There’s a continuing desire to tap into the brains of top executives to find out what they know about the industry, and that’s something VentureBeat has become very good at doing. The GamesBeat Summit 2015 will bring together 180 gaming executives from all segments of the industry “to develop a blueprint for the industry’s expansion in 2015,” according to the GamesBeat Summit web site.
The summit will explore themes like platforms (including games-as-a-service), global expansion, brands and franchises, monetization, understanding gamers, and the ongoing deals occurring in the game industry. Some of the most useful times, of course, will be the various receptions and meals, where networking is fostered and connections can be forged.
The summit kicks off on Tuesday with Tim Merel of Digi-Capital, who will provide his company’s latest figures on the growth of the mobile game market and the prospects for AR and VR. Insights will follow from speakers like Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari), John Riccitiello (CEO of Unity), and Thomas Hartwig from King Digital.
The crossover from big media companies into games will be explored by David Haddad from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Peter Levin from Lionsgate Interactive. Samsung’s relaunch of its platform will be discussed by VP Mihail Pohontu, and veteran game investor Rick Thompson will close out the day talking about the investment climate for games with VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi.
Wednesday at GamesBeat Summit will find a variety of sessions from the transformation of a mobile developer (ZeptoLab, as told by its CEO Misha Lyalin) to what sort of games we might expect from cloud supercomputing. Kent Wakeford, Kabam COO, will talk about the increasing importance of the mobile game franchise, and there will be concurrent sessions to cover international expansion, brands, monetization, dealmaking, and understanding gamers.
The day concludes with a variety of talks from execs such as Sony’s Adam Boyes, GREE’s Andrew Sheppard, and Super Evil’s Kristian Segerstrale. Attendees will aslo get to learn about Marvel’s path into digital games with peter Phillips, and how Google Play is growing from Google’s Jamil Moledina.
This event promises to be an intense master-class in all aspects of the game industry, giving attendees an overview of the state of the business and where it might be heading in the next year. The people at this summit will be the some of those shaping the direction of the game industry in the next few years, so getting their insights is important. The chance for networking with such people can be even more important, if you have something they might be interested in.
Even the selection of speakers and the topics tells you a great deal about what’s important in the games industry these days. Obviously mobile is hugely important and becoming more so, and Digi-Capital’s upcoming report will confirm that (the mobile segment of the business is projected to grow to $45 billion by 2018). Mobile is also dominating investment and exits in the last twelve months, and that pace probably won’t change. When was the last time you heard of a new console game publisher being founded
Globalization continues to be a hot topic, as China continues on pace to become the world’s largest game market — and Asia will have over half the total mobile game revenues in the world by 2018, according to Digi-Capital. Following along with that is the continuing evolution of monetization and business models, as publishers experiment with all sorts of ways to generate revenue from games.
Perhaps the most important information to glean from the GamesBeat Summit is a greater understanding of gamers, and how that audience has grown, globalized, and evolved. Regardless of what you take from GamesBeat Summit, there will be plenty of insights to be gained from this event.
