
1. Software
The game software training was given by people from the industry and the things to be considered in different game types and possible problems to be experienced were explained to the future team leaders. For the software developer participants who had never experienced developing a different type of game before, these experiences encouraged them to make more comprehensive games in a different field. As a result, with this training, they realized that software developers can make deeper games only by using their skills in a more complex structure and they were encouraged.
2. Art
This group of fellow 3D and 2D artists from game teams learned more practical ways and performance improvement tips. The most interesting part of the trainings was the training on how to create the art lines that companies should have. Because in this training, how to produce different games in line with a line and what to pay attention to during this production, the difficulties to be experienced and control mechanisms were explained. For example, even if game A and game B are different from each other, what needs to be done to be able to say that they have the same art line was explained to the teams practically. How teams with an artistic line are differentiated in the sector was explained to the participants with practical examples. Technical trainings were given at different levels, including 3D and 2D. The most different topic of the art trainings was the part where the model makers tried to improve their animation skills. Since this area, which is always provided ready-made, is a problem for the teams when they want to customize it, the teams were given basic training on this subject.
3. Design
For the design team skill, which is the most distinctive skill for game teams, training was provided by design team members who have achieved success in the sector. The feature that distinguishes the trainings given in this field from other fields is that it is an abstract unit. Since it is very important to evaluate the ideas that are separated into good and bad correctly, the trainers who have proven themselves in this field shared the methods, methods and steps they applied with the participants. It was conveyed by the trainers that this information should not be accepted as correct, that each team has a different chemistry and should find its own truth. However, the following point was not overlooked: If the games you make are right for you but do not achieve commercial success, they are wrong. Because it was emphasized that the games made are for the users and if they don’t like it, even if it contains technical correctness, it is wrong as a result. It was explained that teams that make wrong games for a long time should change their methods or give their teams a different perspective. Although the problems that can be experienced during the management of the idea phase or the production process and the solutions that can be found for them were explained, the trainers stated that every team and even every game will experience a different situation and that this can only be solved with design team members who know the team and who are accepted by the team.
4. Marketing
The importance of marketing, one of the most important areas of game teams, was explained with the understanding that producing is not enough to sell. In the trainings under this title, the steps, methods and risks of game marketing were mentioned. It was emphasized that this work should not be simplified and should be done by experts. It was tried to teach the teams that a failed marketing would turn a successful game into a treasure that no one knows. With the trainings given by experienced people in this field, the teams gained basic knowledge in this field.
Day 4
On the 4th day, experts and companies from the gaming industry met with the participants and the meetings, which took the form of experience sharing, paved the way for strategic partnerships or investment negotiations. For example, the teams who met with companies and companies that offer different marketing options or are looking for teams to invest in, introduced themselves and got to know the visitors. During these meetings, they kept in touch and found common ground for a joint work. Another important visitor was a company that provides studios with different advertising revenue in their games and talked to the teams about the diversity of advertising revenue and opportunities. In this way, the teams learned and realized that they could generate more revenue from their games. These kinds of visitors were a good fit for some teams’ game genre or team type, while for others it was not, but even this mismatch showed the teams what kind of opportunities they could meet if they turned to which structure or what kind of games they made. For example, hyper casual studios were seen by teams as being able to easily generate revenue streams, whereas teams making VR games realized that they could generate revenue with every game. Or they tried to come up with different ideas to use different types of opportunities in their own games. With these visits, the teams recognized different business partnership and revenue opportunities in many areas from the industry. They reviewed their own plans according to the current and future situation of these opportunities. Teams that want to make hyper casual games listened to the advantages and disadvantages of teams making Steam games from industry experts. Thanks to this situation, teams had the opportunity to test or revise their strategic structures. The teams showed their games to the experts and tried to find the opportunities they could get. These interviews gave the teams an awareness not only about the game but also about their situation. For example, they received information about the current demand situation of the type of game they made or possible competing games, so they learned by experience that game entrepreneurship is not just technically making games. The biggest gain of the day was that the teams listened to different genres and structures from those teams and heard the advice of experts in that field.
Day 5
On this day, teams continued to improve the games they developed. Throughout the day, teams received feedback from mentors and other teams and revised their games. The teams, whose games reached a playable level, had their games tested by the participants throughout the day and had the chance to watch their games through the eyes of the users by conducting user tests. Today, the teams actually learned how different the user mindset is. For example, the team that made the game realized that the game encountered a problem when the user made that move when they could not predict a move that the user would make and designed their game accordingly. The team that made the game experienced how important it is to think like the user while making the game. Throughout the day, mentors explained to the teams that this is one of the most important aspects. The teams learned that it is necessary to think about every possibility that the player can do and design the game accordingly. Finding this by the test teams was explained in the task distribution of the team. For example, when a team making a mobile game does not consider the possibility of 2 fingers pressing the screen at the same time, they cannot predict what will happen when the user does this and cannot design the game accordingly. The importance of these situations for user experience was explained by the mentors with examples from games. The teams that continued to develop, test and test games throughout the day started to merge their products towards the end of the day. With the problems experienced during the mergers, revision or change of the games emerged. The biggest gain of this day was that the teams, who thought that their idea was perfect, actually saw that everyone had the idea and that their ideas were of no importance if they could not gamify them correctly. The teams learned that the idea should not be admired, that the idea should have directions as if it was explained to someone who does not know it at all, and that there will be problems in the final stage of merging.
Day 6
This day was similar to day 5 for the teams. What distinguishes today from the previous day is that the teams started working on their presentations. The teams realized how difficult it is to explain themselves and their game effectively in a limited time when they started to make presentations. At this stage, they received support from mentors on investor pitching. At this stage, the participants saw that they improved as they rehearsed their presentations a lot. The teams realized that it is not the idea of the game but the team that is important, with questions from other participants in the role of listeners. They realized the importance of their teams having a balanced distribution of tasks while making a team page in the presentation. Because they realized that game development does not only depend on a technical skill when they got to know the teams of other teams and saw their games. Teams that developed scenarios or tried different things to attract attention in presentations planned to stand out in this way. Today, the teams learned that the presentation should not be left to the last moment because it is very difficult to present in a limited time. Having learned in previous trainings that producing is not enough to sell, the participants knew that the presentation they would make was to sell their potential to investors, so they attached great importance to it. At the end of the day, the participants made great progress in their presentations and rehearsed a lot while finalizing their games.
Day 7
The teams explained the projects they developed to our Minister of Industry and Technology Mr. Mustafa Varank.
“DIGIAGE – Game Development & Coding Academy” with the number 2021-2-TR01-KA220-YOU-000051441 is supported by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Program. However, European Commission and Turkish National Agency cannot be held responsible for the views expressed herein.”
