Organiser of Reboot Develop issued with bankruptcy order, underlining fears over event’s future

The organiser of Croatia’s Reboot Develop Blue conference has been issued with a bankruptcy order by a court in Zagreb citing €520,000 in unpaid debts, according to a machine-translated report in Croatian news site tportal. Digitalna avantura, operated by Damira Đurovićam, has been directed to pay €2.000 to commence bankruptcy proceedings, after a judgement found that the company did not have the assets to pay its outstanding debts.

The judgement confirms long-standing concerns about the future of Reboot Develop, which have swirled for months. Efforts to contact Đurovićam by a number of different parties, including by GamesIndustry.biz, have failed and no other staff are currently known to be working for the business.

The Dubrovnik Sheraton, which has hosted Reboot Develop Blue since 2015, confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that it has received no booking for 2026 and no longer hosts Reboot Develop. The event, which usually runs in April, had celebrated its tenth anniversary in the venue last year.

tportal reported that Đurović was one of the original founders of Digitalna Avantura, which launched in 2012. A long-standing figure in the Croatian games industry, he previously served as editor-in-chief of gaming magazine Hacker and launched popular Zagreb-based consumer event Reboot Infogamer. That event last ran in 2024, which was the last year for which Digitalna Avantura submitted public accounts, showing €139,000 profit from €1.12 million in revenue.

Reboot Develop was launched in 2014 with “the aim of building up a great, high-end game conference for developers and industry professionals in one of the most beautiful places in the world,” he told GamesIndustry.biz in 2015, and quickly made a name for itself by combining major Western keynote speakers with a uniquely laid-back atmosphere in the Dubrovnik Sheraton, a short hop from the UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Adriatic Sea. Indie veteran Rami Ismael described it as “the best games event in the world“, and it was celebrated for its impact on elevating the Eastern European development scene.

A Canadian sibling, Reboot Develop Red, launched in Banff in 2019 and was well-received but the following year’s event was cancelled due to to the COVID-19 pandemic and it did not return.

Concerns over this year’s Reboot Develop Blue had previously been raised by those who’d already paid for tickets, but saw the company fall silent last year. Attempts to contact the event for refunds have failed, although many were holding out hope that it would still take place. GamesIndustry.biz understands that some local developers still plan on congregating in the area in mid-April.