worlds in motion summit

February 18 & 19 - 2008
(Monday & Tuesday)

The Worlds in Motion Summit is a definitive event tailored for the growing number of industry professionals and Fortune 500 companies developing interactive online spaces for both entertainment and commercial purposes. Discussion forums will delve into online worlds, social gaming and media and player created activity, providing insight for developers of all backgrounds into how the game industry is collectively building socialization into games and integrating personalization and player-generated content into gameplay—while widely accessible Web and networking tools are looking to the game industry for their way forward. The summit will also debate the future of gaming, which may lie in the convergence of these new frontiers.

[See Worlds in Motion Summit sessions]

Worlds in Motion Summit Advisor

Leigh Alexander
Editor
Worlds in Motion

Leigh Alexander covers virtual worlds extensively as editor of Worlds in Motion. She is a staff writer for Gamasutra, and examines the philosophy, psychology and pop culture of games and gamers in reviews, features and editorials for Destructoid, GameSetWatch, The Escapist, Paste Magazine and at her workblog, Sexy Videogameland.

Worlds in Motion Summit Sessions

- Relic Labs' Adrian Crook
(Senior producer and head of Relic Labs, an internal group at THQ developer Relic Entertainment (Company Of Heroes, Homeworld series), will present a discussion of the free-to-play business model and how it's helped evolve the face of online play.)

- GoPets' Erik Bethke
(Author and developer Erik Bethke, CEO of GoPets.com, will discuss the tenets of user engagement, and share how taking a lesson from Richard Bartle's four gamer "types" helped grow revenue and create user engagement with his virtual pets product.)

- Conduit Labs' Nabeel Hyatt
(Web entrepeneur Hyatt, whose new online world firm has recently been VC funded, will present a lecture on social gaming with a discussion of games for Facebook.)

- Nexon's Min Kim
(Already a pioneer in areas of online socialization, personalization and microtransactions-based virtual economies in Korea, Nexon successfully brought games like MapleStory and Audition to a variety of markets around the world, including North America and Europe, and Min Kim of Nexon U.S.A. will discuss how knowing individual markets helped these titles achieve big success wherever they've gone.)

- Areae's Raph Koster
(SOE veteran, Areae co-founder and noted industry figure Koster will discuss the ways virtual worlds are increasingly relevant to the ways we play and the evolution of the medium, as the worlds of online spaces, social networking and gaming converge.)

- Worldwide Biggies' Chris Romero
(Interactive entertainment development veteran Romero, CTO of Worldwide Biggies, who did the original prototyping and led the full team for the design and development of Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis, discusses the building of a successful online play space that has garnered users by the millions.)

- Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger
(Millions of Us has successfully brought various music and television properties into the virtual world, most recently supporting CNN's Second Life launch, and Millions of Us CEO Reuben Steiger will be discussing how virtual worlds will play a pivotal role in the convergence of entertainment media, as formerly disparate content meets in a single online experience.)

- Rmbr's Gabe Zichermann
(10-year industry veteran Zichermann developed the concept for rmbr in early 2007 after realizing that he had stopped enjoying the process of dealing with his friends’ online photos, and that a game-centric approach might fix the problem. He will share his perspectives on web concepts and 2D virtual worlds as a dominant paradigm.)

- Multiverse's Corey Bridges and Rafhael Cedeno
(Executive producer and founder Bridges, along with CTO and co-founder Cedeno, will showcase their Multiverse platform for 3D virtual world development, offering a "from the field" demonstration with a new era of end-user in mind, one seeking social media and low barrier to entry.)

- MindCandy's Michael Acton Smith
(Already virtual worlds are beginning to look at mobile as a new frontier in virtual worlds—specifically products that have several points of access to let the user customize his or her experience from any direction. MindCandy's MOSHI MONSTERS virtual pets are one such idea, and interactive entertainment pioneer Michael Smith will share the method to the monsters and his forward-thinking perspective on the space.)

- Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel
(LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE developer Turbine has been quietly implementing some best-of-breed virtual world and social networking elements into its fantasy MMO for some time, and the company's passionate about evolving the multiplayer experience based on lessons on user engagement, connectivity and user-generated content that have come out of the virtual worlds movement. Executive producer Jeffrey Steefel will provide some exciting examples of how users in any sphere can respond to and invest in these innovative ideas.)

More coming soon!