February 22, 2016

CEGC Recap: talks, VR and Expos in Vienna

By Jess Hider

Back in the 19th century when the beautiful new main building for the University of Vienna was built, no-one would have imagined that one day, beneath its ornately carved and painted ceilings, its halls would be filled with games. Fast forward 132 years and that is exactly what happened at this year’s Central European Gaming Conference (CEGC).

University of Vienna

With the conference spanning over three days and the Austrian Game Jam running over the weekend to round off the conference, CEGC has grown enormously in its second year. We were delighted to take part in this expansion by having an Unreal Engine Track running through Wednesday, which we announced a couple of weeks back. Calling on our local community and Epic team, we had five fantastic speakers covering different aspects of game development in Unreal Engine: 

  • Aleksey Savchenko – Why Unreal Engine 4?
  • Martin Pernica – Two Years with Unreal Engine 4
  • Jiri Dockal – Developing Mobile Games in Unreal Engine 4
  • Marko Kacanski – Rest House
  • Rene Czachs – Publishing to the Unreal Engine Marketplace

You can watch the unedited footage of the Unreal Engine Track here.

After a day of talks, it was time for an ‘Epic’ evening reception at The Vrei. Focused on providing a hub for virtual reality in the heart of Vienna and with plenty of beer on tap, The Vrei provided the perfect location for game developers to network, relax and immerse themselves in VR.

The Vrei

The following day marked the opening of the Indie Expo and the continuation of talks. With a vast range of game genres on show and no shortage of people to play, the expo hall was a bustling place filled with competition, laughter and surprising range of head-ware.

Glow

All too quickly time disappeared, mainly in the destruction of spiders using firefly spit, and it was time to head home. It’s apparent that the thriving gaming community in central Europe will only grow and CEGC with it. On a final note, CEGC is run entirely by volunteers, so massive thanks to the entire team (including the Unreal User Group Vienna) who worked to make this conference happen; here’s to next year!