DEVCON 2026
DevCon is Australia’s annual industry event focused on tabletop game design. It’s where designers, publishers, manufacturers, artists, and community leaders connect, trade notes, and share playtests before the consumer spotlight of PAX kicks off.
It’s on the Thursday 8th of October and it’s located at The Mission to Seafarers (717 Flinders St, Docklands VIC 3005)
Tickets will be on sale soon, but if you are interested in submitting a talk or requesting a talk, please click the button below.
Event Features
- Dedicated rooms for Talks AND Playtesting — You can pick and choose what you’d like to do without having either talks or playtesting interrupt your experience.
- Reserve a Playtest Table — lock in a spot to playtest your latest prototype with your peers.
- Food on-site + venue bar — grab dinner and drinks without stepping out.
- Walking distance to the PAX Convention Centre — perfect if you’re in town early or coming straight from booth setup.
- Expect an evening of sharp talks, practical knowledge sharing, and hands-on feedback—plus a room full of your peers from all over the country!
Why you should come
- Community & connections with designers, publishers, artists, and collaborators before the PAX whirlwind begins. Meet the people building Australia’s next wave of tabletop hits.
- Talks & workshops with insights you can bring back to your project.
- Quality playtesting with tight feedback loops, diverse perspectives, and publisher eyes in the room.
History of DevCon
DevCon has been running since 2014 and growing each year. For past talks check out the videos below.
DevCon 2025
This was our first year at The Mission to Seafarers, Docklands. We were graced by
2025 Speakers
Lachlan Peterson – Building a Community and How to Utilise It
Jett Archer – Thinking Outside the Box: The Power of Non-Traditional Promotion
Antranig Sarian – How I turned my Game Studies doctorate into a Published Board Game
Christy Dena – Playtesting Questions for Fruitful Gameplay & Marketing Insights
Thomas Biedermann – Gaming (the) systems: Using serious games to foster creative, collective exploration and steering of systems
Dylan O’Dwyer & Steve Dee – Adapting your game to digital
DevCon 2022 – 2024
2022 to 2024 were held at the Library at the Dock, Docklands Melbourne. We were graced by
2024 Speakers
The art of the pitch – Steve Dee
How to Engineer your Game – Tom Allen
UX Research – Daniel Neville
2023 Speakers
2023 Award winners
Recognition Award – Dice Men Cometh
The Mate Award – Jonathan Calleja
DevCon Digital 2020 -2021
2020 saw the launch of DevCon Digital – a virtual event with 3 international guest speakers and virtual playtesting afterwards. This was primarily due to to COVID-19 but we hope to continue to run DevCon Digital annually, 6 months offset from PAX Aus.
- James Wilson – Inspired Design
- Eduardo Baraf – So you want to make a game & publish it on Kickstarter?
- Sam MacDonald – The flaws in my own games
You can find a transcript of the chatter here.
DevCon 2018
DevCon 2018 had 71 people in attendance. you will find the recordings of the talks below.
DevCon 2017
DevCon 2017 had 63 people in attendance. you will find the recordings of the talks below.
DevCon 2016
DevCon 2016 had 58 people in attendance and had talks on the following topics:
- Allen Cheng – Getting your game picked up by a publisher
- Aaron Lim – looking outside of the “get published and get hobbyists in the current market to like it” mode
- Dylan – Why is one store worth more than all of them? Targeted sales vs mass distribution
- Sean – Tips on Distribution – The do’s and dont’s of courting a distributor
- Ian O’Toole – Dealing with graphic designers/illustrators
- Wesley Lamont – Tabletop Marketing and Sales
