
About this Event
FREAKON is an alternative space for honest discussion and knowledge sharing about game dev with no financial barrier to entry. With this being one of the scariest times to be a dev in recent memory, we want FREAKON to be a space where we can talk about the real shit.
We’re looking around at a world rife with rot. More layoffs, more greed, and the birth of a whole new type of AI guy have filled the air with a foul stench. It’s tempting to imagine our community could once again become a phoenix, dying and being reborn from the ashes - but what if there’s a grosser option?
This year, FREAKON is in the world of the fungal: we will not die. When a forest giant falls, it doesn’t disappear. It becomes a hotspot of activity. Saprophytic fungi permeate it, unlocking decades of nutrients to feed a new underground fungal network.
The evidence of this season of decay is occasionally witnessed through the mushrooms that sprout on the fallen log. A glimpse of the riotous activity beneath the surface, the cycle of rot and new growth happening out of sight. These mushrooms release spores into the atmosphere, ensuring the future generations will live on to repeat the cycle.
The stench is just the beginning.

FREAKON is back, 100% free and more troubling than ever before, this year featuring confidential, off-the-record talks from the likes of JOHNNY GALVATRON (Mixtape, The Artful Escape), the FOLKMAN BROTHERS (Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, Spider-Man 2) and an exclusive seance with the GHOST OF GAMES JOURNALISM.
Outside of a day full of talks you’ll never see again, attendees can expect to experience a playable musical mycelium, an interactive memorial for games media, a whole new line of SEASON OF DECAY merch to broadcast your cluster A and/or B personality disorders to your MIGW colleagues; and more to be revealed.

FREAKON's new venue is wheelchair accessible, close to public transport and has enough space to place a chair for every multiple of the average employee salary that EA CEO Andrew Wilson was paid in 2025. That’s 260 chairs!
As a reminder, FREAKON talks are a strictly no recording, no posting zone. Everything is off the record. Nobody has ever leaked any content from FREAKON.
It's free, we can't emphasize enough how free this is. It’s not 600 dollars. It’s free.
BIG ROOM
🕑: 09:30 AM
Doors Open
🕑: 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Welcome to FREAKON
Info: Welcome to Country followed by opening remarks by KELSEY GAMBLE
🕑: 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
JOHNNY GALVATRON
Info: The trouble of traditional character arcs in games and how to K*ll a man with one punch. By Johnny Galvatron.
🕑: 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
THE GHOST OF GAMES JOURNALISM
Info: A seance.
🕑: 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
TANAT BOOZAYAANGOOL
Info: Corporate life trauma-dumping (CW)
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
HUMILIATION MICROTALKS
Info: THE FOLKMAN BROTHERS, ALEXANDER PERRIN, LUCY MUTIMER, DARCY SMITH, SHAUN BRIGHT
🕑: 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM
ALLY MCLEAN HENNESSY
Info: Saying some defamatory things (CW)
🕑: 03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
CALLUM UNDERWOOD
Info: Fireside with JOEL DUSCHER
🕑: 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM
ALLISON WALKER
Info: Spotlight on the MUSICAL MYCELLIUM created for FREAKON SEASON OF DECAY
🕑: 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM
FOREST WILLARD
Info: Talkin' Outersloth
🕑: 04:30 PM - 05:00 PM
GOODBYES
ART ROOM
🕑: 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
MICKIE
Info: The 10 angry emails you will get as a game designer
🕑: 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
TEX BARNES & MARA BLEACH
Info: Becoming the Outsider in your own Art
🕑: 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
PETE FOLEY & W O O D Y
Info: FREAKON Criterion: In Defense of Wet Dirty Men in Videogame Films
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:00 PM
JOSIE FLETCHER
Info: The Sherkiverse and IP Hell
🕑: 02:00 PM - 02:30 PM
MARCUS GRAMBAU
Info: "Living with a rare disease kinda sucks sometimes"
🕑: 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM
JACOB JANERKA & ALEXANDER MACCA
Info: LIVE ART BATTLE
🕑: 03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
MEREDITH HALL
Info: "A session about late 90s early 2000s internet but sort of specifically about how I was a giant fucking loser in primary school and the fact that these kinds of sites spurned me and a lot of other weirdos into this career and how even if everything we make doesn't matter and dies one day from digital existence there'll be some little asshole out there who cares about it and sometimes that little asshole is us, the one making it, and that is enough."
🕑: 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM
ANNA HOLLINRAKE
🕑: 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM
VIDYA RAJAN
Info: On artmaking in this moment
Event Venue
120 Oxford St, 120 Oxford Street, Collingwood, Australia
AUD 0.00