Unlock, a new conference in La Jolla, Calif., is aiming draw the elite executives of the video game industry. The two-day event is hosted by the leaders of IGN, GameStop, and Facebook’s game business.
Roy Bahat, general manager of News Corp.’s IGN, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the invite was inspired by other close-knit Internet conferences such as The Lobby, FOO Camp, and Kinnernet. It will use an “unconference” format with some surprises and no formal speakers.
“It’s an unstructured conference, an experiment,” said Bahat. “We’re trying out a format that has worked well in the Internet space.”
The first event will take place April 11-13 at the Lodge at Torrey Pines, a resort in La Jolla, Calif., near the Torrey Pines golf course. The invite list will be short at 50 to 70 people, and the participants will pay a fee of $1,795. The invite-only event will draw both established leaders and up-and-comers.
The themes will be drawn from the participants, and discussions will be led by volunteers from among the participants themselves. In that sense, it’s not unlike our own VentureBeat Mobile Summit.
Sadly for journalists, the event will be off the record. Besides Bahat, the hosts include Chris Petrovic of GameStop and Sean Ryan, the games head at Facebook.