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Games Industry Law Summit 2022: registrations are OPEN

Games Industry Law Summit
Games Industry Law Summit 2022: registrations are OPEN
By Sergei Klimov • Issue #82 • View online
With the exception of platforms (who still have the upcoming holiday sales to manage), law firm lawyers (who have the annual reports to wrap) and Square Enix (whose Final Fantasy XIV servers became the victim of the game’s success), the games industry at large has its last working day of 2021 today.
And what a year this has been. Companies who bought companies were in turn bought by other companies. Shareholders sued. Boards disagreed. Walkouts happened. And while the health authorities still cannot come to admit that COVID is airborne, the consumer protection authorities have no problems admitting that more regulation is needed insofar as privacy is concerned.
If you’re reading this between the meetings and have just one minute: registrations for Vilnius 2022 are now open, just go ahead and email Alma. And for those who have a bit more time, let’s start with the biggest mystery of 2021: what happened to all the extra ice-cream that we produced for the Summit, but did not consume due to cold weather?

The Ice Cream Challenge
As always, in 2021 we commissioned Paulius from Ice Dunes to prepare and serve a custom batch of ice cream for the Summit.
The ice cream did well on the pre-event day, when the sun was shining – but as the cold winds picked up during the following days, it was mostly only the Finns and the Canadians who frequented the ice cream bar for those vanilla sticks with roasted pistachios.
When we wrapped up the event, we were left with ± 15 kilograms of top-class ice cream. We briefly considered trucking it to the kindergarten, but with September here being the season of colds and sneezes, scrapped the plan.
Who, then, can plow through kilograms of ice cream in September?
We called our doctor friends at the Vilnius University Hospital…
Who called the department of surgery…
Who called the emergency operating room…
And it was here that that the Summit’s ice cream met its biggest fans: the surgeons and the anaesthesiologists finishing their long shifts. The next night a friend forwarded a snapshot from the hospital’s group chat that showed a doctor eating ice cream with a soup spoon, legs up on the table, captioned “now this is life”.
Summit's Community Discord Server
Back in 2019 we created a community Discord server for those who attend the Summit, and it’s a high time to extend the invitation to all the 2021 attendees, as well as those who will register for 2022.
To join, you must attend/register for one of the Summits, or be a close colleague of one of the attendees who would then invite you.
The server has one public channel (#hello_world), with the rest accessible once you get the role assigned (law firm, in-house, business or challenge). You can email Alma for the invite – and once you join, please introduce yourself, so that we can assign the proper role and get you listed in the directory (which needs an update anyway).
The server is mostly about quick updates on specific issues, or sharing stories about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 getting into the “NFT meets metaverse” business and then backtracking after all the backslash.
Registrations for Vilnius 2022 are now open!
We’ve spent the last couple of months lining up all the details, and we are now in the position to open the registrations for next year’s Summit here in Vilnius:
(1) In 2022, the Summit happens on September 7 (Reception Dinner), September 8 (Day 1, Formal Dinner) and September 9 (Day 2, Informal Dinner), that’s Wednesday through Friday.
(2) For the second year, the Summit will happen outdoors. Just like in 2021, we’re building a pavilion and will keep the walls open to provide the best possible ventilation. Since the event runs a week ahead of 2021’s, we stand a higher chance of summer-warm weather. But we’re not taking any risks, so we’re also booking a whole bunch of heaters – which this time will be infrared, and mounted on the ceiling.
(3) The Summit happens at Hotel PACAI, same as in 2021, and we completely take over the whole venue: the rooms, the restaurant and the courtyard. The tent will be replaced with a pavilion (a more sturdy structure) and we will extend it a bit to accommodate the 3 extra rows of seats. The sound system and the LCD screen from 2021 make a comeback, as we think they worked quite well.
(4) We don’t think that COVID is going away by the time the event happens, so the same vaccination requirements (EMA-approved shots or EU digital passes), masking rules (indoors) and daily tests (as a part of your Safety Kit) are in the plans, and we’re also upgrading the masks in your attendee boxes to FFP2.
If you’re based outside of EU and need help getting EMA-approved vaccination, please let us know! We’ve done it in 2021, and we will provide full support in 2022 just as well, as Lithuania’s approach to this issue is very friendly. Just talk to us to arrange it.
One of the debates that we had was about whether we should move the 2022 event to a larger venue (the Palace) to accommodate more registration requests – but in the end, we decided to stay at PACAI, for a number of reasons.
We believe that it’s crucial for the Summit to minimise the distractions, and that the lunches and dinners happening on-site helps a lot to retain everyone’s focus. We also believe that once we move beyond two hundred attendees, we will be seeing new safety risks and challenges that cause more problems than create benefits.
Hence in 2022, the Summit has a hard limit of 200 attendees, dictated by the size of the pavilion that we’re building, and the capacity of PACAI’s kitchen to cook on-demand. We save ½ of the seats for in-house and business attendees, with the rest going to attendees from law firms.
If you haven’t attended in 2021, here’s the galley from this year. Imagine the same, but with a larger pavilion, better heaters and warmer weather. In the meantime, you can already check who has registered for 2022 here.
2022 specifics
All registrations for 2022 include the following:
  • Two days of conference
  • Pick-up and drop-off from/to the airport
  • Reception Dinner (07/09)
  • Formal Dinner (08/09)
  • Informal Dinner (09/09)
  • Breakfasts (08/09, 09/09)
  • Lunches (08/09, 09/09)
  • Coffee and sake breaks (08/09, 09/09)
  • Community Book 2022
  • Safety kit delivered to the hotel (masks and tests)
Among the amenities, you will have access to:
  • Coffee Bar
  • Tea Bar
  • Ice Cream Bar
Additionally:
  • Summit’s CCG returns (you’ll find your pack in the box)
  • The Red Wolf Roulette ® to make its premiere appearance
  • PCR/Antigen test point returns on-site to meet whatever travel requirements we will have in place by the time the event runs
Our ambition for 2022 is to exceed the quality of the drinks and the food from 2021 (and god help us find something better than this year’s champagne…), and we place a special focus on serving local produce with no or minimal time spent in the fridge.
The cost of the registration is…
Wait, this year we finally have options!
Regular Pass & Super Pass
At this year’s event, a number of people asked why there’s still no merchandise at the Summit. Which reminded me of all the trips we made to E3 in late ‘90s, with the official merchandise shop being the highlight of the first day (my dad still wears those t-shirts, by the way).
At the same time, when we had tea with the team of one of the billion-dollar games companies who were around (and you know, there are a few of those in our little community), they posed another question: is there a way to create some extra positive impact for people who come each year?
A natural industry instinct might suggest that we should sell an upgrade to Golden Badge for double the price, then make everyone else’s life miserable… :-OOO
However, on a serious note, we racked our brains to combine “I’d like some nice merchandise” and “I’d like to make the world a better place” motivations, and this is what we came up with:
Please meet our new friends Jonas and Zilvinas –
These guys work at the Lithuania’s National Forestry organisation, with the group that helps the forest support various bird species. For 2022, we teamed up with them for a project around lake Gela:
Regular Pass
Regular Pass 2022 is €900 and includes everything from the section above – two days of conference, 3 dinners, 2 breakfasts and 2 lunches, plus whatever else you’ve come to expect from the event.
Super Pass
Super Pass 2022 is €300 extra, and for each pass sold we will build and deploy a custom birdhouse that will help these guys:
Moreover, with each Super Pass, as a “thank you” from the birds, comes one of these very special items:
(A) one tailored 100% cotton Summit Hoodie made to fit your specific size, made in 🇱🇹 Lithuania by a local label labàdienà, which will carry a special 2022 wolf-inspired art on the back:
– OR –
(B) a set of two handmade Summit Cups in the style of Hasami ware made in 🇯🇵 Japan by Haruho Baba in Hasami (Nagasaki Prefecture) as a part of our collaboration with Asemi Co.:
Since both the hoodies and the cups take several months to produce, the deadline for the Super Pass registrations is May 15, 2022.
When registering, please let Alma know if it’s a Regular Pass or a Super Pass, and if Super – she will double-check with you for the specific option.
Hotels. Hotels!
The big advantage of staying at the Summit’s venue is that you can join the dinner five minutes after checking on, or just hang around the entrance with a cigarette and meet and greet each person as they stroll in –
In 2022, we again locked the special event-specific prices that come with 100% refund policy with the properties that we love and recommend: PACAI, Artagonist, Vilnia, Radisson Astorija and Shakespeare. The hotel map, with prices, is here.
You can book the room of your choice by reaching out to Alma, who will connect you directly to the hotel’s manager. The flexible refund policy helps a lot as you can book for now based on preliminary dates, and then adjust for specific days once you’ve got your ticket sorted.
Merry Christmas, and see you soon!
We wish you a happy holiday season, and we hope that 2022 brings you much less stress and much more joy!
The current pandemic crisis is not going to get resolved until 2024 at least, so for the moment we must make our best effort to balance the risks and the gains: not ignoring the threat, but not succumbing to the panic either.
In the next few months, we will start shaping the program for Vilnius 2022, and work on the details of all the other Summit initiatives – including Legal Challenge V (with the semifinals and finals set to happen at the Unpacked event in Warsaw in May).
Stay safe, stay kind, and we will see you again – very soon!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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Sergei Klimov

A newsletter about games industry's legal side, written for the benefit and entertainment of the folks attending (or considering to attend) the annual Games Industry Law Summit in Vilnius.

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Games Industry Law Summit is organized by Charlie Oscar Lima Tango Interactive Entertainment UAB