Games Week Georgia returns to Atlanta this year October 1-6, 2024, to celebrate all aspects of the global video game and esports industry.
The annual week of events and activations, curated by Skillshot Media and Ghost Gaming, and delivered this year in partnership with the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s InnovATL2024 initiative, will conclude with the three day gaming lifestyle festival DreamHack Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center from October 4-6.
“Gaming is quietly the largest segment of the $2 trillion global entertainment industry,” said Todd Harris, CEO of Skillshot Media. “Games Week Georgia celebrates the gaming and esports industry, bringing together gaming leaders and experts from around the world, and culminating in one of North America's largest gaming festivals — DreamHack Atlanta.”
The current set of announced Games Week Georgia events include:
“DreamHack's exponential growth in North America is a testament to not only the growth of the gaming industry, but the appetite of fans for in-person, community-driven experiences,” said Guy Bloomberg, Event Director, DreamHack Festivals - Americas, ESL FACEIT Group. “Following a record-setting DreamHack Dallas this year, our return to Atlanta alongside Games Week Georgia doubles down on making this moment a celebration of the state's vibrant gaming landscape.”
According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, digital entertainment is a $550 million industry in the state, responsible for more than 12,000 direct and indirect jobs. Events like DreamHack Atlanta not only fuel that industry, but draw over 40,000 guests, vendors, developers, celebrities, and more to the city across the weekend.
“Georgia is on the frontlines of innovation and growth and continues to engage groundbreaking industries like gaming, animation and esports that attract new career and development prospects for our state,” said Georgia Center of Innovation Senior Industry Engagement Manager Asante Bradford. “Events like Games Week Georgia put our state’s thriving creative ecosystem in the spotlight and show Georgia’s students that jobs of the future are here and within their reach.”
Grant Wainscott, Vice Chair of the Atlanta Esports Alliance added, “Georgia, and specifically metro Atlanta, has solidified its reputation as a global hub of creativity, talent, and influence. Games Week Georgia as a part of InnovATL2024 allows us to demonstrate how gaming drives both innovation and workforce development to feed our overall tech ecosystem.”
As one important element of workforce development and diversifying the gaming industry, Games Week Georgia will host five women from the BroadcastHER Academy Fellowship for Women in Esports and Gaming via an all-expense paid trip to Atlanta, experiential learning and mentoring from Skillshot Media, Ghost Gaming, and other partners of the 1,000 Dreams Fund initiative.
Further information and tickets for all events above are now available at https://www.gamesweekgeorgia.com/
Animation Summit, a property of Ghost Gaming and produced by Skillshot Media, will debut on Thursday, May 23, 2024 to promote professional development and celebrate the growing animation industry in Georgia.
The Animation Summit will be hosted at Skillshot Media at Uptown Atlanta, in partnership with the all-ages Geek Culture Convention MomoCon beginning the following day at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Animation Summit gathers leaders and students from across the animation ecosystem including 2D and 3D animators, visual fx artists, voice actors, producers, marketers and animation studios and IP holders. Announced event partners to date include MomoCon, ASIFA-South, Trap Sushi, Georgia Entertainment, SCAD, Georgia State Creative Media Industries Institute, Women in Animation Atlanta Atlanta Collective, Georgia Game Developers Association, Atlanta Esports Alliance, MOBIUS, and Atlanta Digital World Summit.
In-person and virtual Animation Summit tickets are now available at https://www.animationsummit.live/tickets
Georgia Entertainment, the state’s leading source for news, events and analysis of the creative industry, has announced a far reaching agreement with Ghost Gaming and Skillshot Media. As a result of the agreement, the companies will collaborate on content, reports, events and other initiatives around the gaming and esports industry in Georgia and beyond.
Georgia-based Skillshot Media hosts live events and live stream productions that have served over one billion engagements for some of the biggest names in gaming, corporate, sports, esports and other industry segments. Ghost Gaming, with a roster of professional esports players and content creators, is an Atlanta-based organization providing platforms to create unique partnerships in sports, music, lifestyle and entertainment.
“The gaming industry is approaching $350 billion of revenue and Georgia sits right in the middle of this growth,” said Randy Davidson President of Georgia Entertainment. “The strategic partnership with Skillshot Media and Ghost Gaming allows our business the opportunity to fully immerse our publications, events and programs with impactful content for our readers.”
In Georgia, the creative industries segment represents nearly $40 billion in revenue. The state’s investment via tax incentives for film production, video game development and other areas of the creative industries have been a major boost for Georgia. Besides game development, the state leads the nation when it comes to education-based esports initiatives. Georgia was one of the first five states to adopt esports as a varsity high school sport and there are currently 175 high schools with varsity esports programs. Georgia colleges compete in the Georgia Esports League which includes all our largest institutions and a total of 14 colleges.
“We are excited to join forces with Georgia Entertainment to help spread the benefits of gaming and esports for the state,” said Todd Harris, CEO of Skillshot Media and Ghost Gaming. “The alliance provides unique positioning for our brands within their publications and events reaching professionals throughout Georgia.”
Skillshot Media and Ghost Gaming are official partners of all Georgia Entertainment 100 and Georgia Unscripted events held throughout the state. Georgia Entertainment is an official partner of the Georgia Esports League. The agreement includes content collaborations, resource development and special events to promote gaming and esports.
GIRLGAMER Esports Festival, the world's leading event to celebrate and promote women's competitiveness in esports, has announced the Season 5 schedule and key partnerships for the festival debut within the United States.
“GIRLGAMER is excited to extend our global celebration of women in gaming into the United States with this partnership”, said Tiago Fernandes, organizer of GIRLGAMER Esports Festival. “The esports ecosystem in the city of Atlanta and across the state of Georgia is very well developed, as is the esports experience and mission commitment of our United States event partner Skillshot.”
The 2023 World Circuit allows women gamers the opportunity to compete at the highest level, with teams qualifying into a World Finals via national festivals including:
The game titles played at the next World Finals include Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends and Rocket League.
The specific titles to be played at each festival city will be announced at a future date, along with the date and location of the World Circuit Finals.
“We are thrilled to bring the world’s leading women’s esports event to Atlanta”, said Dan Corso, President of the Atlanta Sports Council. “Atlanta is widely known for hosting world-class sporting events and our infrastructure and hospitality extends to esports. We are especially excited about this property given the focus on inclusivity.”
GIRLGAMER 2023 World Circuit US festival partners include Skillshot Media as the venue and production partner and Ghost Gaming as the host gaming organization.
“We have been fans of the GIRLGAMER mission since they began in 2017”, said Nabil Ismail, President of Skillshot Media. “Their international growth has been impressive and it is our honor to launch this property within the United States, providing women an opportunity to showcase their skills in esports competition, and also in behind the scenes technical and production roles.”
Beyond competition and production, GIRLGAMER Atlanta will provide opportunities for attendees to meet and learn from established female gaming creators and live-streamers since the creator economy is a fast growing segment of the gaming industry.
“Ghost Gaming is proud to be supporting the GIRLGAMER Esports Festival”, said Julian Castro, Managing Director of Ghost Gaming. “We are deliberate and diverse with our own roster of signed Ghost creators. And this festival gives us an opportunity to cultivate and mentor the next next generation of female creators.''
GIRLGAMER Atlanta will be hosted at Skillshot @ Uptown Atlanta on December 13, 2023. Information on Tickets and Team Qualification for GIRLGAMER Atlanta 2023 will be announced at a later date.
College students at the Skillshot esports analyst desk comment on the Georgia Esports League competition between rivals Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia in the game Rocket League.
Skillshot Media, a leading esports production company, and Ghost Gaming, the Atlanta-based professional esports and lifestyle organization, today announced a partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia Film Academy, and founding partner universities across Georgia to launch the Georgia Esports League (GEL).
The league is the nation’s first comprehensive statewide initiative covering esports competition, curriculum, and workforce development to serve the videogame, esports, and digital entertainment industry.
The announcement comes at a time of increasing live esports event activity across the state. In May Skillshot, EsportsU, and the Collegiate Sports Management Group (CSMG) produced the Collegiate Esports Commissioner’s Cup (CECC), the largest ever national collegiate esports live event, at Gateway Arena in College Park Georgia which delivered a $1.7 million local economic impact. This October Riot Games will bring the Worlds 2022 League of Legends semifinals to State Farm Arena, and in November the global gaming festival Dreamhack returns to the Georgia World Congress Center with an expected attendance of over 40,000.
The Georgia Esports League, open to all 2-year and 4-year colleges in Georgia, will offer numerous titles starting with Rocket League, which is played across Georgia in middle school, and high school as a sanctioned varsity sport. It is also played at the collegiate and professional level. Atlanta-based Ghost Gaming has a top professional Rocket League team. The tournament platform provider and sponsor for the 2022-2023 season of Rocket League is UGC
“Esports is education,” said Todd Harris CEO of Skillshot Media and Ghost Gaming. “We’re excited to build out skill development that goes well beyond just playing games. Our partnerships in Georgia allow us to engage with students starting in middle school with STEAM exposure and social-emotional learning all the way through college competition to careers playing esports professionally, becoming a gaming creator on YouTube or Twitch, or working in the broader game and digital entertainment industry behind the scenes as a programmer, artist or designer.”
GEL Final matches will be produced and live-streamed by Skillshot out of their newly announced Atlanta esports campus, with students involved in every aspect of the production.
“Gaming and digital entertainment are key industry initiatives for Georgia,”, said Asante Bradford of the Department of Georgia Economic Development. “The Georgia Esports League will help attract college students across our state to this growing industry, so we can continue to fill the jobs posted by the many tech and digital media companies relocating to Georgia.”
Georgia has seen a host of gaming and tech companies announce major expansions in the last 12 months including a Microsoft corporate campus on 90 acres of land on the west side of Atlanta, Meta’s data-center expansion in Georgia valued at $42 billion, and Google’s 500,000 square-foot expansion in Midtown Atlanta. More broadly, the global corporate and VC investment into metaverse companies was over $120 billion in the first half of 2022 according to a McKinsey and Company report. The metaverse industry is projected to reach $5 Trillion by 2030, with a $108 - $125 billion impact specific to the videogame industry.
Georgia is leading this new digital entertainment economy, building off the success of the film industry, which saw a direct spend of $4 billion dollars in Georgia last year. A key partner for the newly announced Georgia Esports League is the Georgia Film Academy, which has already trained over 10,000 Georgians through 28 public universities and technical colleges.
“Building off our success in film, Georgia’s next workforce initiative is gaming, esports, and digital entertainment”, said Jeff Stepakoff, Executive Director of the Georgia Film Academy. “We are thrilled to partner with industry experts Skillshot Media and Ghost Gaming to build out the curriculum, deliver hands-on experiences with industry tools, and engage students via Georgia Esports League competition, events, and live-streaming. Georgia now has a full ecosystem around the world’s fastest evolving creative economy.”
