Seattle Indies announces pre-PAX West B2B conference SLICE

Seattle Indies announced its inaugural pre-PAX West conference, SLICE, taking place on August 27 in downtown Seattle.

SLICE (Seattle Loves Indie Creators Expo) is a one-day business-to-business B2B conference designed to celebrate and support game developers and industry leaders in building successful, sustainable studios.

Whether you’re part of a scrappy indie team, scaling up your studio, or looking to sharpen your leadership and business skills, SLICE brings together professionals from across the games industry for a focused day of networking, practical insights and meaningful connections. I spoke to Ty Taylor, co-administrator of SLICE and a board member, vice president. Tim Cullings is executive director of the Seattle Indies.

“Why would an Indie game creator want to fly halfway across the world, when the city of Seattle has a wealth of resources,” Cullings said, in a statement. “SLICE or the ‘Seattle Loves Indie Creators Expo’ is going to feature everything about Indie titles… we’ll be featuring some of the top executives in Indie video games and showing off a wealth of titles. And we’re two days before PAX, so it’s an excellent opportunity to take part in its inaugural event.”

Taylor added, “Every time that we go to GDC or Dice or Gamescom, we just run into so many people who we know from Seattle. And the idea is, ‘why are we traveling to San Francisco or Las Vegas or Germany to just talk to people we could talk to here. The game industry here is absolutely enormous.”

He said it was born from people who in the games industry in Seattle who wanted a place to meet each other, rather than going out of state all of the time to events in other places. Taylor said that the event is aimed at experienced indie game devs known as “triple-I” indies who want to connect and talk business.

“We’re aiming towards the more business side of things, especially for people who suddenly have a business and really don’t know what to do. And so when I mentioned multiple tracks, we have an internal and external focus, where internal is like managing a studio, and the externals are about how to get funding and market your game,” Taylor said. “It’s also for people who are seasoned and have launched more games in the past and have good tips for professionals.”

Meanwhile, PAX West is a consumer-focused gaming event, with thousands of people coming from August 29 to September 1.

With dedicated tracks covering leadership, business strategy, fundraising, production, and creative development, SLICE will offer an inside look at the tools, tactics, and people driving the future of games.

SLICE takes place August 27, 2025, just two days before the start of PAX West, in the historic McCaw Hall opera house located next to the Space Needle. The price is $100. The Seattle Indies group has been holding an expo during PAX West, as a side event, for the past 15 years or so.

That event is an expo for showing off games, while SLICE is a place for indies to discuss the game industry. The event is happening in part because PAX Dev, a former event, didn’t survive the pandemic, Taylor said. It also wasn’t solely focused on indies.

Press Contact: Tim Cullings

Seattle Indies is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Seattle, supporting the largest community of independent game developers in the United States with a list of more than 12,000 people and very large meetups.

Cullings believes Seattle is home to more than 40,000 game developers who have produced some of the top selling games, game consoles, and VR hardware of all time.

Yet there has not been a large scale event dedicated specifically to celebrating, supporting, and uplifting this vital part of the WA State creative economy and the games industry at large in nearly a decade. SLICE changes all of that with an annual day-long summit featuring speakers and interactive sessions led by luminaries of the local industry and beyond. 

The celebration continues on Sunday August 31 with the 15th annual edition of SIX (Seattle Indies Expo) featuring 40 of the best independent games made in Seattle and a chance to connect with the developers who created them. Speakers for SLICE will be announced later.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. 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.