Interested in finding out what’s next for the gaming industry? Join game executives to discuss emerging industry segments in October at GamesBeat Summit Next. Register now.
We’re thrilled that our speakers for GamesBeat Summit Next 2022 include Mark Pincus, the co-founder and former CEO of Zynga (acquired by Take Two Interactive earlier this year for $12.7 billion), who pioneered social gaming for to help build the game as a mass game. market activity.
Waves of hype often crash in the gaming industry, but we never know if they will get our feet wet or become tidal waves that change the entire industry. GamesBeat Summit Next 2022 will explore the next big opportunities in a disciplined way with industry thought leaders. You can use the discount code Dean50 to get 50% off the ticket price for a limited time.
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Our event will focus on new areas of the game that will be the next big market. Our main sub-themes will focus on key areas and their growth in the post-pandemic world. These subtopics include the metaverse, user-generated content and creator economy, influencer and marketing disruption, non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrency, emerging markets, subscriptions and cloud gaming. , and the evolution of sports infrastructure. And as always, we look at the transactions and financial trends of the games.
Mark Pincus
Pincus founded Zynga in April 2007, along with Eric Schiermeyer, Justin Waldron, Michael Luxton, Steve Schoettler and Andrew Trader (working as Presidio Media).
He changed his name to Zynga, named after Pincus’s bulldog, and had great success with a social poker game, Texas Hold’Em Poker, now known as Zynga Poker.
During Pincus’ tenure as Zynga’s CEO, the company rode the wave of social gaming on Facebook and then made a somewhat rocky transition to mobile. Under his tenure, the San Francisco company delivered big hits like FarmVille, CityVille and FrontierVille. It got more than a billion players, and it shows that a company can reach more people than the hardcore game companies at the time.
Pincus helped pioneer the free-to-play business model of social games, where players paid real money to buy virtual items such as poker chips that they could not withdraw. Building on this success and the games-as-a-service model, Zynga went public in 2011. With thousands of employees, Zynga bought the former Sega digs in San Francisco.
In 2014, Pincus handed over the CEO job to Xbox veteran Don Mattrick, and it didn’t go well. Less than a year later, Pincus returned as CEO and eventually hired Frank Gibeau from Electronic Arts. Gibeau helped Zynga regain its mojo through acquisitions and eventually sold Zynga to Take-Two Interactive for $12.7 billion. Pincus became an investor and is now looking closely at the blockchain gaming market.
We talk to him about his plans and what he thinks about the game industry today. Pincus was an early active investor in several technology companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Snap, Epic Games, Xiaomi, JD.com, Niantic and Dapper Labs. It’s been a decade since Pincus and I chatted fireside at our 2012 GamesBeat event, and I’m glad to see him back.
More speakers
We have also named several other speakers. Among them is Umesh Lakshman, Head of Architecture Solutions, Western, Media and Entertainment at Lumen. He will be speaking in a session on the path created to build the metaverse in real time.
We also have Uri Marchand, CEO of Overwolf, for a session on the future of user-generated content with Enrico D’Angelo, VP of Products, Economy and Ecosystem at Roblox; and Ada Duan, General Manager of Growth Products and Partnerships for Mojang Studios.
Our speakers also included Jay Chang, Co-Founder and CMO, Genopets; Joan Kim, Investor, Samsung Next; Chris Early, senior vice president of strategic partnerships and business development at Ubisoft; Andrea Cutright, Global Marketing Manager for Prime Gaming & Game Growth at Amazon Games; Mike Lucero, director of product management for Samsung games; and Perrin Kaplan, former head of marketing at Nintendo of America and co-founder of Zebra Partners.
Previously announced speakers
We previously announced that our speakers included Sim City creator Will Wright, now co-founder of Gallium; and Matthew Ball, CEO of Epyllion and author of the popular book, The Metaverse.
Wright will talk about his new startup, Gallium Studios, and his vision for gaming in a fireside chat with Peter Levin, managing partner of Griffin Gaming Partners, while Ball develops the open metaverse.
Neville Spiteri, CEO of pioneering virtual reality company Wevr, will talk about tools for the next generation of game development. They are one of the best clairvoyants in the industry with a track record of excellence.
Renee Gittins, CEO of Phoenix Labs and former executive director of the International Game Developers Association, will be part of an interesting panel titled Soft Skills for Hard Problems. He will be joined by Aleissia Laidacker, mixed reality expert and head of product and technology at the Open Meta Association. Other panelists included Yaprak Decarmine, CEO of Game Jolt; Lauren Hetu, Senior Software Engineer, Phoenix Labs; and Zak Whaley, director of engineering at PlayEveryWare. These speakers illustrate what we can learn from thinkers who solve modern problems in different ways.
We also have a great series of user-generated content pitching sessions, led by the modding platform company Overwolf. Speakers include Overwolf’s Merchant as well as Shahar Sorek, Overwolf’s Marketing Director.
Brooks Brown, Founder of Consortium9, will also shed light on the right way to think about blockchain, and Umesh Lakshman, Head of Solution Architecture West, Media and Entertainment at Lumen, a technology infrastructure company preparing for real- time metaverse. We also have Susan Bonds, CEO of 42 Entertainment, an alternate reality game creator, and her new augmented reality work Animal Repair Shop.
This is the first set of incredible speakers we have lined up for the event, which will be held in person at the Midway in San Francisco on October 25-26. We have curated a great experience across multiple tracks so you can explore the evolving side of the game close to your heart.
Our target audience is the decision makers who will lead the way to a bigger and better gaming industry. The road through the recession is not easy, especially since things are not progressing as fast as before and high-flying areas like blockchain gaming have crashed. But we have the right people explaining the most important trends in the game so you can carve your way to growth.
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