Fun & Serious Game Festival to Have Its Most Ambitious Edition Yet

The 2014 Fun & Serious Game Festival will include more activities and welcome more experts than any previous edition of the event.

The fourth annual Fun & Serious Game Festival, one of Europe's leading festivals for the video game industry, will be held in Bilbao in the Basque Country in Spain from November 28 to December 3. A press conference announcing the 2014 edition was held at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao on November 18. The program was introduced by Festival Director Alfonso Gómez and representatives of several government agencies that helped organise the event: the Basque Department for Economic Development and Competitiveness, the Department for Economic Development of the Provincial Government of Bizkaia, and the Bilbao Town Council.

The 2014 Fun and Serious Game Festival will host a Conference on Serious Games and Virtual Reality at the Euskalduna Conference Centre. Keynote speakers will include Luis Castillo, CEO of NeuroDigital Technologies, Sue Bohle, Executive Director of the Serious Games Association, and Jon Binnie, CTO of G2G3.

The BBVA Mobile Game Day will focus on mobile game and app trends and feature several prominent speakers including Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts (FIFA and Medal of Honour game series) and Digital Chocolate, Peter Molyneux, founder of 22Cans, Lionhead Studios and Bullfrog Productions, and Xavier Carrillo, founder and CEO of Digital Legends (Adidas miCoach, Kroll). The festival will award the best serious games of 2014 at the Award Gala at the Campos Elíseos Theatre on December 3. Two honorary awards will also be presented at the event. Trip Hawkins will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the video game industry and the Halo game franchise will be honoured with the Best Game Saga Award.

The Fun Zone, which will be open from November 28 to 30, will offer a variety of fun activities and e-sports tournaments to visitors, who will get a chance to test their skills at popular games like Just Dance 2015, Assassin's Creed: Unity, FIFA 15, and NBA 2K15.

The Iberdrola Talent Day, held on December 1, will bring together local and Spanish game developers as well as some of the leading minds in the industry, including BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka and Tequila Works CEO Raúl Rubio. Talent Day will focus on some of the common challenges that independent studios face today.

The Fun & Serious Games Festival will have France as the guest country, with a number of professionals and representatives from the French game industry participating in different events, including the BBVA Mobile Day, Talent Day and the Conference on Serious Games and Virtual Reality.

Established in 2011, the Fun & Serious Game Festival has become one of the leading events for the entertainment and serious games industry in Europe. It is sponsored by the Government of the Basque Country through the SPRI agency, Bilbao Town Hall and the Provincial Government of Bizkaia, and supported by Virtualware, Bilbao-based American game education centre DigiPen, the Spanish Video Game Association (AEVI), the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation (RTVE) and Basque Radio-television (EITB).