INDIE CRAFT is a Korean open competition for indie game makers with the key purpose of helping the indie game scene grow and contribute to a healthier ecosystem in the gaming industry.
The history of the indie game festival
South Korea has always been a huge part of the gaming industry, especially since the esports boom. Korean game studios caught the attention of the world when games like Player Unknown Battle Ground developed by Bluehole began standing out.
The record-breaking numbers done by PUBG inspired other studios to take part in this growing trend and display their fervour by making something unique as well. With this rise in passion and new talent, domestic Korean developers required a way to get the public's attention. After spotting this demand, Seongnam City and Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency took it upon themselves to launch a platform that would help give these creators exposure and facilitate the development of the Korean gaming industry.
After getting in touch with the local gaming community, Seongnam City held the first IndieCraft K-game festival in 2017. The event was loved by both investors and local studios and played an important part in taking these small indie creators to the next level.
Initially, the Indie Craft festival started as an offline event where they got the creators together with some veteran developers alongside some bigger studios. The event became a hit in Seongnam City and was consecutively held until 2020 in March.
Seongnam Industry Promotion had plans for 2021 as well but with Covid-19 blowing up, holding an offline event was simply out of the question. The event management was initially planning to call it off but due to the community's support, they ended up shifting the event online in 2021 and the change was well-received by the audience as for the next two consecutive years 20,000 people attended the online event.
The future of the game festival
In 2019, the Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency signed to co-host Indie Craft with the Korean Mobile Game Association and this partnership led to Indie Craft being held on the metaverse for the first time in 2022.
The metaverse switch was massive for Indie Craft as it expanded their reach and also allowed indie developers all over the world to take part in the event and showcase their skills. It attracted 23 cooperative organisations from 15 countries, inviting overseas developers and having 30,000 people attend it that year.
Alongside the global participation of developers in 2022, Indie Craft also started working to promote a selected few developers globally so they could get mentorship and international exposure.
Indie Craft also started to take care of media for the selected teams as bad promotion was keeping a lot of local indie games from reaching the right audience despite being fun.
The latest Indie Craft game festival was held on July 22-24th, 2023 and it was by far the biggest event up until now. In 2022, over 70 exhibitors, twitch streamers and influencers took part in the event and a lot of developers displayed their talent but 2023 was even better for indie craft as this year over 80 games were submitted both globally and locally.
In 2023, Indie Craft announced a total of 500 million won to support their developers as opposed to the 400 million won budget of last year. Because the coronavirus was no longer a threat, Indie Craft 2023 changed things around a little and was held both offline and online, holding both B2B and B2C conferences on separate dates.
During B2B days, devs were allowed to arrange meetings with investors and big studios through MeetToMatch while B2C days were reserved for showcasing work to the public. This format allowed developers to present their games in front of potential investors as well as reach out to their future audience to build rapport and generate public awareness.
The latest Indie Craft was also the best one yet when it came to the quality of games as this year the competition was the toughest it's ever been. This time a total of 5 games were chosen to be a part of Indie Craft where The Devil Within: SATGAT came out on top.
This year's (Indie Craft K-game Festival) was a success and already, both the Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency and Korea Mobile Game Association are looking forward to holding the next event in 2024.
