Over 8,000 Visitors to Indie Game & Culture Festival ‘Burning Beaver 2… 2023-01-02
2023-01-02
■ Over 8,000 visitors in just over three days from December 16~18 at the pop-up building located on Garosu-gil featuring abundance of attractions and entertainment
■ Confirmation of general public’s interest in indie games and the company will follow up on its efforts to grow a base for creativity, original works, and the entrepreneurship and game development ecosystem
■ Burning Beaver 2022 Online will continue until January 15, 2023
The Smilegate Future Lab center revealed on December 20 (Tue) that the offline event for indie game & culture festival Burning Beaver 2022 had come to a successful conclusion, with positive reviews from the general public and other interested parties.
The offline event for Burning Beaver 2022 was held at the pop-up building Beaver World on Garosu-gil in Sinsa-dong, Seoul, between December 16 (Fri) and December 18 (Sun). Burning Beaver is the character for this year’s festival, created from the idea that the passion of a beaver creating a dam that is much larger than itself is similar to the passion of game creators creating their own unique and original works in the virtual world.
During this period, with record-low temperatures this winter, over 8,000 people visited Beaver World, including over 500 gaming industry affiliates along with members of the general public such as students interested in games, lovers on dates, and families on outings with children.
Beaver World is four floors with a total floor area of 2,200 m2. The festival included 80 indie game exhibition booths, a special exhibition zone, a merchandise sale zone, and an event zone, and various forms of entertainment. Visitors to Beaver World were provided with the Beaver World exclusive passport, B-Pass, and the Beaver World exclusive currency, B-Tokens, when they entered based on the event concept of traveling to Beaver World. Visitors used the items provided to play various indie games while also participating in the rich events held throughout Beaver World as they created lasting memories and enjoyed high-fives with event personnel on site dressed up as non-player characters (NPC).
Tak Lee (first year student at Guil High School), who visited Beaver World on December 18 (Sun), the last day of the event, stated, “I enjoy games regularly and it was really fun to be able to play a lot more games than I thought. The events were really fun too,” and added, “Visiting here was especially insightful because there were discussions related to game development that I normally wouldn’t have access to.”
Game developers that participated in Burning Beaver 2022 have also reacted positively. CEO of Outsider Kids Jeong-dae Kim, who submitted the shooting game Ripple Effect for this year’s event stated, “User feedback is crucial to developing an even better game and this year’s Burning Beaver event was a great help to us,” and added, “I think that the point of contact between indie games and the general public has been expanded.”
Burning Beaver 2022 also received positive reviews from creators for putting the spotlight on the role of the creators developing the games, building a healthy community between creators, and displaying a culture of mutual learning and growth between creators. The ‘Beaver Featured’ event held during the closing ceremony on December 18 (Sun) featured a vote between game creators participating in Beaver World. Creators played games developed by other creators and had some meaningful interactions by giving each other feedback, and then voted on the games to select eight teams for ‘Burning Beavers of the Year.’
Meanwhile, the online event for Burning Beaver 2022 will continue until January 15, 2023. Visitors can enjoy over 150 different indie games at the online exhibition centers through STOVE Indie and metaverse (ZEP). There is also the online conference Beaver-Con, which runs from December 21 (Wed) until December 22 (Thu), where well-known gaming industry figures will share their insight. At the conference, CEO of Smilegate STOVE Young-woon Han is planning to give a presentation entitled, “A Platform that Grows with Indie Game Creators.” In addition, YouTuber Seong-hoe Kim, who runs the YouTube channel ‘G Encyclopedia’ with 790k subscribers, will give a presentation entitled, “Indie of Insiders, Indie of the People.”
Smilegate Future Lab Center Director Min-jung Paek stated, “We were able to verify the interest of the general public towards indie games and game development through the offline event for Burning Beaver 2022,” and continued, “Smilegate Group will continue to strive to advance the game development ecosystem and grow the base for creativity, original works, and entrepreneurship through active and systematic support activities with the Future Lab Foundation. Next year, Burning Beaver 2023 will showcase an even more advanced indie game ecosystem.”
Related Contents
TOP
