2010 D.I.C.E. Summit speakers announced

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences revealed its line-up of initial speakers for the 2010 D.I.C.E. Summit taking place at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, February 17-19, 2010. The speaker line-up is an interesting mix of legal professionals, entertainment industry luminaries and game developers at the forefront of the field.

The 2010 line-up includes Dr Susana Martinez-Conde and Dr. Stephen L. Macknik, Laboratory Directors at The Barrow Institute; Ken Doroshow, Senior Council, Electronic Software Association , former Senior VP, Litigation and Legal Affairs, Recording Industry Association of America, and senior counsel to the United States Department of Justice; Matias Myllrinne, President of Remedy Entertainment, makers of the upcoming Alan Wake; Steve Perlman, Founder, President and CEO, OnLive; and Professor Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon University, who teaches Entertainment Technology, specializing in Game Design - and formerly Director of the Walt Disney Imagineering VR Studio.

The D.I.C.E. Summit 2010 is also the home of the 13th annual Interactive Achievement Awards, which takes place on February 18th (and once again hosted by Jay Mohr). Immediately following D.I.C.E. this year, will be the Indie Games Challenge winners announcements and celebration.

Registration for the event is currently open and those that register by October 30th will get special 2009 early bird pricing. Find out more by visiting www.dicesummit.org.

Nexon America’s Min Kim to keynote GDC China

Min Kim, vice president of marketing at Nexon America, is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the 2009 Game Developers Conference China. GDC China will take place at the Shanghai International Convention Center, October 11-13 of this year. The event is being presented by Think Services.
In his keynote address titled “A Fantastic Westward Journey,” Kim will share with Chinese developers Nexon’s experiences in bringing popular Korean games and new business models to North America. Once relegated to the continent of Asia, microtransactions have become a catalyst for the North American games market thanks to hit imports such as Nexon’s successful MapleStory franchise.

Nexon is also well known for developing the world’s first internet quiz game, QPlay, setting a world record of 700,000 concurrent users in China in 2004 with Crazy Arcade BnB, and developing South Korea’s most played online game KartRider (over 30% of the population). Nexon plans to re-launch its publishing efforts under a new portal, BlockParty.com, which will house a total of eight titles in the US by the end of 2010 including Dungeon Fighter Online (due to launch later this year) and Dragon Nest.

PAX 09 call for speakers deadline looms

The organizers of the sixth annual PAX gaming festival today gave the final call for speakers for this year’s show to be held Sept. 4 - 6 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle. With over 60,000 attendees expected, PAX 2009 is a good place for industry professionals to demonstrate upcoming releases, educate audiences and discuss trends in panels.

The Call for Speakers is open to all game industry professionals worldwide, with speakers selected based on their past experience, knowledge of the industry and the topic proposed. Prospective speakers must submit a completed session proposal form at paxsite.com by May 31 to be considered for this year’s show.

China Game Developers Conference 2009 speakers

The organizers of the China Game Developers Conference (CGDC) 2009 and Howell International Trade Fair Ltd. announced that 10 more speakers have been lined up for its event. These speakers will include representatives from such companies as Blizzard Entertainment, EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, THQ, NCSOFT, NEXON, Giant Network, Shanda Games, Tencent, The9, Netease, Perfect World, 9 You and Kingsoft. All CGDC speakers will be announced over the course of the next few weeks.  But you probably want more specifics, right? Here’s a partial list of speakers:

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Taewon Yun, Platform Operation Director, Blizzard Software Development (Shanghai) Company Ltd. - Case study: Balancing game data using tools

David Kristofer Fried, Senior Game Designer, Ubisoft Shanghai - Lecture: Cultural Philosophies of Game Design

Lei Zhang, Senior Audio Expert, Ubisoft Shanghai - Lecture: Mixing in the Game Audio

Ben Mowery, Director, Scaleform - Lecture: Designing Game User Interfaces with Flash Workflow

Yuxin Ren, Senior Executive Vice President, Tencent Corporate - Lecture and Panel: Innovation and development on “ComeStayPay mode”

Quan Chen, NVIDIA PhysX Tech Support Engineer - Lecture: Effectively using a physics engine application in online games

Jerry Mao, Vice President, Object software - Lecture: Effectively using a physics engine application in online games

Yongquan Li, R&D Technical Director - QWD1 Lecture: Effectively using physics engine application in online games

Xinchun Gu, Senior Development Manager, The9 Co., Ltd. - Lecture: Applications of P2P technology for online games

Shiying Wang, Director and Producer, The9 Co. Ltd - Lecture: Social Psychology in Online Games

Conference registration has started, with a 10 percent early bird discount for those who register before June 10, 2009. For more information on conference passes check out www.chinagdc.com.cn.

GamesBeat 2009 Speakers Announced

VentureBeat today announced the speaker line-up for this year’s GamesBeat Conference. GamesBeat 2009 is the inaugural year for the conference and is the only gathering focused entirely on the business of games. Top speakers on this year’s schedule include Sony Online Entertainment’s President, John Smedley, 38 Studios founder and Major League Baseball All-Star Pitcher Curt Schilling, Creative Artists Agency game head Seamus Blakely, Bing Gordon of leading venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Crispy Gamer co-founder John Keefer. The conference takes place on March 24, 2009 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. A full list of speakers can be found after the break.

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Life Lessons at GDC 2009

 The Game Developers Conference announced some conferences this year that help developers and publishers deal with the shifting and volatile economy. The conference will feature talks and lectures that will highlight where the game industry’s strengths and weaknesses lie, and how studios can take advantage of technology and common sense techniques to save money and survive.

There will also be a number of cautionary tales that companies can learn from like the rise and fall of Flagship Studios. Featured speakers and sessions after the break.

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Triangle Game Conference Names Speaker Lineup

If you’re in the game industry or looking to break in and you live somewhere within driving distance of Raleigh, NC, you might want to start making plans to attend the Triangle Game Conference (TGC), set to debut April 29th and 30th at the Raleigh Convention Center and Marriott City Center. The TGC is currently being pushed as “the East Coast forum for networking, career building and sharing gaming industry expertise”.

To that end, the TGC has just announced its lineup of tracks and speakers for its inaugural conference. The conference will cover a range of topics, including subjects like game technology, design and production, games and media, and the business aspects of the game industry. Speakers on tap for the TGC include Entertainment Consumer Association president, Hal Halpin; Epic Games senior Artist, Chris Wells; Insomniac Games Art Director, Chad Dezern; and Destineer Studios creative director (and Red Storm co-founder) Juan Benito.

In addition to scheduled lectures and panels, the Triangle Game Conference will also feature an “Expo, Career Lounge and Game Development University”, a student-oriented exhibition to help aspiring game developers tap into educational resources and make connections with industry leaders.

It sounds like the TGC is shaping up to be something definitely worth checking out for anyone in the area looking to break into the game industry. If you’re looking for more information and want to attend the TGC, head on over to http://www.trianglegameconference.com/ to find out more and to register for the event.