We’re stocking up on star speakers for our GamesBeat Summit 2018, which will take place at the beautiful Claremont Resort in Berkeley, California, on April 9 and April 10. Our conference is all about making games better and improving the business, and our latest speakers should help us realize this vision.
Our speakers include Philip Rosedale, the CEO of virtual reality world High Fidelity and former head of Linden Lab, the creator the virtual world Second Life; Andrea Rene, host, video producer, and writer at What’s Good Games; and Aaron Loeb, the president of studios at FoxNext Games.
You can get your tickets here at 30 percent off our rate using the code DEAN. We’ve also got a new code for indie game developers, IndieVIP on this link. (We’ll be checking to make sure only indie devs use this code).
Rosedale will participate in a panel dubbed “The Leisure Economy,” which is about all of the ways that people are finding how to be paid to play games — such as esports athletes, game modders, and cosplayers. That panel also includes Gio Hunt, executive vice president at Blizzard Entertainment, and Jon “Neverdie” Jacobs, one of the pioneers of virtual spaces and a cryptocurrency leader.
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Rosedale cofounded High Fidelity to make virtual reality spaces in 2013. He invested in startups such as Milk, Sunglass.io, Akili Interactive, and Crowdfunder. He was a cofounder of Coffee & Power, and in 1999, he started Linden Lab, which built Second Life, one of the most successful virtual worlds in history. He was also chief technology officer at RealNetworks.
Above: Andrea Rene is cofounder of What’s Good Games.
Rene will moderate a fireside chat with Janina Gavankar, the actress who had the starring role as Iden Versio in Electronic Arts’ blockbuster game Star Wars: Battlefront II. Rene cofounded What’s Good Games in April 2017, and she is a frequent host of game-related shows and events. She also co-hosts the daily video game news show Kinda Funny Games Daily. She was recently nominated for Trending Gamer at The Game Awards 2017, and she has hosted for Facebook Live, VICE, IGN, Gamespot, and many more.
Above: Aaron Loeb, president of FoxNext Studios.
Loeb will appear in a fireside chat, dubbed Hollywood 2.0, with NBCUniversal’s Chris Heatherly and Michael Metzger of Houlihan Lokey.
Loeb runs the studios for publishing mobile and virtual reality games at FoxNext Games, the new game division at Fox. FoxNext formed recently, and it acquired Aftershock, which included a couple of studios that made mobile games for Kabam. FoxNext games acquired Cold Iron Studios to work on a sci-fi shooter PC game based on the Alien films. FoxNext is also working on mobile games based on the Avatar films and The X-Files TV show. Besides FoxNext and Kabam, Loeb is also a veteran of mobile games at Electronic Arts.
Our speakers fit within our theme of The Future of Games: Better games, better business, the Time Machine. If you could see the future of games before it happens, that would give your business a competitive advantage. Our event will let the hottest game developers, publishers, and investors talk with their peers and business executives about their insights into the future of games.
GamesBeat Summit 2018 is the destination conference for networking, inspiration, and intelligent interaction. With the right people in the room to make great deals happen, our flagship industry event attracts the best game and tech developers and publishers, executives, marketers and venture capitalists. This event is intended for VP-level executives and the hottest game developers and publishers.
We’ll touch delve into the strategies of the future for gaming, and how to drive excitement, growth, and new startups. Our talks will feature augmented reality, virtual reality, esports, influencers, mobile games, core games, indies, new game technologies, and the connection between games, tech, and science fiction. We want to expose you to ideas like The Leisure Economy, where everyone in the future will be able to make a living playing games.
Games have changed as they’ve reached a billion people and $116 billion in yearly revenues, reaching the mainstream like they never have before. Can we still apply the lessons from the past to the current and future marketplace? And what type of innovations and companies will draw the blueprint of what’s to come? So much of the industry’s internal narrative has been about it being cutting-edge. How can we imagine a broader set of drivers other than technology that will shape the industry?
Our previously announced speakers include Janina Gavankar, lead actress of Star Wars: Battlefront II; congressional candidate Brianna Wu; Tencent’s Dan Brody, vice president of business development at Tencent; Rand Miller, co-creator of Myst and Riven; John Underkoffler, CEO of Oblong Industries and science adviser for the influential sci-fi film Minority Report; Amit Kumar of Accel, a venture investor; Jon “Neverdie” Jacobs, CEO of Neverdie Studios. Josh Yguado, president and chief operating officer of Jam City; Matt McCloskey, vice president of commerce at Twitch; Joost van Dreunen, CEO of SuperData Research; Nick Earl, CEO of Glu; Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors; Michael Metzger, investment banker at Houlihan Lokey; Chris Heatherly, head of NBCUniversal’s new game business; Debbie Bestwick, CEO of Team17; Perrin Kaplan, principal at Zebra Partners; Stephanie Chan, writer at GamesBeat; Bill Roper, chief creative officer at Improbable; and Paul Bettner, CEO of Playful, the creator of the VR titles Lucky’s Tale.
Advisory board
- Nicole Lazzaro, CEO of XEO Design
- Noah Falstein, chief game designer at Google
- James Zhang, CEO of Concept Art House
- Joost van Dreunen, CEO of SuperData Research
- Peter Levin, president of Lionsgate Interactive
- Jamil Moledina, Google Play
- Michael Metzger, senior vice president at Houlihan Lokey
- Mihir Shah, CEO of Immersv
- Gordon Bellamy, visiting scholar at USC
- Kate Edwards, former executive director at IGDA
- Tom Sanocki, CEO of Limitless
- Phil Sanderson, managing director at Ridge Ventures
- Perrin Kaplan, principal at Zebra Partners
- Sibel Sunar, CEO of Fortyseven Communications
- David Edery, CEO of Spry Fox
- Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors
Topics will include:
- Intersection of sci-fi, games and tech
- Platforms: Where to place your bets? AR, VR, & more
- Creating a culture of inspiration and creativity
- Emerging markets for games
- Monetization: How to acquire and retain users
- Esports and building the community
- Deals: Follow the money
- Diversity and the expanding ecosystem
- Early Access as a business model
- How mods can launch new game genres
- What game engine should you use?
Sponsors include: Intel, Appodeal, Accel, Epic Games, Yomob, Wargaming, Worldpay, Altered Ventures, and Gfycat.
