A night for Melbourne’s game developer community to meet, connect and play on the second Tuesday of each month (excluding October). Folks are welcome from all areas of game dev, with any level of experience. Chat with programmers, designers, producers and more over a pint or meal - and make new connections within the community.

✨THIS MONTH✨

We're back at Mission To Seafarers Victoria. For those who haven't been there before, directions are listed further down.
It'll be business as usual with devs sharing game projects in the Showcase, plenty of space to mingle and network, and a talk held in the Main Hall. (See schedule below)

Drink tokens are back! Your ticket includes a drink token which you can redeem at the bar. Please have your ticket ready to scan when you arrive.

A reminder that food is not available directly from the venue, but you can BYO meals!
There are also restaurants less than 2 minutes walk away, or you can order delivery to the space (eg. UberEats, local pizza)

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Talk: 'Australia to the US, a 10 year gaming career starting from nothing to Google to Discord' by Mark Mandel

This is a talk about Mark's journey over the past 10 years through the games industry in developer relations. Starting from when he was at Monash University (where it did not come to fruition), to when it finally did during his tenure at Google after moving to the US, and now continues at Discord.

Highlights include:

• Created and grew the Google Cloud for Games vertical and developed its open source strategy as a founding team member.
• Founded and led agones.dev, co-developing the project with Ubisoft, changing how multiplayer games were built across the industry.
• Engaged with and supported many successful AAA game launches (public: 2k, Nintendo, Nitrado, Embark Studios, Xsolla)
• Spoke extensively at major game developer conferences worldwide (GDC, Kubecon, Pax Dev, Nordic Games) plus online events and podcasts.
• Chaired Google's internal gaming conference for six years, growing attendance from hundreds to over 1,000.
• Co-founded the Online Game Technology Summit at GDC (although this is gone now).
• Now working at Discord as a Staff Developer Advocate, primarily working on the Discord Social SDK.

Takeaways from this talk will be around what worked well for him in his career, and also what didn't, ramping up quickly on the video games industry, ways in which he become influential (albeit in backend systems mostly!), and also the impact of moving to the US, working in big tech, and now being at Discord.

About the Speaker

Hailing from Australia, but now living in San Francisco, Mark Mandel is a Staff Developer Advocate improving developer experience on Discord’s platform for game developers. He is also often known as the founder of two open source projects - Agones, a dedicated game server hosting and scaling platform and Quilkin, a UDP proxy for large-scale multiplayer game server deployments, both of which he founded while Tech Lead for Developer Relations at Google Cloud for almost 10 years.

When not working, Mark spends his time pottering on open source. looking for new and interesting things he can do with cloud native technology and games, being distracted by dogs, and practising too many martial arts.

If you are arriving after 7pm, please be respectful of making noise as you enter the main hall. If you are not attending the talk, we request that you move to one of the other spaces in the venue to talk. This talk will not be recorded.

🕒 DURATION / VENUE AREAS

Meetup schedule is as follows:

• 6.30pm - Meetup starts - bar is open, games are ready to play in the Celia Room (Left side of the Main Hall stage)
• 7.00pm - Talk begins! (Make sure you're in the Main Hall to hear it)
• 7.30pm - Talk & announcements conclude
• 8.30pm - Meetup ends, but mingling and bar service continues until the venue closes (between 9.30pm ~ 10.30pm)

For the evening we will have access to the Main Hall, Beer Garden (courtyard/rear garden) and Celia Room (showcase space) and Billiard Room, but please be respectful of any other patrons who are sharing the space.

Smokers/vapers please abide by any venue signage in place.

Accessible bathrooms can be found near the 'the Dome' area in the venue.

🍔 FOOD / DRINK

The MtSV bar has affordable beer, spirits, wine and non-alcoholic options - eg. $10 for a pint of Coopers.

Mission to Seafarers does not serve food, but you are welcome to bring food in with you. There are also restaurants under 2 mins walk away, and you can bring takeaway orders back to the bar (or order delivery to the venue).

Please be respectful and clear any takeaway containers/mess into a bin after you've finished.

🗺️ HOW TO GET THERE

Mission to Seafarers Victoria building.

Address: 717 Flinders Street, Docklands

Nearby Public Transport:

• Stop 124 - Batman Park/Spencer St - Tram Routes: 12, 96, 109 (Wheelchair accessible)
• Stop D5 - South Wharf/Wurundjeri Way - Trams Routes: 70, 75, 30 (Wheelchair accessible)
• Southern Cross Station/Collins St bus stop (route 235)

Walking options:

• 7 -10 minute walk from Southern Cross (via Collins St & Batman Hill Dr OR Spencer & Flinders Sts)
• 20 minute walk down Flinders St from Flinders Street station

Parking:

• Care Park (671 Siddeley St, Docklands) - $14 p/hr

Map view of a possible tram/walking route from Southern Cross station.

Map view of tram/walking route from Flinders Street station.

🚪 VENUE ENTRANCES

Front - Main entrance steps via Docklands Hwy / State Route 30

Side - Accessible entrance via Siddeley Street side gate, past the garden. If using this entrance, please head to the foyer near the front to get your ticket scanned.

Map view of the two entrances to Mission to Seafarers Victoria.

📝 SHOWCASE SIGNUP

Want to playtest your game project at the next meetup?
No matter what stage your game is: prototype, alpha, pretty polished or about to release, we'd love to see it!
The Showcase is a great way to get playtesting feedback and advice from other devs and practice sharing your game in a safe space.

We encourage you to use the time to ask for advice, solve problems, practice presenting or just stress-test your game!

Bookmark this form - we're using the same form for each month in 2025.
If you lose the form link, head to our website - it's available in the dropdown menu.

Note: Currently we are taking submissions only for each upcoming month. After each meetup the form will be updated to take requests for the next month. This is subject to change, while we adjust our system. Thanks so much for your patience!

If you have any questions, reach out to showcase@igdamelbourne.au, or in the general chat on the IGDAM Discord.

❓ QUESTIONS

If you have any questions or feedback feel free to reach out to us on the IGDAM Discord server, or if you have specific questions on the following, email us at:

hello@igdamelbourne.au - General enquiries
showcase@igdamelbourne.au - Showcase-related questions/feedback
venue@igdamelbourne.au - Venue-specific questions & meetup info
talk@igdamelbourne.au - Submit your talks here

Or chat to one of the volunteers at the event!

We look forward to seeing you there. 💜

A friendly reminder, please do not attend the event if you feel unwell, and mask up where you can for the safety of other patrons.

Please respect the health and safety of our community.

Join our newsletter, check out our website or jump into the Discord server to stay updated on news and events.

Contact Event Organiser