Agenda

Moderator: Mark Friedler (CEO of Worlds and Games)
Participants: Gus Tai (Trinity Ventures), Janice Roberts (Mayfield Fund), Mitch Lasky (Benchmark Capital), Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Venture Partners), Tim Chang (Norwest Ventures)

2008 was a record year with nearly $900M invested in virtual world and game companies. Given the number of emerging startups, who is most likely to win market share and mindshare with investors – big companies or entrepreneurs? Will new business models be the competitive edge? Who is best positioned to survive the economic downturn?

John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment

Q&A: Moderated by Alex Pham, LA Times

As the creator of EverQuest, one of the industry’s first and most successful online games, SOE is in a unique position to understand why the online sector is at a crossroads. As SOE gets ready to launch a new breed of online games – with “Free Realms” – Mr. Smedley talks about the evolution of new business models poised to capture the widest audiences yet.

Moderator: Dean Takahashi
Participants: Neil Young (ngmoco), Jason Oberfest (MySpace), Gareth Davis (Facebook), Gregg Sauter (Nokia), Susan Panico (Sony PlayStation Network)

Games are turning up everywhere – if you’re a developer, it’s getting tougher to know where to focus. Do you target the platform with the most users, the highest potential for innovation, or where you can get first-to-market advantage? We’ll ask, “what’s the winning strategy?”

Moderator: N’Gai Croal (Formerly of Newsweek)
Participants: Brett Close (38 Studios), Lars Buttler (Trion World Network), John Rizzo (Zeebo), Denis Dyack (Silicon Knights), Rob Hunter (Gazillion)

Are the barriers to entry just too big with giants like Activision Blizzard using World of Warcraft as a continuous revenue stream to reinvest? We ask key startups how they expect to get in the game, and in the end, who will be holding all the cards? Is there enough of a market to share?

One of the gaming industry’s most versatile veterans – Seamus Blackley, game developer, co-creator of Xbox, and now top gaming artists agent – talks with TV host Geoff Keighley on his secret sauce for creating successful games, including combining the best teams and entertainment properties.

Moderator: Matt Richtel (New York Times)
Participants: Graham Hopper (Disney), Ira Rubenstein, (Global Digital Media Group, Marvel), Susan Bonds (42 Entertainment), David Williams (Nickelodeon Kids and Family Games Group)

What is the mass appeal of games, and how do they scale to reach global markets? Video games have certainly become an international language for the entertainment industry, but what is their potential for mass marketing brands? We ask major brands, does the success of one translate to the other?

Red Sox Nation celebrates him as a World Series winning pitcher; but, most don’t know of his longtime passion for playing fantasy role-playing video games. X-Play TV host Adam Sessler gets to the heart of this passion as he talks to Curt about his goals and ambitions for starting his own game company, 38 Studios.

Moderator: David Edery (Microsoft & co-author of “Changing the Game”)
Participants: Bing Gordon (Kleiner Perkins), Rajat Paharia (Bunchball), Amy Jo Kim (Shufflebrain), Gabe Zichermann (rmbr)

Promoting human interaction is the key to achieving success in business and in life, and gaming has become the most effective way of encouraging these interactions. We’ll discuss how gaming principles are changing the rules of engagement to the extent where they foster learning, reading, customer acquisition and basic application design.

When we say games are becoming pervasive, we haven’t even begun to think of all the ways they will change our lives – but these folks have! And, they are not only going to talk about it, they are going to bring us into the “future of games” with a series of thought-provoking demos.

Moderator: Susan Wu (Ohai)
Participants: Mark Pincus (Zynga), Shervin Pishevar (SGN), Dennis Fong (Raptr), Sean Fanning (EA Rupture), Kristian Segerstrale (Playfish)

Are they a passing fad or do they represent something bigger? Terms of engagement and social norms are constantly in flux, made all the more difficult to anticipate as new social media platforms emerge. How will gaming fit into the new paradigms? Is what sells today going to be socially acceptable tomorrow?

Moderator: Joel Brodie (Gamezebo)
Participants: Alex Terry (NeoEdge Networks), Jameson Hsu (Mochi Media); Nick Fortugno (Rebel Monkey), Susan Choe (Outspark)

Whether it’s the PC or the Wii, Facebook or the iPhone, there is no denying that all games are not only “going casual”, but also becoming a way of life. If they are indeed becoming routine, then what comes next? And, how do companies make money from it?

Moderator: Peer Schneider (IGN editorial director)
Randy Stude (PC Gaming Alliance), Tony Tamasi (Nvidia), Richard Huddy (AMD), Min-Liang Tan (Razer)

Whether it’s experiencing a 3-D world, or it’s virtual, or “Wii-like” – what’s going to be the winning experience? Gaming hardware will heavily influence the answer to that question as we look at the future of the PC and other devices that are shaping the world of gaming.

Get out your Nerf guns. Our analysts debate the size and scope of the worldwide game industry and what we can expect to see in the future. No, we haven’t invited Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, but close!

We scanned the industry to look for the Blizzards and Playfishes of tomorrow – then a group of experts selected seven finalists we feel “have got game”. Each will present a 5-minute pitch after which our judges will question them and select a winner based on their potential for marketability and financial success. And you, the audience, will vote on the “gamers’ choice.”