December 7, 2022
Hamburg Games Conference 2023: First Speakers announced
The Hamburg Games Conference returns on March 1 & 2, 2023 with the topic "Invest in Games". Now the first games industry experts are confirmed, who will share insights and best practices in talks, keynotes and panels around the main topic, as well as on dev, funding and start-up topics.

After two years of hybrid and digital editions, the Hamburg Games Conference will now again take place as an on-site-only event at the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg. Tickets at the discounted Early Bird price are available until January 12, 2023. As always, there will also be ample opportunity to network and meet old and new faces from the international industry.
For the main conference track "Invest in Games", multiple talks have already been confirmed, providing insights and best practices on investments and M&A deals from the perspective of founders as well as investing companies and M&A advisors:
- Janosch Kühn and Daniel Stammler (founders of Kolibri Games / BLN Capital), will give the talk "Kolibri Story - From student dorm to multi-million dollar exit in 4 years", sharing experiences from founding their own studio and their successful exit.
- Maarten de Koning (Executive Vice President at DDM, a consulting firm specializing in games) will speak about the most important basic rules for successful deals in his presentation "10 Golden Rules to Avoid Investment and M&A Disaster".
- Arnd Benninghoff (EVP of Gaming at Modern Times Group) will give insights into the successful M&A strategy of the Swedish company that acquired, among others, InnoGames from Hamburg, Kongregate, Hutch and PlaySimple.
- Michael Schade (CEO and co-founder of Hamburg-based studio Rockfish Games) will look back on the successful self-financing of Everspace 2 through crowdfunding, early access and licensing deals in his talk "How to Self-fund a 20 Million Euro Space Looter-Shooter".
- Frank Zahn (Delivery Director & Managing Director at technology consulting and software company Endava) recaps his learnings and experience selling the digital agency Exozet, which he founded, to Endava in his talk "Lessons Learned on Selling my Company".
- Christof Wegmann (Founder & CTO at Exit Games / Photon Engine) will give an overview of success factors and lessons learned in the development of the mobile hit Stumble Guys in his post-mortem talk "Stumbling into a Global Hit Downloaded 2 Million Times per Day".
Several speakers are also already on board for the second track, which will focus on the topics of funding, development and start-ups:
- Linda Rendel (Production Director and founder of FemDevMeetup) will talk about "Production Leadership - How to be an authentic lead and build trusting relationships with your team", sharing insights as well as tools for authentic leadership.
- René Habermann (founder and developer at Bippinbits) will share with the conference audience in a post-mortem his learnings from the development and successful marketing of the indie hit Dome Keeper, which raised over a million euros after just one day of release.
- Brothers Jan and Paul Taaks (founders of Hamburg-based indie studio Overhype Studios) will give insights into the development and marketing of their indie hit Battle Brothers in a post-mortem talk.
More information about the speakers and their talks can be found at https://www.gamesconference.com/talks-2023
Become a speaker yourself
Proposals for talks and presentations are still being accepted until January 20. Submissions on the topics of "Invest in Games", funding, game development, and marketing are open at https://www.gamesconference.com/call-for-papers
Conference tickets at early bird price until January 12, 2023.
Tickets for the Hamburg Games Conference 2023 are available at https://HGC2023.eventbrite.co.uk. Until January 12, 2023, visitors can secure discounted Early Bird tickets at last year's price. In addition, reduced ticket prices are available for students and start-ups.
All current information about the Hamburg Games Conference is available at www.gamesconference.com.