korean indie devs seem really friendly??

i had a chance to give a little presentation at an event run by igg korea recently so i made an impromptu trip to seoul! by a lovely coincidence, the night before it was seoul indies so i checked it out too, & i had a great time at both!

it was my first time visiting any indie game dev event in korea, so i can only speak from my very limited experience, but i felt like people were friendlier than at indie meetup events i've been to in other countries 🤣 & it was really nice!!!

other devs proactively came up to me to say hi & introduce themselves, show me their games, ask what i was making, &c. i am personally very shy & get extremely nervous talking to people i don't know, so i really appreciated people coming up to me because it made my experience as a newcomer so much nicer.

it felt different from how people can be kind of pushy at some other events to give your their business card & get an 'in' for a future connection (slimy networking feels) - it was more like people were genuinely curious in talking to me to see who i am & getting me to know who they are, & maybe that will bring about some connections in the future, but it's ok if it doesn't, if that makes sense?

after igg korea's talk, it made me think back on how i once tabled next to somebody who was showing a multiplayer game but they were really pushy trying to get somebody to play, even when the person walking by said multiple times they didn't want to play & weren't interested in multiplayer games. in that instance, it was clear that the person passing by wasn't really a potential player but the dev kept pushing them anyway, & it felt like they cared more about just having anybody at all play their game than whether or not a player would actually enjoy the game they made. (the dev was also super pushy about giving out flyers & it made me just not want to be next to them because it scared people away from my table since i was next to them, & i can't blame people for feeling that way honestly!)

that's how it often feels at networking events for me - people will talk to anybody that they think can be a 'connection' for them in any way at all regardless of how the person they're talking to them feels about it. it always makes me feel slimy, like i'm being seen just as a means to raise their status or whatever rather than as a real person they want to connect with on a personal level.

at the indie game events i went to at korea though, even with a language barrier i had a lot of fun just chatting with other devs! people were forthright when they wanted to ask me for something & i was generally happy to answer because they were honest about it (rather than having people beat around the bush & pretend they didn't want anything from me when they did!), & it made me think that i want to be more proactive in the way i talk to people at events too. it was really refreshing just having somebody come straight up to me & be like 'i want to know more about X. can you tell me about it?' or 'i am making Y which you might be interested in. do you want to hear more?' & then having that as the framework for the conversation we had after.

i definitely want to go to korea again if i have the chance, so i think i'll try to apply to some korean indie game events in the future 💖