August 27, 2025 @ McCaw Hall

Crowdfunding has always been a critical path for bringing independent games into the world, and has never been more relevant for catalyzing communities and driving visibility for a game’s launch. Join Andrew Marks (Director of Product, Kickstarter) and a panel of games creators as we discuss how Kickstarter has changed and what opportunities exist for indies on the largest games crowdfunding platform.

Ladybug Ventures, aka Ladybug Workshop, is a team of highly curious and passionate people that love to solve problems and connect people through software engineering, live events, and branding.

Elizabeth Olson, Terry Redfield, Renee Gittins, Heather Cerlan, moderated by Andrew Marks

Learn more about platform support on Unity 6, then get ready for new handheld form factors using Unity.

Abdullah Hamed

Learn how player tastes are changing and what this can mean for creators looking to find new markets and new communities to address.

Cheryl Platz

With a career in video games spanning over two decades, Sean Vesce explores how deep listening – to players, communities, and culture – can unlock new creative possibilities, foster a more adaptive, player-informed design process, and build deeper trust with audiences.

This micro talk draws from the inclusive development of Never Alone and Foxtales, the folklore-inspired ambitions of The Forest Song, and the creation of Live Aware to capture real-time player feedback to offer practical insights and inspiration for developers seeking to create more resonant, meaningful, and enduring games.

Sean Vesce

Storytelling is one of the most critical skills for indie developers — not just telling a good story IN your game, but a great story ABOUT your game. This micro-talk will discuss tools to help you better tell the story of your game and your team, which are critical for long-term success.

Leah Hoyer

20+ year game veteran Serena Robar has been laid off 4 times, quit companies because of poor or unethical management 3 times and once walked away due to sexual harrasment. She’s been an author, a community manager, a game producer, a publishing producer, a director of production, a professor of game management and is now a CEO of her own game development studio.

From navigating toxic workplaces to surviving industry upheaval, Robar learned the survival strategies and resilience mindset that helped her not just endure, but ultimately thrive by going indie. In this microtalk, she’ll share the hard-won lessons about when to stay, when to leave, and how to build the financial and emotional foundation needed to make the leap to independence in today’s brutal games climate.

Sassy and sometimes irreverent, Robar is a sought-after presenter who never disappoints. Join her for her SLICE 2025 micro-talk and prepare for actionable truth bombs that could change how you navigate your career – and why going indie might be your best move yet.

Serena Robar

It is said that first-time studio founders spend all their time thinking about making the game, while second-time founders have learned (often the hard way) to focus more time on go-to-market. Most of us don’t want to just build a game, we want people to play it! For smaller studios with tight marketing budgets, one critical way to ensure this happens is to grow a strong community of players, fans, and influencers. And in our current economy, well before you have a finished product, social traction is often a pre-requisite for securing funding, publishing and other key partnerships.

But most developers aren’t community managers and social media mavens. This panel will help you take critical steps to build and nurture your player community to help your game and studio thrive!

Hanna Fogelberg, Anthony Tešija, Gavin Eisenbeisz, Brandy Camel, moderated by Leah Hoyer

AI is everywhere, but for many developers, especially in indie and AA studios, the biggest question isn’t what AI can do, but how to actually use it in real workflows. This panel brings together hands-on technologists and studio leads who are using AI tools right now in art, code, narrative, production, and beyond.

Rather than talking hypotheticals, panelists will show real-world examples and walk through how AI is actively saving time, improving quality, or helping small teams punch above their weight. Whether you’re AI-curious or already experimenting, this session is all about transparency, practicality, and real application

Chris Nemcosky, Justin Bailey, Jesse Helton, moderated by Ric Neil

Russ will introduce arpdau.com and its practical implementations of predictive analytics techniques to model your game’s monetization. Attendees will also learn how the geographical pricing tool can significantly improve your conversion-to-paid across different markets, ultimately maximizing global revenue while making free-to-play games more palatable to diverse international audiences.

Russell Ovans

Latest funding and M&A market insights driven by Quantum’s proprietary data and research, Alina will cover the current state of money flow in gaming plus where the opportunities are for developers.

Alina Soltys

I’ve sat on both publisher and dev side for just shy of 15 years. I’ve gotten multiple games to 10 figure outcomes, I’ve gotten 8 figure deals past the finish line, I’ve struggled to get $5k from angel investors and everything in between. Let me share what I’ve learned.

The most valuable trait to look in for a partner is honesty and courage. Seek honest and courageous partners relentlessly. Lacking honesty and courage results in massive time wastage. People will be nice to you because it’s easy to do so, People will ghost you because it’s easier than responding, People will send you a template email that is badly mis-spelled even when they work at a large publisher & platform you’ve been talking for ages and they’ve been positive the whole time. Why? Human nature. People get embarrassed, ashamed, disheartened, tired. Be understanding, but also don’t lose focus. Start using human nature to your advantage. If you are trying to get your studio funded, build rapport with people assuming that it will take time, and effort and nothing may come of it. Help people get what they are looking for, and quickly identify lack of fit on your end. It’s hard to do when lack of fit means not being able to pay people, not being able to make the game you want to make or the studio you want to bring to life. But even a “bad fit” conversation can be extremely useful. It shifts the balance of power in your favor. Find a champion and arm them to get to their investment committee and win the case that YOU should be the bet they make. Ask them about their organization, their decision making process, their investment thesis.

Gae-Charles Costantini

Fresh off his 2.5 years at Google Play Games working globally with Android, iOS, PC and Console game developers ranging in size from one person studios to the fastest game ever to six billion dollars of revenue, Monopoly GO!, 30+ year industry veteran Corey Rosemond shares some insights and perspectives on the latest trends in the video game industry and how might they impact and enable growth for independent game developers, publishers and ultimately players.

Corey Rosemond

Join Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson) to discuss the state of indie game development in 2025. From the realities of marketing and funding to creative risk and sustainability, this panel offers grounded lessons and practical strategies for navigating the challenges indie developers face today.

Tyler Wright, Andrea Roberts, Nick Kaman, moderated by Larry Hryb

Performance marketing helps teams focus on what works and cut what doesn’t. For PC and console games it means setting clear goals, testing, and using data to guide smarter decisions across the full lifecycle of a game.

This session is for teams building an ongoing, iterative approach to marketing that leads to more predictable performance and helps you hit your goals. We’ll dig into how to prioritize efforts, what metrics matter most at each stage, and how to track success even when data is fragmented.

Smart spending starts with smart measurement. Otherwise, every dollar is a gamble. Whether you’re trying to grow wishlists, boost installs, or increase player engagement, this session will help you zero in on the strategies that are truly delivering results.

Jonathan Anastas, Scott Nellessen, Jon Hanson, moderated by Adam Lieb

In this talk, we’ll take a look at recent platform trends as well as the opportunities that lie ahead for PC game developers looking to build a sustainable business. We’ll cover some recent and new features available on Steam that help you run your business and connect with your players. And we’ll look ahead at what’s coming next for developers and players.

Erik Peterson

David Edery

Pam Sampel

Ed Fries

Ask the Xbox team!

Michael Siebert

AI in Game Development: Promise, Peril, and the Path Forward is a roundtable discussion inviting game developers to explore the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence in their craft. Attendees will discuss concerns and opportunities that AI presents, particularly for indie studios, and examine how emerging tools might reshape the creative process, production pipelines, and the future of interactive storytelling. This open conversation will address both the cautions and the merits of integrating AI, encouraging participants to share experiences, predictions, and questions. This session is ideal for developers, producers, and creative leads who want to understand AI’s potential impacts on their work, as well as those curious about where the technology might take the industry next.

Nathan Stahlman

With so much of the modern videogame distribution platforms and marketing tools being self-service, a developer may question the value of a publishing partnership. What would the publisher do that the developer can’t? We’ll discuss the pros and cons as well as what is reasonable to expect to accomplish on your own, to help you navigate the decision.

Chris Klimecky

An open Q&A session with Valve.

Alden Kroll, Erik Peterson

Intentional hiring is foundational to creating a sustainable, successful studio. This session dives into the unique challenges and approaches to build lean, creative teams. From finding collaborators who thrive with empowerment to creating a sustainable culture of trust, candor, and shared purpose, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to scale your team intentionally to build a healthy studio culture and successful products.

Mitch Gitelman, Jeff Pobst, Dan Dixon, Samantha Kalman, moderated by Renee Gittins

Building social features in your game from scratch can consume months of development time that could be spent on gameplay. What if you could tap into Discord’s social infrastructure and quickly integrate it directly into your game? Traditional social feature development requires backend infrastructure, user authentication systems, and more but with the Discord Social SDK you get features like Rich Presence, friend management, game lobbies, deep-link invites, voice chat, and direct messages right out of the box. Join Anthony Tešija from Discord’s Developer Relations team for a hands-on technical session where you’ll discover how easily the Discord Social SDK can power your game’s social experience!

Anthony Tešija

Jon Grande

Designing Outside Yourself is a roundtable discussion exploring how game developers can create compelling experiences for audiences beyond their own personal preferences or identities. Attendees will discuss and share methods and tools such as player personas and the Gamer Motivation Model which can be used for identifying biases, analyzing market needs, and embracing diverse perspectives in the design process. This session is ideal for game designers, producers, and creative leads who want to build games with broader appeal across unfamiliar player types as well as those curious to learn what motivates gamers.

Sean Stahl

In this roundtable discussion, we will explore the inner workings of publishers such as how they operate, what they care about, and what they expect from developers, as well as what it’s like from the developer side to have to work within the constraints of a publisher. I’d like us to walk away with more understanding of the needs of both sides, and with ideas for what a truly mutually beneficial partnership could look like. Ideal participants: folks who have worked directly at a publisher or folks who have signed and developed their game with a publisher.

Erika Olsen

Kevin Williams

Ask everything you want to know about investment in your studio with John Polson of Tencent Games. He will share how the largest and still active investor in games sees the market, as well as what helps studios stand out in Tencent’s eyes. He also has tips for reaching publishers and smaller investors.

John Polson

Join us for a very human roundtable as we discuss the tumultous landscape of AI intersecting with our professional and personal lives. Attendees will discuss and share opinions on the landscape of myriad developing technologies, their future impacts and the ethical costs.

Jonathon Palmer