The organizers of the Ukrainian Games Festival (UGF) plan to significantly reform the format of the event next year. The main emphasis will be on improving the quality of project selection, simplifying navigation for players, and increasing the duration of the event.
The organizers of the Ukrainian Games Festival (UGF) plan to significantly reform the format of the event next year. The main emphasis will be on improving the quality of project selection, simplifying navigation for players, and increasing the duration of the event.
This was stated in an interview with dev.ua by Stepan Prokhorenko from the Palaye agency, which is the organizer of the UGF.
According to Prokhorenko, this year’s festival set a record for developer involvement — 73 new game announcements were made at the event. Developers have found that presenting a game at the UGF results in significantly more additions to wishlists than a standalone release. However, the current coverage format has already reached its limits.
"When up to 100 games are announced on the first day, it is very difficult for players who come to find something interesting to navigate. We tried to balance this from the very beginning: we formed the shelves algorithmically, randomly and manually, but next year the format will definitely transform," Prokhorenko noted.
The organizers plan to make the festival longer, as the standard one-week sales tool on Steam does not allow for proper attention to be paid to every activity — from releases and demos to new trailers.
In addition, UGF will change its approach to game selection. The main goal is to create clearer criteria so that the audience’s attention is not scattered across hundreds of titles.
“We plan to change the approach to selection: to slightly raise the quality bar to better represent our industry and so that the audience’s attention is not scattered among hundreds of new games,” the UGF organizer emphasized.
Next year, UGF will also expand on the video showcase format with new trailers, which they first held this year. In addition, the team is developing new tools for introducing players to projects, including curated selections and engaging press, bloggers, and streamers.
Ukrainian Games Festival is an annual large-scale online event on Steam dedicated to the Ukrainian game development industry. The event brings together hundreds of domestic projects from independent developers and large studios, offering users discounts, demos, and exclusive announcements.
