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Thursday, October 30, 2025 | 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM Gulf Standard Time (GMT +4)

SAVE YOUR SPOT

Join Us for Unity × Abu Dhabi Gaming: Community Developer Day

Get ready for a day packed with games-focused sessions, inspiring talks, and invaluable connections. This exclusive event brings together Unity experts, indie developers, students, educators, and industry leaders from across the UAE to explore the future of game development.

We’re especially excited to host Jonathan Smårs, Lead Engineer & Game Designer at Iron Gate (creators of Valheim), and Juho Lyytikäinen, Tech Lead at Metacore (creators of Merge Mansion)—two studios behind globally successful games that continue to inspire millions.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn, connect, and be part of Abu Dhabi’s growing game development scene!

Speakers

Katia Serbina

Head of Middle East
Unity

Jonathan Smårs

Lead Engineer & Game Designer on Valheim

Iron Gate

Juho Lyytikäinen

Tech Lead
Metacore

Mark Schoennagel

Senior Advocacy Manager

Unity

Breakout Session Workshop Leads

Miguel Garcia

Senior Manager, Professional Training

Unity

Ahmed Shweiki

Senior Technical Trainer

Unity

Schedule

Agenda

9:30 – 11:00 AM

Registration open

11:00 – 11:15 AM

Welcome and Introductions

Katia Serbina, Head of Middle East; Unity

11:15 – 12:15 AM

Surviving Your First Game - Valheim's story

A walkthrough of taking a game from concept to release, based on the experience of building Valheim. Learn how to choose the right project, build a sustainable team, and successfully navigate the launch—giving your first game the best chance to succeed.

Jonathan Smårs, Lead Engineer & Game Designer on Valheim; Iron Gate

12:15 – 12:30 AM

Networking break

12:30 – 1:30 PM

Scaling Game Development: Lessons from the Rapid Growth of Merge Mansion

Learn key insights from the remarkable journey of Metacore’s rapid growth. Discover how Juho navigated the challenges of scaling success and growing a team tenfold, all while maintaining a high-performing culture. This session provides practical strategies for building effective teams, operating with limited resources, and creating structures that enable growth. Learn how to balance agility with scalability, set clear expectations, and keep your team cohesive during periods of rapid change.

Juho Lyytikäinen, Tech Lead; Metacore

1:30 – 2:30 PM

Networking lunch

2:30 – 3:30 PM

New optimisation features in Unity 6 featuring Fantasy Kingdom

Discover how to achieve instant performance gains in your Unity projects using new features such as the Resident Drawer, GPU Occlusion Culling and Spatial Temporal Post Processing plus many other new innovations with Unity 6.

Mark Schoennagel, Senior Advocacy Manager; Unity

3:30 PM - 3:35 PM

Closing Remarks

Katia Serbina, Head of Middle East; Unity

Parallel Activities (outside the main stage program):

3:35 – 4:00 PM

Unity in the Classroom: Introductory Workshop with VR Experiences

Join Miguel and Ahmed for a hands-on intro to Unity and immersive VR demos.

Miguel Garcia, Senior Manager, Professional Training; Unity
Ahmed Shweiki, Senior Technical Trainer; Unity

3:35 – 5:00 PM

Networking and Free-to-Play Stations

Connect with fellow Unity game devs, expand your network, and enjoy our Free-to-Play Stations.

RSVPs Closed

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