Frosty Games Fest got everything it wanted. The challenge now is keeping it.
With the element of surprise gone, the ANZ showcase is betting on curation to keep its slot; the difficult job of cutting the 220 games that applied down to the best 50.
Weeks out from last year’s debut Frosty Games Fest, one of its organisers, Amy Potter-Jarman, wouldn’t commit to a second show. “Was it meaningful to developers? Did it resonate with viewers?” she asked. “Until we know if it worked, I can’t say for sure.”
She got her answer. In a few days, Frosty Games Fest will air again as part of Summer Game Fest. The slot that was a dream come true the first time around has become a fixture.
Which curiously leaves a harder problem than the one she started with. One key ingredient in last year’s success was its surprise. It came out of nowhere, championing a scene the rest of the world overlooks. This year, that novelty has worn down; it’s competing for eyeballs with at least 18 other showcases. Whatever cut-through Frosty gets, it has to earn on curation alone.
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The good news? That’s something Potter-Jarman and the broader Frosty team can control. Over 220 games applied this year —slightly more than the last, in a far shorter window — and only 50 made the cut.
“The challenges have changed,” Potter-Jarman told Infinite Lives, ahead of this year’s showcase.
“Last year there was some youthful optimism and naivety; we were flying by the seat of our pants.”
“We had a lot of time to build the first showcase. We opened applications crazy early because we didn’t know. We were sitting there thinking: ‘We really want this to exist, but does the market? We don’t know if sponsors will pay; we don’t know if anyone will watch,’” Potter-Jarman said.
This year’s showcase ran a tighter ship. Applications opened in March and closed within weeks. Submitting video content was mandatory too. “We didn’t do that last year, and that was a big mistake on our part, because a lot of the games being submitted aren’t announced yet, or don’t have video,” Potter-Jarman said.
“They’re looking to launch their first announcement trailer with us, so they don’t necessarily think to submit raw video of their game. So we added that this year.”
Landing on 50 games is a process of deliberation between Potter-Jarman and her four other collaborators, Lucy Mutimer, Pritika Sachdev, Kieron Verbrugge and Ted Darling. Darling was brought on this year as an in-house video-editing resource to help pull the event together, another key learning from the first showcase.
As Potter-Jarman describes, there’s a “very long list,” a “long list” and then finally a shortlist. That discussion is filtered through a few lenses: Are there enough games in each category? Will the key audience (both players and media) care about these games? What’s trendy right now?
There are slam-dunk games that escape that process. Titles that look great, are advanced in their production and are announcing something new using the showcase. The rest get debated.
Developers are notified if they didn’t make the cut when the team has their shortlist. Though, they pass it through one more filter before everything is locked in. Frosty Games Fest syncs up with showcases as part of Summer Game Fest and checks that no one same trailer is featured across multiple events.
“Summer Game Fest is a big moment, and we want to make sure we’re showing unique things across all the showcases rather than doubling up,” Potter-Jarman said. “We certainly don’t want to show the same content as another showcase. That would be a waste of time.”
There is, however, a wrinkle in the showcase process that Potter-Jarman fully concedes. They live and die by the applications they receive; their quality directly impacts the show. Yet, steering them for the better is a challenge.
“It’s very easy for me to sit here and say developers don’t know what makes a good showcase application,” she said. “But showcases also aren’t well-positioned to give feedback to everyone who’s applied.”
Currently, the best they are able to provide is a templated rejection email and push out broader content on the common reasons applications are denied.
Potter-Jarman added that they “overestimated” developers’ experience in applying for showcases the first time around. They received a lot of good games, but poor applications. To an extent, that continues to be the case.
“So it’s on our minds to try to help with that,” Potter-Jarman said. “We just haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet.”
The hint there is that Frosty Games Fest is here to stay. Asked about the future of the event, Potter-Jarman shed her conservatism from last year’s interview. She’s already thinking about the third Frosty Games Fest, and how they can improve.
After all, it’s taken a lot of processes, learnings and time to turn what began as an offhanded moonshot tweet into a deliberate, considered and growing operation.
Want to apply for Frosty Games Fest next year?
Here’s some advice based on what Potter-Jarman said about this year’s process.
Apply early: Games are typically considered in batches of 50 in order of application. Have your collateral ready to go before March next year.
Repeats aren’t dealbreakers: Featured already? Frosty is happy to showcase games more than once. Just not too many of them. They go into their own category for consideration.
Have something to say: A new trailer? A release date? A unique high-profile reveal? All of this raises the appeal of the application. The showcase is aimed at the press, so the same PR beats work.
Consider your competition: Each genre has a quota within the showcase. While some buzzy genres have a higher quota, with others you’ll be competing with other Australian and New Zealand games that are similar.
Are you too early in development? If you don’t have much to show, you won’t have much to say. Consider how close you are to launching, and whether you’ll be able to make the most of the moment if you get picked.
Want to tune in? The Frosty Games Fest showcase will air:
Sunday 7 June, 8am AEST, 10am NZST
Saturday 6 June, 3pm PT
Saturday 6 June, 11pm GMT
Did you tune into Frosty Game Fest last year? What did you think? And will you watch this year? Let me know in the comments below.
Always a pleasure to chat, Harrison!