Every winter I look forward to popping over to Toronto for the annual GameON:Finance conference. While I’m somewhat biased since I’ve been on the advisory board since the first year, the purely business niche allows for a program that is laser focused and super valuable. It is quite amazing how productive you can be when the right 200 people are in the room, versus thousands wandering a big expo hall…

Village Gamer put up some great notes to recap day 1 and day 2 of the conference. Surprisingly, my mini lecture on Lean Startup concepts came across as quite foreign to most folks in the room. In part makes me think the event should transition to a more “action” oriented approach, like we see with many of the startup festivals and bootcamp type events: direct mentoring, pitch practicing, sitting directly with investors, Idol style competition, etc.

I only took a few quick photos:


Albert Lai (in viking headdress to promote his new studio Big Viking Games) discussed the amazing opportunities for game studios.

 


Alex Sakiz (Gamerizon) mines TV for lessons on mobile vs AAA business models.

 


Philippe Morin (Red Barrels) enjoys a pint with viking fan and conference producer Patricia McCutcheon.

 


Marc Jackson (Seahorn Capital), Nathan Vella (Capy Games) and event producer Jackie Brown up to no good during post dinner drinks…

 


Marc’s panel explored alternate forms of funding like accelerator programs, crowdfunding, digital marketing commitments, etc.

 


Post conference karaoke with the musical stylings of Ryan Henson Creighton (Untold Entertainment).

 


Trevor Fencott amused by Don Henderson’s questionable vibrato.