BitSummit returns this July with big announcements
Just yesterday, James Mielke appeared on Sup Holmes to talk about his work at Shinra Technologies. EGM, 1up, Q Games, Q Entertainment, and (you guessed it), BitSummit, the little Kyoto indie games convention that has altered the career of at least one legendary developer. He couldn’t announce at the time that the show would be returning, and I was left with baited breath wondering if we’d get more BitSummit this year.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. Earlier today, BitSummit announced that it’s teaming with the Indie Megabooth and theJapanese Independent Games Aggregate (JIGA)for a brand new show. If you don’t know what JIGA is, don’t be ashamed. JIGA is an all newpartnership between Q Games, 17-Bit, Vitei Inc, and Pygmy Studios. That’s about all we know about the show at the moment, but we’ll only have to wait for102 days until we see everything that the event has to offer.I know because there is a countdown clock on the official site.
When talking about BitSummit, James got downright emotional, particularly about how “pure” Japanese indie game culture is. There are no “rock stars” in Japanese indie games. At least, not yet. Instead you have former AAA directors like Keiji Inafune announcing games like Azure Striker Gunvolt, illustrious pioneers in one-man development like Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya showing off new work, and general sense of excitement for videogames for videogames’ sake. I think that’s something we can all get behind.