Biggest Pocket Gamer Connects London yet sees almost 2,500 delegates witness 310 speakers and hold 9.3k organised meetings

Last week’s Pocket Gamer Connects London 2020 conference once again secured its position as the UK’s leading b2b games event with over 2,460 delegates from 65 countries assembled at The Brewery, in the City.

Representatives from over 1,000 companies wandered the packed expo halls engaging with more sponsors and exhibitors than ever before (over 110 tables and booths). They also listened to 310 speakers delivering over 90 hours of content in 175 sessions across 28 distinct topic tracks, and ultimately getting down to business in over 9,300 scheduled meetings.

Whilst the event increased on all metrics from 2019’s already record-breaking outing, the show remained notable for its warm, open atmosphere and upbeat tone (in part reflecting another great year for the mobile games business and optimism about the year ahead).



Show me the Money

Whilst it’s always impossible to know for sure, we’d expect this level of meeting activity at the scale of companies in attendance to contribute over £125 million worth of business activity via investment, publishing, user acquisition campaigns and other services.

The event intentionally comprised a total cross-section of the ecosystem, with indies and student developers rubbing shoulders with C-level execs from the biggest triple-A publishers and investors, plus every key tool-maker, service company, platform and consultant also present, as well as the usual press core.

The content line-up was similarly diverse, with dedicated tracks for everything from UA, monetisation, investment, company culture and cloud games, to esports, influencer marketing, hyper-casual games, live ops, development tools and techniques, and global market opportunities. A new Visions & Values track shone a spotlight on company culture and “games for good”, adding a new texture to the long-running event.


Bigger, better, more, more, MORE!

Whilst mobile games again formed the core of the event, there was a strong presence for PC, console, VR and AR with Big Screen Gaming, and blockchain in Blockchain Gamer LIVE!.

Alongside the expo and tracks, there were also some notable fringe events, with Investor Connector opening a dragon’s den of 21 leading games industry money folk; the Big Indie Pitch uniting indie devs with publishers, platforms and press (for mobile and PC/console); the Publisher SpeedMatch speed-dating style developer-publisher meeting segment and the ever-entertaining PG 2020 Sessions. Then after hours, the networking continued again at the lively VIP Reception and Party and the Mobile Games Awards ceremony.


Just getting started

Steel Media CEO Chris James was predictably buoyant: “When we launched Steel Media back in 2006, we set out to build games events and media that made a real difference to the industry, and I remain confident that now more than ever we are delivering upon that. I genuinely thought we’d struggle to top last year’s London event for the volume of people, quality of content and overall ‘games industry family’ atmosphere but I am delighted to have been proved wrong.

"Everyone at Steel Media (and indeed our new parent company Enthusiast Gaming) really loves this industry and are blown away by your support. We’re going to take a couple of days now to breathe out, but then we’ll be back even stronger doing our bit to ensure 2020 is the most amazing year for the games industry yet.”

True to James’s words, Connects London may have been the biggest show Steel Media has yet delivered, but it certainly won’t be the last, with four more Connects planned for 2019 before returning to London once again in January 2021:

- Seattle (May 11th to 12th) - Hong Kong (July) - Helsinki (September 29-30th) - Jordan (November)


PGC London 2020 - Key figures


Almost 2,500 attendees


65 countries represented


Over 1,000 companies engaged


Over 110 tables and booths


310 speakers


90 hours of content in 175 sessions across 28 topic tracks


9,300 scheduled meetings


Over £125 million worth of business activity expected