Why I keep showing up to game dev meetups

I’ve spoken at a run of game dev meetups and mentored at events like LevelUp KL, and people occasionally ask why — I have a full-time job and a stack of side projects, and a Tuesday evening on a panel is a Tuesday evening not spent building. The answer is that the industry is smaller and kinder than it looks from outside, and showing up is how you find that out.

The talks are the smallest part

The value of a meetup isn’t the talk. It’s the twenty minutes afterward when someone junior asks the question they were too nervous to put in the room, or when a peer at another studio describes a problem you solved last year in four sentences. I’ve gotten more useful design conversations from the corner of a meetup than from most conference stages.

Mentoring pays both ways

Reviewing early-career portfolios and answering “how do I break in” for the hundredth time sounds like charity. It isn’t. Explaining your craft to someone who doesn’t share your assumptions is the fastest way to find out which of your beliefs are actually load-bearing and which are just habit. I sharpened my own portfolio advice — the stuff in the review post — by having to defend it to people who’d never heard it.

Being findable

Most of the good things in my career arrived because someone could find me: a talk that was online, a profile that was current, a name attached to specific work. The AI Lab and these field notes are part of the same instinct. Do the work, then make it findable, then be reachable when someone shows up. It’s not self-promotion so much as leaving the door open.

If you’re in Stockholm or passing through, the game dev community here is worth your evenings. And if you’re earlier in your career and want a portfolio look, the door’s open — that’s the whole point of writing any of this down.