The second annual Ohio Game Developer Expo (OGDE) takes place this weekend at COSI following a very successful debut last year at the Ohio Union. Event coordinator Chris Volpe said that the original goal was to gather 50 local industry professionals and startups, but the event ended up attracting around 750 people.
“This year we’ve grown tremendously — we have increased the expo space by about four times,” said Volpe. “And we have more than twice as many speakers and workshops compared to last year.”
While OGDE is open for anyone to attend, Volpe explained that much of the programming and the speaker series are targeted at helping local video game development businesses and startups expand their skill set and show off their accomplishments.
“We have several competitions designed to help people showcase their skills and challenge themselves against their peers,” he said. “We have our Audio Replacement Competition in which people will be given the video from a game currently under development, with all the sounds removed, and they’ll have to replace the music and sound effects with whatever they think works best. We also have a Rapid Pitch Competition, where people can bring their best ideas to the Expo and compete, in which the winner will win receive a license Unity Pro, courtesy of Unity Technologies.”
The Ohio Game Developer Expo takes place October 24th through 26th, with admissions ranging from $15 to $60, with discounts available for current COSI members.
For more information, visit www.ohiogamedevexpo.com.