Keep Knowledgeable
Get Trade Information In Your Inbox…
Signal Up As of late
Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona 2025 made a triumphant debut this week, firmly setting up itself as a must-attend convention for the worldwide video games trade.
Drawing over 1,000 attendees from 47 nations (throughout 5 continents) and representing greater than 520 firms, the two-day tournament reworked the magnificent Catalan capital into a colourful epicentre of sure video games trade networking, convention talks, and industry meets.
With its dynamic mix of trade leaders, indies, monetisation and UA professionals, tool-makers, platforms, builders, publishers, and others from around the international ecosystem, PG Connects Barcelona 2025 completely embodied the ‘video games trade circle of relatives really feel’ the PGC meetings are famend for.
The spectacular international achieve highlighted the facility to unite a various neighborhood of global execs and stakeholders with a powerful regional ecosystem – with 51% of attendees from Spain. The truth that round 30% had been founded in and round Barcelona showcased town’s prominence as a swiftly rising, primary video games trade hub.
“Up to I really like all our meetings and the broader video games trade, PGC Barcelona has been an actual hobby undertaking for me, and one thing I’ve sought after to release for a few years,” stated Metal Media CEO and founder Chris James.
“Despite the fact that I are living in London many of the 12 months and really feel like an honorary Finn when travelling to Helsinki, Barcelona may be very a lot my 2nd house – my spouse was once born right here, we come annually to stick in Catalonia and trip throughout Spain as a circle of relatives, and I’m an enormous recommend for the way of living, tradition, and unbelievable other people of the area.
“On a extra particular video games entrance, I’ve noticed the ecosystem increase impressively for a few years, in Barcelona particularly, and I sought after to do one thing in reality significant to assist this expansion – and I don’t assume the unbelievable Metal Media staff have let someone down!
“I had excessive hopes and large ambitions for the development, however I used to be truthfully blown away by way of the beef up, engagement, and colourful power on display throughout two packed days (and nights!). While there’s nonetheless a bit option to pass to problem our titanic PGC London and Helsinki displays, this was once our greatest release tournament ever and the reaction we’ve won on the convention and after has been frankly overwhelming.
“In fact, these items don’t occur on their very own, so I want to say an enormous thanks to all of the sponsors and audio system who sponsored this primary tournament, in addition to the regional teams and associations who labored to beef up us – particularly, I’d love to shout out Barcelona & Companions, DeviCat, Indie Dev Days, GameBCN, and Marisol Lopez from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
“Naturally, now not everybody were given concerned on this first 12 months, so I sit up for welcoming much more firms, associations and others into the fold with a view to make this party of Iberian gaming excellence even larger and higher after we go back in 2026!”
A powerhouse of decision-makers and state-of-the-art insights
PG Connects Barcelona 2025 assembled an influential and various crowd from the worldwide video games sector. Attendees ranged the whole trade spectrum, with 26% C-level illustration, 62% known as senior control decision-makers, while 72% constituted recreation makers, reflecting the development’s center of attention on selling connections that get offers completed.
Crucially, those representatives coated each and every possible gaming platform additionally. While 73% of the target market had been engaged in cell video games, over part (56%) had been running in PC and a 3rd (35%) in console, in addition to 17% in fast/social video games, 14% in XR, 12% cloud-based streaming, and 10% within the web3/blockchain area.
This high-level participation was once complemented by way of a wealthy lineup of over 110 professional audio system handing over greater than 22 hours of packed content material. Subjects spanned recreation building, industry methods, advertising and marketing, and rising applied sciences, providing helpful sensible insights and inspiration for execs at each and every degree in their careers.
Networking thrived via each structured and spontaneous interactions, with over 1,600 conferences facilitated by the use of the MeetToMatch platform, in addition to numerous natural conversations taking place around the tournament area, each inside and outside (within the superb sunshine), along with the a large number of fringe occasions and night time networking actions.
Large Indie Zone steals the display
A standout good fortune was once the Large Indie Zone, which buzzed with power and innovation. The 37 tables – the biggest such area at any Pocket Gamer Connects convention to this point – equipped a dynamic platform for unbiased builders to hook up with trade stakeholders and exhibit the various creativity and distinctive approaches via a wide spectrum of video games on show.
Including to the complaints, the Large Indie Zone Target market Selection Award enabled attendees to vote for his or her favorite indie recreation of the convention. After two days of enthusiastic participation, Somni Sport Studios emerged because the target market favorite.
In the meantime, via the preferred Very Large Indie Pitch festival, decided on gifted indie builders got top alternative to offer their leading edge initiatives to a panel of seasoned trade veterans.
This 12 months’s festival attracted an excellent array of pitches spanning console, PC, and cell platforms. From 80 submissions, 20 standout entries for each and every class had been shortlisted, making it probably the most aggressive editions on file.
After cautious deliberation, the judges decided on their most sensible alternatives:
Very Large Indie Pitch – Cellular Version:
- Crown Quest by way of Dasi Video games
- Peach Farmer by way of Tarokai
- Dadum The Cube by way of Pablo Picazo
Very Large Indie Pitch – PC & Console Version:
- The Nighttime Barber by way of Omaet Video games
- Hexplorando by way of Video Video games With out Borders
- Roombattle by way of Mud Video games
Accelerating offers and connections: Investor Connector and Writer SpeedMatch
The convention embodied the PGC sequence’ devoted center of attention on fostering significant industry interactions, particularly by the use of the Investor Connector and Writer SpeedMatch fringe occasions which noticed building studio submission – and participation – charges 2nd simplest to our flagship London convention.
Investor Connector equipped a a very powerful platform for builders, from rising startups to established studios, to fulfill at once with possible buyers who decided on them particularly.
Via 28 curated, face-to-face conferences, members had the chance to offer their initiatives to companies actively looking for new funding alternatives inside a layout that encourages deeper conversations, shifting past easy introductions to detailed discussions about possible partnerships and investment.
Complementing the above consultation, Writer SpeedMatch introduced builders connections with publishers by the use of a dynamic, speed-dating-style layout which noticed 84 introductory conferences packed right into a one-hour slot.
This fast paced atmosphere enabled builders to offer initiatives at once to key decision-makers, highlighting distinctive options, goal audiences, and marketplace possible. Publishers, in flip, had been presented to a various collection of promising titles, streamlining their seek for the following large good fortune.
Subsequent Up: Pocket Gamer Connects Summit Shanghai (July thirtieth, 2025)
Pocket Gamer Connects is about to proceed its international momentum with any other new addition to the sequence in the course of the upcoming PG Connects Summit Shanghai 2025 on July thirtieth.
Designed to glue western video games trade execs with the arena’s greatest – although incessantly unfamiliar – video games marketplace, it guarantees to unite over 500 high-level attendees via job fascinated about fostering industry alternatives, along a convention programme that includes 50+ professional audio system for very important further perception into China’s dynamic $45 billion video games sector.
The summit covers Cellular, PC, Console, AI, HTML5, XR and extra, all set towards a Shanghai backdrop – broadly recognised as Asia’s tech hub – and happening all the way through ChinaJoy week, the continent’s greatest gaming and virtual leisure exhibition.
PG Connects Summit Shanghai will likely be adopted by way of our go back to Nordic climes for the twelfth version of PG Connects Helsinki on October seventh to eighth, the central part of Finnish Video games Week.
About Pocket Gamer Connects
Metal Media has been working PG Connects meetings since 2014. During the last 12 years, the B2B networking and knowledge-sharing sequence has welcomed over 58,000 attendees (are living or virtual) from greater than 70 nations, hosted 51 meetings throughout 10 international locations, facilitated over 115,000 industry conferences and, as such, had some affect on or initiated over $1.5bn in offers.
Because the main global convention sequence for the worldwide video games trade, Pocket Gamer Connects makes a speciality of bringing in combination execs from throughout all of the ecosystem with all of the key codecs coated from cell, PC and console to XR, blockchain, AI and web3 generation. All whilst having a laugh and fostering an actual “video games trade circle of relatives” really feel.
About Metal Media
Metal Media is a number one video games trade media and occasions corporate, handing over very important B2B information and occasions via PocketGamer.biz and the PGC convention sequence since 2014, in addition to the thriving client emblem PocketGamer.com. Since 2019, Metal Media has been a part of the Fanatic Gaming workforce, a most sensible 10 Comscore gaming neighborhood supporting over 20 web sites and over 250 YouTube channels.
