Our latest speakers for GamesBeat 2018 can look into the future of VC for games: Eric Goldberg, Nabeel Hyatt, Greg Milken, and Gordon Rubenstein. They’ll be talking about the biggest opportunities in games, and what’s offering the best returns right now, plus tackle the big questions: Is esports reaching its peak? Is augmented reality the hot tip or should you be looking at Brazil? What are the prospects for the next major games platform, from voice assistants to the cryptocurrency ecosystem? Come learn what configurations of people, market, and unique selling proposition are most likely to garner investment and more, on our panel, “Skating to Where the Puck is Going to Be: The Games VC Forecast for the Next 12 Months”
We’ve also switched venues to a secluded placed called The Seminary at Strawberry in Mill Valley, California, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Our dates and agenda are still the same at April 9 and April 10. Our conference is all about making games better and improving the business, and our speakers should give us a window into the future of game technologies.
You can get your tickets here at 30 percent off our rate using the code DEAN. We’ve also got a new $500 code for indie game developers, IndieVIP, on this link.
Eric Goldberg, Managing Director, Crossover Technologies
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
Above: Eric Goldberg, Managing Director, Crossover Technologies
Eric is a 35-year veteran of the game, mobile, consumer internet, monetization, and edtech industries, serving in capacities ranging from game designer to executive. Since 2002, Eric’s affiliations include Art+Craft, AT&T, Bandai Namco, FremantleMedia, EA, Goldman Sachs, Pixelberry, Playdom, PullString, StoryToys, and three US venture capital firms.
Nabeel Hyatt, General Partner at Spark Capital
Nabeel is a General Partner at Spark Capital, focusing on early-stage investments. Nabeel has led Spark’s investments in Capella Space, Discord, Fig, Harmonix, Postmates, Proletariat, Smash.gg, Sonder, and Thalmic Labs. He also led Spark’s previous investment in Cruise (acquired by General Motors). Before joining Spark in 2012, Nabeel was cofounder and CEO of Conduit Labs, and cofounder, head of product, and CEO at a variety of hardware and software companies including MIT Media Lab spin-out Ambient Devices, Teamtalk (BSkyB), and Interphase.
Nabeel Hyatt, General Partner at Spark CapitalNabeel seeks out entrepreneurs who develop that rare combination of design and technology to transform markets. He looks for products in which the underlying technology can be complex, but are presented as a simple, magical experience to the people who use them.
Greg Milken, Managing Director at March Capital Partners
Gregory Milken is Managing Director at March Capital Partners, where he focuses on investments in digital media, gaming, and esports. Gregory has led March Capital’s investments in broadcasting solution Genvid Technologies, game mastery platform Dojo Madness, and game developers nWay and Wavedash.
Prior to his career as a venture capitalist, he worked in the education, entertainment, and technology spaces, and is an active angel investor. His current investments include Viagogo, Small Giant Games, and Immortals.
Gordon Rubenstein, Managing Partner at Raine Ventures
Above: Gordon Rubenstein, Managing Partner at Raine Ventures
Gordon Rubenstein is the Managing Partner of Raine Ventures, a global venture capital platform focused on creating, building, and investing in the next generation of digital media properties. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cheddar, Tastemade, Plexchat, Waggle, Whipclip, Happn, and Rising Tide Games (acquired by Zynga), and is actively involved in a number of portfolio companies including Mitosis, Super Evil Mega Corp, Dojo Madness, Kite & Lightning, Mobcrush, Vettery, Raze, and Globality.
Prior to Raine Ventures, Gordon was a Co-Founder of Rave Digital Media (acquired by AMC Entertainment) and Astro Gaming (acquired by Logitech), where he served as Executive Chairman. In addition, Gordon was a Founder and Managing Director of Pacific Partners, an operationally focused investment firm backed by George Soros, Sam Zell, and leading technology executives and entrepreneurs.
Our speakers fit within our theme of The Future of Games: Better games, better business. 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 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:
- show host and Spiketrap cofounder Adam Sessler
- science fiction writer Eliot Peper
- John Hanke, CEO of Niantic Labs
- Andrea Rene, game host
- Aaron Loeb, president of FoxNext Games Studios
- Philip Rosedale, CEO of High Fidelity
- 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, Drake Star
- 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, Worldpay, Appodeal, Unreal Engine, Accel, Universal, Google, Streamlabs, Yomob, Altered Ventures, Mindmaze, Consul General of Canada, Pearl Abyss, Leyou, Jam City, Scalefast, Gfycat, AppOnboard and Mobcrush.
