Play by Play is a New Zealand games conference with a difference!

Running in July 2024 in the beating cultural heart of the country, Wellington, Play by Play is a New Zealand games conference with a difference. Since our inception in 2016, we’ve grown exponentially, proving that there’s a vibrant community of gamers, enthusiasts and curious folk in the play sphere.

Our humble conference began life as a city-wide festival celebrating everything related to games and play. Since our 2019 event, Play by Play has broken away from the festival as an entity and now sits under the umbrella of the NZ Games Festival.

Play by Play runs for two whole days. These days, there will be a diverse slate of talks centring around the theme ‘Cultivating our Garden’ and exciting opportunities to network with other ANZ game developers.

This year’s keynote speaker is the Co founder and CEO of Black Salt Games – Nadia Thorne

Get your tickets to Play by Play, and the Pavs now!

Event Details
Thursday 4th – Friday 5th July 2024
While not age-restricted, some themes discussed may not be suitable for children.

Location
Soundings Theatre, Te Papa Tongarewa

Amber Taylor standing behind the podium, smiling, during her keynote presentation. Manu from Journeys of Manu is on the projector screen behind her.

This year’s theme is:
Cultivating our Garden

We’ve challenged our speakers to examine and dissect their own personal meaning and interpretation of this theme in resonance to the topic and takeaways of their talk.

There are so many possibilities in how to interpret this theme, and we hope you’re as excited as we are to hear what our speakers have come up with!