Last Updated on Jan 5, 2026 @ 16:54:52 PM.
Back in November 2025, I was granted the opportunity to experience the ENDIX Expo for a second time, as I was able to explore all the event had to offer. While attending the event, I was also able to sit down with the creator of ENDIX, Nikos Perifanis, for an interview in which we talked about what makes ENDIX, ENDIX.
During our interview, we talked about a lot of different aspects of ENDIX, such as, the virtual space the expo takes place in as well as the future for said space, we also talked about the different exhibitors who shared their different games at ENDIX within their own unique booths, we even talked a little about the potential future of ENDIX in terms of size, exhibitors, and more.
| EDITOR’S NOTE |
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| Due to this being a spoken interview, names will be provided to indicate what was said and by whom, while some answers have been edited for clarity/brevity, without removing intent or context. |
So our readers know who you are, do you mind telling us your name and your role within the ENDIX Expo as a whole?
Nikos: I am Nikos Perifanis, and I am the founder of ENDIX. And as a startup, all of the members who are working on this have been doing a bunch of things. So this goes for me as well. So I’m doing interviews right now. I was also doing the monitoring of the event. I act as a curator for the event. Product manager of the product, discussing with the clients, the exhibitors, as the account manager. So, someone can say that, as every star topper, I’m involved in several roles.
The biggest question people will likely ask about ENDIX is what led you to actually create ENDIX itself?
Nikos: So, I’m a gamer from Greece, and I used to play video games since I was five years old. Right now I’m 33. Almost, and the thing is that in Greece, as a passionate gamer, we never had, like, these awesome events that back in the days, we’re like, for example, E3, Gamescom, TGS, all the big events that are out there. So the only way to see those events and to receive part of the experience has been to go on YouTube, go on Twitter after a point, and see what these huge events were, having exclusivity-wise and being part of the event in that way.
Nikos: So I remember that, even in the past, we were having, like, Skype calls before Discord, with my friends, we were joining, and we were waiting to see some exclusivity, some new trailers of games, and stuff like this. So at some point, I was doing my masters in the UK innovation strategy, and as a thesis project, we had to, in a sense, disrupt an industry that feels a bit outdated and how this could be done through the use of technology.
Nikos: So at the time we had back then, the E3 event, I think it was the last E3, to be fair, or like, two E3s before it ended. And once we were discussing what we were about to see in this event, then I started to think like, okay, because, you know, at the end of the day, we are gamers, and right now I have several friends that I got to meet first from, you know, video games and then I go to meet in real life and also, our avatars tend to be an extension of ourselves. So why not create an event experience as a game? And with this question, it’s the way that it started.
Nikos: I had a business background, working in agencies and businesses before that. So, I actually put down the numbers, and back then at least, it showed that there may be potential for something like that. So I decided to start the whole journey of ENDIX. But then, of course, it was a long journey, but I’m sure that you will have other questions of this nature. In the future of our discussion today. But to make a long story short, the inspiration was that, you know, there are not many events in this way that ENDIX wants to do it.
Nikos: And the reason why I started this is because we wanted, I wanted personally to see more events that target directly, the consumers, the gamers around the globe, in a way that is, easily accessible and make sense also for the companies, because if you think about it, it makes sense for a company now to go and create a huge event somewhere in, you know, its not a key, industry market right. But, if they are to do something, digitally and as we can see over the past years, with all the showcases and all the companies that start to do their own direct shows, which is practically this whole experience, it shows that there is a need to create something directly for your own community and make it as easily accessible as possible.
Liam: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that’s always been something I’ve always been frustrated with. Never been able to get to a Gamescom or E3. And I remember the days of Skype as well. I used to do the same, so I’m glad somebody thought of it.
So earlier on, you mentioned that obviously, you do a lot in the role of ENDIX’s creator. But how big is the sort of team that you’ve got working with you?
Nikos: So, the team is like five members, but we also tend to work when we approach the event with some external partners as well. So officially, the people who are working on ENDIX are five.
Liam: Are they the old people you knew beforehand, or people that you’ve met?
Nikos: Not actually, so some people, I knew them before I started this, and some people got onboarded after I started ENDIX, so initially, imagine that, I had no idea about the game development scene, so once I started, then I was like, okay, we want some developers, right? So I have some developer friends, but it turned out pretty quickly that you don’t need web developers or just people who know Python, and C++ you want people who know either Unity or Unreal or any other game engine, because it’s something too complicated that you can not do if you don’t know these things.
Nikos: After a point, quickly, we understood that we needed to grow the team. So some people, that were onboarded were, you know, acquaintances of the developer friends, and, yeah, long story short, again, it was, you know, a journey of trying to find people that are genuine and those that think and understand the vision that we have and, and so that we can onboard them and start preparing these experiences, these events, and, you know, everything.
Talking about ENDIX itself now, ENDIX is a virtual space where developers can share their games in probably the most unique way that’s available for probably a long time. This is possible by having each exhibitor have their own custom booth. Can you tell us what led to the decision to do this?
Nikos: So this is kind of one of the first ideas that we had when we were brainstorming in that, Skype call that I told you, so but then we were seeing that, okay, there are booths and if you visit a physical event, you will be able to see, depending on the budget, of course, invested from the publisher studio or whoever is exhibiting, because we’re not talking about, you know, gaming brands that are also, other brands that participate in these events.
Nikos: But depending on the budget, you’re going to see a more immersive and a more fascinating experience when it comes to a physical event as well. But, you know, one of the first things that we really quickly understood is that these people who are about to exhibit in such an event, they are game developers and in their own game, they create a much more sophisticated world than the one that we can actually represent physically.
Nikos: So why don’t we try to give those people who are about to exhibit in such an event their own space to create whatever they want to bring their own assets, like dragons or their own models, and bring their characters to life. So the idea, from like early on, was to create an environment that represents a physical event.
Nikos: So, as you have seen, because you have attended a couple of times now, if I’m not mistaken, then you can see that there is this degree of realism when it comes to the city. So, you jump on a train because the experience of an event starts before the actual event. So we wanted to, you know, replicate that in a sense.
Nikos: And, you get to arrive at the train station and from there you get to explore, and if you remove the fast travel, and also like, a cannon activation that we had last event, and maybe the am the, activation, which was also sponsored for this event. The rest is pretty, you know, standardized, like things that you could potentially see in an event like a city, some people around, some trees, and nothing too fancy.
Nikos: But when you are about to jump into the booths, then everything is possible. And this is what, like this diversity, these contrasts are what we wanted to bring into life. That’s why you cannot see inside of the booths that exist. The only way for someone who visits ENDIX to see what’s inside is to, you know, approach the door, and then the door opens, and no one knows what is inside.
Liam: Yeah. That was a big shock value when I first attended. I wasn’t expecting it, and the second I walked in the first room, I was like, damn it, that’s cool! It definitely helps the developer get a lot more attention and show off their game a lot more, especially for gamers who don’t know about them.
You mentioned the layout of ENDIX earlier with the city, but was there a specific inspiration for the city, or is that just something you created from scratch?
Nikos: So, because as I said initially, we worked with some people externally of ENDIX, as this was a startup, back then it didn’t make sense for me to hire people, and have them work in ENDIX. So, I reached out to a studio back then, and because they asked me this question, like, “Okay, we’re going to bring a world into life, do you have any inspiration?” So, as I told you, since I was like a small child, I found out that there are these events, these gaming events that back then I couldn’t be able to attend because they were on the other side of the world.
Nikos: I always enjoyed the vibes that places like LA (Los Angeles) had, with piers and, you know, by the sea and an Exhibition Center. So, the environment that we experience in ENDIX is ideal, at least for me, shaped with all my gaming experiences, a convention center that someone could attend. So it’s by the sea. You can actually see it from around the city, and it’s like the main attraction. And because you have visited, you know about this; these are the things that you can actually observe once you are in the environment. There are activations within the city, but you can always see the convention center. And then you need to walk like a long bridge, assuming that you don’t use fast travel points. And then you are, you know, in a pier where you can see the convention center and explore everything.
So this year, you had the haunted movie theater, and we also had the THQ Nordic Island and things of that nature. Can you tell us what pushed you to create these individual locations to help advertise these individual projects?
Nikos: Yeah, sure. So first of all, what we want for people who visit ENDIX, because you go under, you know, some time investment, you need to download the launcher, and we are a startup. So the launcher may have some small issues from time to time. So you get yourself entrusted with this in a way that you download something, and you’re about to spend some hours there. So it’s only evident from our side that we want to populate everything with more content.
Nikos: So from the first event that we only had, I think one and a half floors, if I’m not mistaken, so not even like two full floors. It was on the first floor of the second floor. We managed to go to the third floor and also part of the fourth floor, which was in the last event, rooftop hall A, and now we have the rooftop hall B, and added the third Obscure Room, which was the haunted area, with horror games, and also the THQ Nordic island, as you said.
Nikos: So for us, it makes sense to, you know, add content, because ENDIX needs more and more exhibitors in order to scale as an event, but also to have like a meaningful experience, for the users who go under a specific procedure of downloading something to install ENDIX on their PC and have some expectations.
Nikos: So, yeah, that’s why you saw these areas, and also, we needed to populate a city. So, ideally, for the next event, we hope, and we will do our best to have even more content, even more, you know, activations, maybe like two islands instead of only one, and more stuff to create an experience that “okay, I’m going to spend some time in ENDIX and I’m going to see stuff and I’m going to play mini games, and I’m going to connect with other gamers, friends, press, and creators.” So that’s our plan to populate everything and make it even bigger, and more in terms of quantity and quality as well.
So when people visit ENDIX, they are able to go to these different exhibitions and see trailers, potentially meet developers, and so on, but they’re also able to get demos for a lot of the games as well. Even games that haven’t actually attended the event either. Because I remember this year you had a code giveaway, was it the first thousand people who got a free code? So, how do you think this helps the developers?
Nikos: So initially, when planning ENDIX, our plan was to actually this was also in the first event that we did, and in the second, like the reason why in the launcher you have a downloadable options although for this event it wasn’t working is that initially ENDIX was designed with an approach that you as your avatar, you go into a booth and there you go to the demo terminal, as we say, which is the, you know, the small terminal, the station there. And by pressing E, the plan was to initially start directly the second executable of the demo.
Nikos: In this way, we wanted to mimic the way that, you know, people go to events, and instead of waiting many hours, in a long queue, to play a demo, you have access immediately. And you could have done that by pre-downloading it. And, the moment that you were in this specific booth, let’s say booth A, and you were pressing E to launch the demo of game A, would have started.
Nikos: Of course, ENDIX would have been minimized running at one FPS, so that doesn’t take much of your RAM and CPU, and GPU usage. However, because we are not a big event, we have now started to scale. The thing is that, whoever of our exhibitors did that, over the past events, they saw a reduced number on their Steam stats and, you know, exhibitors invest time and their resources to create the booth and participate in an event, and the least that they expect is to have the full value from the Steam web page, which is potentially some purchases, follows on their account, or even wishlists. So that’s why we turned it into the, press E and be redirected to Steam.
Nikos: So from Steam, you can do whatever you want. You can download, you can wishlist, you can play the demo, or not. Now, when it comes to ENDIX, in this event, there were some titles that announced their demo just before or during the event. And there are like a couple, if I’m not mistaken, that, after the end of the event, they revoked the access.
Nikos: Also, one of our exhibitors, Hawthorne, had a key issue terminal inside their booth, so whoever wanted to be part of their early access demo could have applied for a key and could have received a key by visiting their booth and interacting with one of the two terminals that they had inside. Now, when it comes to also giving you a response on the key issue terminal that we introduced in this event, the approach initially was to have the actual games of our exhibitors and also some partners that sponsored the event.
Nikos: So, for example, we had the community in one building, and the community provided us with 100 keys; however, in ENDIX, because as you have seen, it’s like four floors and the specific amount of exhibitors so we don’t want to scale the whole thing unproportionally to the people that we can as an event, as a new event to bring in the event.
Nikos: So, although we could have had like 200 booths, it wouldn’t have made sense for us and for our exhibitors. So we wanted to scale in a way that, you know, it wasn’t disproportionate. Therefore, what we did was, because we started some applications, and people who wanted to apply could reach out and say that I’m interested in finding out more about ENDIX and participate by creating my own booth.
Nikos: However, we have received, if I’m not mistaken, 1900 people who were interested, and of course, we couldn’t have too many people because no value would have been there. So what we did, after careful consideration, because we want to be as indie-driven as possible, but at the same time, try to bring more to the community, and also be sustainable for us as a company, because at the end of the day, we are a startup.
Nikos: We also need to be thoughtful about how we proceed, and can we, you know, sustain ourselves and all the work that we are putting into that? So we thought of having them in gates, but in a way that doesn’t require much of our time, much of their time, and something that is also cool for the community of gamers, press, creators, and developers who are about to join ENDIX. So we told all the applicants that, and of course, to our exhibitors as well, that there is no more space for you to be part of ENDIX. However, what we’re going to do is that we’re going to create these key issue terminals, and if you are willing, you can share as many keys as you want.
Nikos: We suggested around 5 to 10, and this will be your actual game when it will be released. If it’s not released or your pre-released game, we’re going to place it through the Amazon Web Services configuration that we’re doing in the key issue terminal, and then every account can get one. We don’t know who will get your key. It may be a creator that will receive one key, or it may be, you know, one gamer or an actual exhibitor that exhibits in ENDIX right now, and receives your only key, but still, you will have the opportunity to participate in that and you never know who will end up getting your key and how many eyes will eventually see, your key. So that was how we reached out to the applicants that did not get selected, and we actually had so many people that were eager to showcase their work and, you know, eager to share with us their keys, and we really appreciated that.
Liam: Yeah, I definitely got a key. I can’t remember the game I got off it now, but I went and got a key, and I was going to play it sometime this week. It’s a system that works.
Nikos: And if you love it, if you like what you’re seeing, you may end up like writing something about it or even end up reaching out and thanking this specific developer. I mean, you never know what will be there. It’s the best we could do to avoid losing precious time that we had as a startup. But at the same time, hope, like, in this way, at least some of the people who shared with us keys, because, as I said, the keys may end up back with the publisher, I don’t know, like, it’s, it’s something that you don’t know at the end of the day due to it being random,
So, for all those who were able to be a part of ENDIX as exhibitors, as you say, every single one of them got their own booths that were designed specifically for them. But when it comes to ENDIX and the event itself, how does having each of those booths affect the overall event, as in, the running of it, as well as the challenges of keeping ENDIX working without overloading it?
Nikos: Yeah, that’s the challenge, and you actually phrased it really correctly, like the way that this works is that, of course, we have our own layout because it’s not possible for us to, you know, adjust every booth that we receive and the whole exhibition center and making it higher, like a bigger, more width, more length, like, whatever.
Nikos: So what we say is that we usually share some guidelines that most of the cases, developers tend to follow. But of course, there are also cases that, because they’re too busy, with their own release. So they may lose some of the guidelines. So, even with guidelines or not, the main thing that is fixed is the layout.
Nikos: They cannot make a bigger booth than the one that they actually receive. So what, what I usually say to people who are not in game development, and hope to understand it, is that think of ENDIX as a puzzle, and what we give to the developers, the piece of the puzzle, but with no design, so not what it depicts, only the layout. And inside this layout, they can prepare their own, you know, design their own thing, and then they need to share with us what they have created.
Nikos: From there, in the real world, the real pain begins because every booth has, like, a different lighting, has different models, polygons, materials, and, you know, someone may create their own rules in the engine that they use, which may be Unreal Engine 5 or it may be Unity, or it may be any other thing. So they need to help us help them in a sense, but in several cases, this is not possible.
Nikos: So we end up, and of course, this is why we have, you know, this is why we’re doing the event to, you know, actually integrate their own experience without ruining their own experience or without affecting their own experience in our own version of Unreal Engine that we work. So, this is the most time-consuming process, depending on the booths. So we have received both what we needed to work like one week on them, but we also received both that we had to work like 2 or 3 hours on one of them.
Nikos: So it always depends, and that’s why we want to have every both received at least one month before the event so that we have enough time to prepare and make sure that it’s optimized and it’s not going to crash because, you know, not every developer has the same amount of experience. So some indie developers in the past may have shared with us in the past builds and builds that are not optimized.
Nikos: So this means that if a user were to enter and they don’t have like a high-end PC, maybe their computer would have crashed or anything. No, I’m kidding, but they would have seen significant FPS drops, for example, when the door opens. So there is an amount of work that requires optimization, integration. And also, you know, ensuring that everything will work just fine.
Nikos: Because we’re talking about development, one thing may go inside, and another thing may break. So just to give you an example, in the past, when we had one booth, that, once we got it integrated in our own build, the lighting in all the ENDIX the event, like, even, like five kilometers from the exhibition center, were affected and we were trying, like, for 2 or 3 days, to figure out, like, why is it affected?
Nikos: Because initially, we didn’t know it was that booth since everything seemed to work out perfectly. So you know, there are always these things, and it’s interesting. To close, like, the whole parenthesis that I have, opened is, what we really like, as a team is that when a game that we may like, we may have seen the trailer and it looks great and we are, like, fascinating to have that specific, game in ENDIX, when they share their booth, even the people that are not working as the level artist.
Nikos: So, like not the person who will actually receive that and is about to implement the first phase. I, Theo, and all the members of the team they are super excited to see. Okay, let’s see is it ready? When will it be ready? Not just because we want it to be ready so that we can proceed with another booth, but also because we are, you know, eager to see what that studio or that solo developer has prepared for us.
Obviously, this is probably going to be the most impossible decision possible for you, but throughout this year or previous years, is there any exhibition that you really enjoyed seeing in ENDIX?
Nikos: So as a startup, you know, we want to grow, and if we don’t grow, it means that there is an issue. So the first event that we did, as I said also earlier in our interview, we only had like one and a half floors, and then we grew to like three floors, and now we have grown to this.
Nikos: So I can say that, although hopefully, the last event, even in the future, will always be my favorite, because it means that we grow as a company, we grow as an event, and we also grow our community. I believe that every event is equally important because at the end of the day, it puts the, you know, pressure on the team that, okay, we achieved that.
Nikos: Now we need to achieve a bigger event with more people, with more exhibitors, with more creators, more press, and with more interactions inside the booths. At the same time, it also sets, you know, some pressure on our exhibitors as well, because they have seen what past exhibitors have done and they want to surpass that.
Nikos: And that’s why, first of all, the majority of exhibitors, every time they ask, “Can we see some previous work?” So we always share from the past that has been prepared. And from there, they ask, can we do this? Can we do that? Like in this event, we also had jumpscares and, we also had, some exhibitors that, you know, have hidden, specific clues for some keys in their own booths or, as you said, the Project ReMind, that, if I’m not mistaken, they did an actual puzzle.
Nikos: It wasn’t something super sophisticated, but you needed to visit specific locations, and the more we see these things, the more excited we are about what to expect in the next event. So again, long story short, every event is, like, equally important for us being a startup, and personally, the last event was my favorite, but every last event will be my favorite.
So, every visitor is able to make their own avatar, and as we touched on earlier, at the moment, they can customize them a little. But are there any plans to expand on this a little bit, or have you got it to a point where you’re quite happy that they can customize to the point they can?
Nikos: So to be totally transparent, again, as a start-up, we have a specific amount of budget that we have, and we can invest in every event. So we need to be thoughtful of, okay, we have this X amount of money. How to invest this X amount of money? What is necessary? What is good to have and what could wait? So based on equations that take into consideration the budget, the time, because we are also like a small team.
Nikos: So we cannot have multiple people working, even, like, lighting and swimming, and ENDIX or anything like that. So it’s not something like, ENDIX right now as a founder and product manager, I cannot say that its in the point that, I’m okay with it being final, ideally, I would have loved to, you know, make a better, download experience, make a better character customization, and make a better lighting system inside of ENDIX and make more interactions inside of ENDIX.
Nikos: But I know that these things need time and budget, so, at the end of the day, hopefully it’s not the final version that our event will have. But for now, it does the work. So it allows for, as you said, a specific degree of customization. It’s not, you know, fully sophisticated, but it can get you into the experience of creating your own avatar and from there, jumping into the experience of the event, hopefully, in the future, we’ll have, you know, budget time and people to develop more sophisticated character creation or more.
So one of the big core principles of ENDIX, the reason why you started it in the first place, is that people around the world can visit a virtual space without having to spend thousands on plane tickets to travel around the world. But right now, ENDIX is only available for PC. Is there any hope, maybe further down in the line, a few years for ENDIX to appear on other platforms?
Nikos: Yeah. 1,000%. We already think about porting to other platforms like consoles and even Linux systems, and Mac. At the end of the day, though, it’s also important to have titles to support that because if it’s like an event and by an event, we mean, like, you know, games, that can be there.
Nikos: We have the mobile games, and we have the PC games. Some of the PC games also have, console version. But so far, we have not had a console exclusive, and we have not even had the opportunity to talk to a title that was console exclusive. So it’s not a priority, right now, not because we don’t want to, but because we need to be thoughtful.
Nikos: As I said earlier, we have already started discussing a better controller mapping, so that we can accommodate people who do not use the keyboard and mouse, but also, to see if we can bring ENDIX on consoles, and what’s the cost of it? Eventually, we will get there because it’s one of our milestones, should we grow enough, but yeah, for the next event, to be transparent with you, it’s not something that we can afford. At least as of now, if we have, like, a huge publisher coming and saying, I want to do an event, an ENDIX event with, you know, my own island. And I’m eager to have it on consoles.
Nikos: It’s a business discussion that needs to take place to see if it’s something that, first of all, can be created in such short notice and also at the same time if it’s something that will not be harmful to other exhibitors because we don’t want and in every event, this is something that I want to establish, no matter what the exhibitor is on the first floor or the fourth floor or whenever, as a team, we need to, you know, spend, the fairest amount of time to every single booth to ensure that this booth no matter where it is, is going to be amazing.
Nikos: For the exhibitors that trust us with their own project, but also, for the visitors who tend to visit, don’t expect something. So, yeah, long story short, as long as it doesn’t affect us in a negative way or our exhibitors or our visitors, is something that we’re eager to discuss. But if this discussion ever happens for the next event, it’s not a cost that, most probably, we’ll be able to afford ourselves to do the porting.
So this question is a bit challenging because obviously it touches on the same principles as the last question. Right now, as I say, ENDIX is a virtual event. Are you planning to keep it as a virtual event for as long as you can, or is there potential for it to appear somewhere in the real world, even for a one-off?
Nikos: You know, you never know how things in the startup world will end up, maybe like, ENDIX’s next event will hit this growth point and, and there are many more things that we can do, or you know, that the growth that we have so far, every event, which is remarkable from our statistics doesn’t continue to be like that and it’s diminishing and then the community doesn’t support and it’s only around for the event, but doesn’t grow, or we don’t have the budget to do, like, something bigger.
Nikos: I don’t think that we will go to the physical event because our whole vision is around the inclusive event that, you know, allows for specific things that a physical event does not, if, maybe, like a scenario that we were discussing at some point internally, was to offer ENDIX as a white label solution so this means go to specific events and offer to do their events in, an ENDIX way, I can say, but I don’t think, unless it’s a matter of the survivability of the startup and the team that works behind ENDIX, that we will do our own event in a physical way.
Nikos: We may sponsor an activation, as we also did with Iron Mouse, or we may try to, you know, participate as an exhibitor in one of the physical events, if it’s of strategic importance, to connect and reach out to more people, because we are still like a new event in the space, but I think it’s unlikely that we actually shift from doing a digital event to a physical brand.
So one of the limitations that physical events tend to have is that they can only do events once a year, due to larger game releases, scheduling, and so on. At the moment, ENDIX only happens once a year, but is there any sort of hope in the future that you can do it multiple times a year to help games that release earlier and later, within the year?
Nikos: So even for this year, we actually also did one in May.
Liam: Oh, sorry, my mistake.
Nikos: No worries, no worries, so this means that the truth is that we don’t have a specific plan, because again, we go into the startup discussion.
Nikos: So the first one we did, not the proof of concept one, we did, but in 2022, the first actual event that we were ready to do an event, which was last November. Then we did one in May. Now we did one in November. So the plan, as it is, although it’s not official, it’s to do twice per year, because as a startup, we need to do more events per year, to ensure survivability.
Nikos: And, also, it’s something that, as you said, it’s not, you know, a huge time investment for exhibitors, like, okay, let’s wait this one year, one event per year to go and network with people to then be able to see, like, it’s not that much work. So for us, it makes sense that we do two events a year.
Nikos: And that’s the plan. This is why we also think of April or May to do our next ENDIX event.
Liam: Well, put me down for that one because I’m sorry and sad I missed the last one, as the recent one was a lot of fun.
Nikos: Yeah, we will do for sure.
When it comes to running the actual event, are there any issues physical events will come across, such as cancellations, scheduling errors, and more, that you may not come across? Also, are there any challenges that you would come across in the virtual world that in-person events wouldn’t come across?
Nikos: So, when you go to an event, a physical event, you need to set it up, like the event planner, but it’s the day that they have started renting it as a space, right? So, ENDIX, we have our own space. That’s how we also manage to keep the servers open for an additional two days, because we didn’t have anyone from the venue come to say you need your things and go by 6 a.m., for example. So also, if someone wants their own island to be ten yards more to the right, we can accommodate that.
Nikos: Something that, of course, cannot happen, at least not easily in the physical world. So we don’t have these kinds of issues, but we definitely have issues. The issues that we have are more of a game development issue. So this means like, how many people are about to jump in at once? Because we do use Amazon Web Services so that we can scale, the whole thing, even if we have like 1 trillion users, let’s say, although I couldn’t afford that size as the founder, but, yeah, hopefully if we had 1 trillion users, it would have been something insane.
Nikos: But in any case, there are issues, with, launcher downloads or with bugs or, someone that cannot open ENDIX because they haven’t, installed direct H or they don’t have, like a gaming PC and they were expecting to join, but, you cannot do that if you don’t have a GPU because it works as a game development as an actual game.
Nikos: So there are like these technical difficulties, technical questions that may occur during the event that’s why, if you have noticed we are also on the Discord server, I was always around to be able to help people as much as possible with issues that they may have the downloads or, when, you know, extracting the files, or installing, or they faced a bug, or something did not work correctly inside.
Nikos: So ENDIX is a hybrid of an event and game development, which means that we do have the organizational issues of an event. So cancellations or people who did not manage to send us their booth on time, and we need to find a way of what we’re going to do with this booth, because we’re like, three weeks before the event and they have stalled us, like, situations like this will always happen, when it comes to events, physical or digital, but the actual difficulties of the physical world do not exist in our space what exists are bugs, and that’s why we need to prepare and test as much as possible. Weeks, ideally before the actual event.
Liam: So you’ve got more free will in terms of the actual space, but the bugs and the glitches cause a bit more hassle than they would in the real world.
Nikos: Yeah. So, although you know, the technical difficulties in the real world, like electricity or because of rain, something doesn’t work out well, or, you know, things like these will not, will never be an issue in ENDIX.
Liam: That’s true, but an internet outage is maybe the biggest issue.
Nikos: Yeah. Exactly.
So we’ve mentioned this quite a lot, but it’s probably getting a more concise answer for the readers. ENDIX right now is still growing, it’s still getting bigger and bigger every year, and it’s getting more popular. What are your specific hopes and plans for ENDIX as an event in the future?
Nikos: We merge in a sense, in this with, triple A or double A, companies something similar that we did in this even when we had, you know, THQ Nordic, we had, AMD but we also had some indie solo developers that were exhibiting and we show that the community is, equally interested in that, I only hope that in the future, more exhibitors will see the value of preparing such unique experiences.
Nikos: Because it’s a good way to engage with their creators, it’s a good way to create content, for them, but also for the target audience, which is consumers. So, I hope that we will get exclusivities, which will get, like, you know, trailers to be released first time, in ENDIX, and get people excited about it.
Nikos: Show that, you know, the community is being valued. Not only for the physical aspect of it, like, okay, we also attended, huge event, so they get to see our part, but, you know, we actually engage them directly through initiatives like that, whether it is ENDIX or any other event. Our vision is to make the event space and the way that, you know, gamers can be reached out to directly in a more inclusive way, because of all the constraints that we’ve mentioned, like some people have social anxiety, some people cannot travel for x, y, z reasons.
Nikos: So, I only hope that we as an event, ENDIX, are going to have an impact on that and show the need that all companies, regardless, should try to reach out directly to their end customers, and events like ENDIX are a way to do that because they are not physical and, you know, you create an experience at the end of the day so you can reach out directly, not passively, but actively.
Nikos: The user can actually walk into your own booth and get to experience something that you decided as a company to show them. So that’s what we want to achieve.
So, ENDIX is still obviously relatively new, but it’s still getting bigger and better with bigger games, bigger announcements, and so on. How do you hope to beat this challenge of getting these bigger games in? Are you looking to talk to the bigger developers, draw them in a bit more?
Nikos: This is, you know, this is a difficult question because at the end of the day, you reach out and you hope that they will hear what you have to say and agree, and see your vision. There have been companies that did that, and they wanted to support and, you know, they were open to hear, but there will always be companies that are, you know, more difficult to reach out to.
Nikos: They are too invested in their own things, their own marketing, their own outreach. So, as a startup, it doesn’t make sense for them to invest resources, whether it’s time, people, budget, whatever. To be part of, not only ENDIX, but any event that it’s not too well established. So, our plan is to, you know, knock on doors and see who is, saying who’s there, so yeah.
Sadly, this is the final question that we’ve got. Basically, we’ve talked a lot about ENDIX’s future, and how you’d like to make it bigger and better, but the big final question is just what do you see ENDIX looking like in about 5 to 10 years? How do you see the big picture of it?
Nikos: I don’t know, like this is like when you ask a startuper, someone who started something, you know, especially like ENDIX, it’s not like I have seen something similar to ENDIX, and I want to approach it. It’s something unique, right? So, I mean, I cannot tell you myself when I hope or when I believe I will be in 5 to 10 years. I can tell you the two-year vision, if this makes sense.
Liam: Yeah, that’s perfect.
Nikos: The plan is to continue growing, to start having some exclusivity and ENDIX into the event that, you know, people and our community are eager and waiting to see. This is the plan, and you know, hopefully others will try to do that, as well, because, as I said, we’re a small startup.
Nikos: We cannot change the way that global gaming events are happening, but ideally, we may have some impact, and this impact can affect you know, the big players to understand the necessity of it, to understand that okay there are the physical events but at the end of the day, there is this cool way of approaching, the end customers, to approach gamers, it seems that they like it so why not trying to do something like that? And hopefully we will be around, and we’ll be stronger to be able to increase our rates, increase our impact, increase the value that we bring to our exhibitors and, joy that we bring to our visitors, like consumers, creators, and also the, you know, connections and everything that’s been formulated inside of ENDIX.
For more Thumb Wars Gaming coverage, check out our article telling you about the best games from 2025, or our interview with Dean Hall regarding the console release of ICARUS.
Liam is a Senior Editor, Writer, and Critic for Thumb Wars and has been working with the team since day one. Liam is a big fan of all things gaming, as you will catch him playing all of the new releases from every genre you can imagine. Whether you find Liam gaming just for fun or spending his free time streaming, you will always find a smile on his face when it comes to all things gaming.
