Onwards and Upwards from DDM’s Annual Retreat

During one week in October, our entire DDM team converged at our headquarters in Northampton, MA for our annual retreat.

As a diverse and distributed company operating out of eight offices worldwide, this retreat allows our team the crucial time to reaffirm our core values and improve our craft. We reviewed 2016 and discussed industry trends. We brainstormed ways to better service our roster of agency clients, which span from small indie to large development studios as well as production services and consulting clients, and we sought ways to further improve our processes for working with the scores of mobile, console and PC publishers and distributors with whom we engage regularly.

Our major themes are to improve the business of video games, uncover more opportunities for creative talent and assemble comprehensive win-win deals to make them more likely to move forward. Toward those ends, we reviewed our sales process and materials, delved into the unique features and challenges of the Japanese and Chinese markets and further expanded our consulting work to assist companies outside of our industry to navigate working in games.

As we have all witnessed another fast-changing year, including the rise of eSports and the much-hyped arrival of VR, our team of 20 professionals brought its collective knowledge and experience to the forefront, ready to tackle challenges for 2017 and beyond.

Since this is video games, our retreat was not all work and no play! We took some time to have fun, including a nature’s walk in New England’s fall foliage, playing ping pong with one-on-one lessons from a former Olympic Jamaican player, trying to free ourselves in an Escape the Room, hanging out at a retro-style bar with vintage arcade machines and bonding over both board and video games (of course!). We are grateful for our wonderful clients and industry relationships and cannot wait for a fantastic 2017!