The first-ever WorldBuilder Summit was a standing-room-only affair.
The inaugural edition of the WorldBuilder Summit, a conference for user-generated content creators, went down yesterday, April 23, at The London in Los Angeles. The organizers of the one-room event oversold its 200-seat capacity, bringing in roughly 260 attendees from across the globe, according to WorldBuilder Summit event director Grace Lind in an interview with GamesBeat. Not all of those attendees sat in on every session, of course — but there was more than enough attendance to reflect the growing interest in UGC platforms among brands, agencies and creators over the past year.
“We tried to focus on people that we know give back — they’re open to share and connect and network with people — and the people building the spaces,” Lind said.
The WorldBuilder Summit is one of the first events of its kind, making it difficult to compare its 260-attendee numbers against other industry conferences’ turnout figures. But the event featured many recognizable names on the agency side of the UGC business, with experienced dealmakers sharing insights to a rapt audience during 14 back-to-back sessions. The event’s speaker list indexed slightly lower on creators and brand or IP representatives, but included some prominent UGC creators like Michael “Birdo” Ha and the co-founders of JOGO Studios. (Disclosure: I moderated a panel at the event, and the WorldBuilder Summit covered my travel and lodging fees.)
The WorldBuilder Summit is the first conference bringing together prominent creators and dealmakers from different UGC platforms, and some of the creators in attendance voiced skepticisms that there was much genuine overlap between the way Fortnite and Roblox creators approach their business. But as the event progressed, operators across platforms’ ecosystems started to intermingle, revealing they had “much to learn from each other,” according to JOGO Studios co-founder and chief operating officer Chad Mustard in an interview with GamesBeat.
“There’s a lot of knowledge to be shared on how to improve the gaming experience in general, and especially now, with monetization and in-game purchases,” he said.
One of the WorldBuilder Summit’s calling cards was its inclusion of smaller platforms beyond the so-called “Big Three” of Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft, and the conference delivered on this promise. In addition to speakers from platforms like Decentraland — whose head of partnerships and marketing Kim Currier announced its launch on the Apple App Store onstage — the conference brought in attendees who had cut their teeth as creators on platforms like Second Life, IMVU and Highrise.
““We’re looking at all platforms; we’ve got really cool, new, innovative platforms, like Decentraland and Dorian, which is a female-first platform,” Lind said.
The WorldBuilder Summit is not the only game in town. A wave of new conferences and industry events has arisen to meet the growing interest in — and demand for — informative discussions about the user-generated content space, such as next month’s UGCon. Lind said that the WorldBuilder Summit’s community focus and inclusive nature sets it apart from other conferences in the space.
“We want the right people to show up,” she said. “We want to find a space where people can talk and communicate, and just work together and create things.”