Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Well, that was fun! Yesterday we got together with loads of the wonderful people from the video game industry for Play@Develop - our annual charity fundraiser, for everyone down in Brighton for the Develop Conference. A chance to kick back by the sea in the middle of what can be quite a full on few days!
It’s our 5th year hosting Play@Develop and we loved seeing so many people ranging from from die hard fans of yesteryear to brand new faces! So while we're still riding the high of another great year we wanted to share with you a little roundup of what went down...
What it's all about!
We have to start off though by thanking Special Effect for not only providing helpers and games, but for being a charity that brings together so many people that are all passionate about the industry and making it as inclusive as possible.
"You guys are amazing!" A very real and direct quote from Becky and Tom from Special Effect
It’s a pleasure and a privilege to support this epic charity who do so much to put fun and inclusion back into the lives of people with physical disabilities by helping them to play video games.
Roll-up, roll-up
Our main charitable effort came in the form of the raffle where we teamed up with some of Brighton’s best-loved restaurants, bars, attractions… and erm barbers... for this year’s prizes. Not to mention the GRAND Prize of an Oculus Quest!
With the Quest in tow it's really no surprise that we had such a fantastic response with over 480 tickets being sold and every penny of that going directly to Special Effect. We have handed back all of your generous donations to their team at the Expo today and was very happily received... we'll announce how much was raised once it's all be counted!
Thank you so much to everyone who bought raffle tickets and a very well done to all our winners! We hope you enjoy your treats and got to experience a little bit of Brighton outside of the Develop bubble.
And a big shout out to the shocked and stunned Chris Wilson, winner of the Oculus Quest!
Games tournament
There’s really nothing like a little games tournament to get people riled up! Playing for some cool Unity merch (but mostly for the bragging rights), we saw queues of people take part in our ‘winner stays on’ tournament and it was pretty warm inside so good work to anyone that had a good run!! Also, shout out to our own Sanson and Joe who stayed inside to keep it running smoothly while the rest of us enjoyed the sun!
The sun shone, drinks flowed, and games were played!
But we couldn't have done it without such a great venue! Thank you so much to our lovely hosts Loading Brighton for having us for another year. It really is the perfect venue to round off a busy day of Develop and the staff were amazing!
I mean could there be a more perfect venue for a large group of game developers, designers and games industry folk than a dedicated gaming cafe?!
Every part of the cafe was enjoyed especially the indie games being showcased, the amazing food and of course the cocktails!
And finally, a big fat thank you to…
YOU! As ever the biggest thank you for the day goes out to every one of you who came down to Play! As the Develop ex-curricular schedule gets more crowded each year, we really appreciate you popping down to say hi, have a drink with us and raise some money for an incredibly good cause.
We hope you all had as much fun as we did, and we look forward to seeing you next year!
Big Love from Skillsearch & Pyxel! x
