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| (Image Source: DLH.net/Bilbao International Games Conference) |
The Bilbao International Games Conference (BIG Conference) will be granting its Honorary Award to Arkane Lyon's Studio Director Dinga Bakaba for his groundbreaking contributions to the history of video games. Bakaba will join this year’s edition of the Spanish-based video gaming convention taking place on December 15-16, 2023 for a fireside chat with BIG Conference Co-Director Antonio Santo where they will discuss Bakaba’s career and views on games, storytelling and game design, among other topics.
Currently the Director of one of the most vibrant and innovative game development studios in the world, Bakaba started his career more than 15 years ago as a Quality Assurance (QA) specialist before turning to game design. Upon joining Arkane in 2012, he started working in the acclaimed Dishonored as a game designer and associate producer, only to rise through the ranks and become a lead designer in the follow-up game Dishonored 2. The Dishonored series has been universally acclaimed as one of the best franchises of the last decade with more than 8 million copies sold and a Metacritic score of 91% and 88% respectively. He was a game director and co-creative director of Deathloop (more than 5 million copies sold and a Metacritic score of 88%) before finally becoming Studio Director in 2021. Bakaba now joins the ranks of other legends of the games industry who have received the BIG Conference’s honorary awards which include Shuhei Yoshida, Warren Spector, Tim Schaffer, Alexei Pajitnov, and many others since the first edition of the event back in 2011.
This year's BIG Conference will feature a brilliant roster of speakers for its schedule of talks with some of the most successful indie games of the year taking the spotlight. Indie studios like Deconstructeam (The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood) and The Game Kitchen (Blasphemous 2) will offer post-mortems of their latest releases. Chibig Studios will discuss their latest experiences on Kickstarter where its game Mika and the Witch’s Mountain became one of the most successful games in the story of crowdfunding. The conference will cover many other topics including how to raise your sales through data analytics with IndieBI’s co-founder Callum Underwood, puzzle design and its ties with narrative design with Tatiana Delgado from Out of the Blue, pixel art with Chucklefish Games artist Pablo RodrÃguez and mental health in video games with Rosie Taylor (Safe in Our World) and David Canela (Tequila Works). All the talks will be either in English or with simultaneous translation to English. The BIG Conference also offers an excellent opportunity for networking with scouts from many publishers searching for the next indie hit. Publishers such as Chucklefish, Fellow Traveler, Focus Entertainment, PlayStack Games, Team17, Prismatika, Selecta Vision, Blitworks, Tesura Games, SOEDESCO, Bandai Namco or Entalto Studios, among others, have already confirmed their presence at the Spanish event. Finally, the BIG Conference has also announced a job fair with many different companies looking for talent (especially senior profiles).
The BIG Conference continues the path opened by the Fun&Serious Game Festival held in Bilbao, Spain for the first time in 2011. Under its motto —"celebrate video games culture and video games as culture" — the event gathered some of the most influential professionals of the industry while attracting tens of thousands of visitors. Its eclectic offer mixed industry professionals conferences as well as other activities for gamers: from fun, family-friendly activities to the Games Industry Forum which focused on indie developers while always celebrating the best games of the year during the Titanium Awards. After its hiatus due to the global COVID-19 pandemic which forced the event to hold a 100% online edition and a hybrid one the following year, the BIG Conference rebrands to become an exclusive event aimed at industry professionals. BIG Conference is supported by the Town Hall of Bilbao, the Diputación Foral of Bizkaia, and the Basque government among other sponsors. For more information and updates on the 2023 Bilbao International Games (BIG) Conference, visit its official website and sign up for its official online newsletter.
