Tech, Trends, and Talks – Our Time at Austin Game Conference 2017

We at ModSquad had the pleasure of participating in the second year of the “new” Austin Game Conference. Even before attending SXSW and opening our operations center there earlier this year, Austin, Texas has always had a place in our hearts. In fact, some of us at ModSquad attended AGC as far back as the very first AGC in 2003, before ModSquad had been founded.

At this year’s conference, Senior VP Global Operations Rich Weil represented ModSquad as a speaker and moderator for two Audience Track sessions and continues his role on AGC’s Board of Advisors; additionally, we had a booth in the show’s Expo Hall to bring the ModSquad message to life in 3D. As always, AGC put on a high-quality show, with great lectures and panels, as well as that particular Austin energy that’s a hallmark of the conference year after year. “I had the privilege of giving a lecture on utilizing customer service teams to build better customer relations, as well as doing a super fun panel on the details of remote workforces,” said Weil. “Both were a lot of fun!”

This year’s show also was notable for great participation by the games industry as a whole, with speakers from awesome companies like EA, Niantic, Cloud Imperium, Kabam, Amazon, and Bungie.

We also took in some exciting trends at this year’s conference. For example, over the last few years, a thriving virtual/augmented reality game development community has grown in Austin, and this was evident at AGC. On top of that, many VR and AR indie developers are focusing their work on social welfare issues, with games and programs designed to address issues like autism, mental health and physical handicaps. It was truly inspiring to see game development innovation put to such great use.

Next on our conference circuit, we’re back in Austin for the Digital Kids Media Summit, then off to Shoptalk Europe, and then to Zendesk Relate Live New York. Keep an eye out for our takeaways from those, and follow us on social media for event photos and more.