Shawn Pierre, assistant professor at NYU, hosted the Independent Games Festival at GDC 2025.
Shawn Pierre, assistant professor at NYU, hosted the Independent Games Festival at GDC 2025.
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Independent Games Festival starts with a plea for supporting game devs

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Shawn Pierre, the chairperson of the Independent Games Festival, opened the Independent Games Festival Awards with a plea to support game developers.

Pierre had some heartfelt words for the audience, which has been hit hard by layoffs, studio closures and other ills that have made life tough for game developers lately.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.