More than 60 game designers and developers gathered on XMG’s rooftop patio last Thursday for a networking event hosted in partnership with Chartboost. An army of mobile game entrepreneurs were in attendance discussing life as Toronto-based developers and looking for opportunities to help each other navigate the space. Of course BBQ hotdogs and maybe a bit of beer were on hand as well.
Toronto is one of the Canadian Meccas of mobile game design with an extraordinary high concentration of indie game studios. Among the attendees were representatives of Get Set Games, Ganz, UKEN, Big Viking Games, Beeline and Massive Damage.
XMG regularly hosts networking parties for no other reason than to take advantage of the weather, great view and a good time with friends; but this one had a mission beyond the drinking and game talk: find your best match for in-game cross promotion.
Chartboost – known to have a heart for the indie scene just like XMG – offers a cross-promotion technology that allows mobile game developers to buy, sell or trade users directly with e-specific apps, skipping the mediation and the 50% cut of an ad network. The free service allows smaller developers to tap into cross-promotion and better compete with large publishers. The party was a stage to help Toronto indie mobile game developers to find similar developers with whom they can set up advertising trades and has been a success on all accounts, knitting the Toronto mobile gaming scene even tighter together.