Ever wanted to attend a game convention but are put off by the incessant cacophony of loud noises, as well as the ever permeating foul odour that seems to come from everywhere? Then a digital game convention might be right up your alley.
LudoNarraCon, the first ever digital game convention that is hosted entirely on Steam took place on May 10. The digital convention was aimed at celebrating narrative video games and was an initiative by indie publishing label Fellow Traveller, who started LudoNarraCon with the express purpose of creating a platform to showcase and celebrate interesting and innovative narrative games.
The convention, which went live on May 10, 10am PDT (May 11, 1am SGT) till May 13, 11pm PDT (May 14, 2pm SGT), had developers and publishers stream live from their game’s Steam store page, showcasing behind-the-scenes content, demo gameplay, and chats with the developers and publishers themselves. LudoNarraCon also hosted several panels at their Main Theatre Stage, panels that talked about deaths, romance, and storytelling in games.
Furthermore, during the duration of the convention, some of the games that were showcased offered free demos, went on sale, or both. There are currently more than 40 games that are currently on sale, so you can hop on over to LudoNarraCon’s steam page to have a look and support your favourite indie game developer.
According to Kotaku, who spoke with the managing director of Fellow Traveller Chris Wright, reported that the LudoNarraCon was also born out of its organisers’ frustrations against more traditional conventions such as PAX.
“At the end of last year, we were doing a lot of thinking about conventions and whether they were working for us,” Wright said in an interview with Kotaku. “We’ve been doing booths at several big conventions a year for a long time, but increasingly we were feeling that we weren’t getting great outcomes for the time and money they were taking up.”
Hence, they decided to take a shot at hosting their own digital gaming convention, and went with Steam as the platform for their convention instead of YouTube or Twitch due to the “insanely high level of traffic they get from all over over the world”, as well as the fact that the developers will be able to exhibit in the same place that they are selling.
For those who are interested, you can catch the LudoNarraCon on their Steam page.
Germaine is a fun-sized introvert who loves nothing better than sleeping in on rainy days. She can be found reading fanfiction and manga while still waiting for her Hogwarts acceptance letter. It’ll come eventually.
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