VentureBeat’s GamesBeat 2011 conference is coming up fast. Get ready to find out about the latest innovations, opportunities and pitfalls in gaming in the two-day event this coming Tuesday and Wednesday at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. You’ll be able to network with the hottest gaming startups as well as veteran gaming innovators and investors. It’s an event you won’t want to miss. We’ve pulled together 79 of gaming’s brightest thinkers to give you the best possible view of where the next best opportunities lie.
Here’s a list of our (updated) most recently-added GamesBeat speakers (be sure to see our full agenda here):
Opening joint keynote: Keith Rabois, chief operating officer, Square
Fireside chat: Jordan Weisman, founder of Harebrained Schemes
Fireside chat: Brian Farrell, CEO of THQ
Jude Gomila, co-founder of Heyzap
Immad Akhund, co-founder of Heyzap
Eric Goldberg, managing director of Crossover Technologies
Anand Iyer, IGN Entertainment
Josh Williams, head of special projects, Kontagent
Frederic Thuard, executive vice president of App Annie
Charles Hudson, co-founder of Bionic Panda Games
Matt Shea, executive vice president of product development at Wild Tangent
Brian Wong, founder of Kiip
Joshua Hernandez, CEO of Tap.me
Anthony Ha, reporter at Adweek
Laurent Gil, CEO of Viewdle
Gene Becker, AR strategist at Layar
Evan Kirchhoff, co-founder and chief technology officer at Qubop
Matthew Lynley, VentureBeat writer
Charles Hudson, CEO of Bionic Panda Games
Nicole Lazzaro, founder of XEO Design
Mark Baxter, co-founder and vice president of product at Vivity
Margaret Wallace, CEO of Playmatics
Brett Seyler, vice president of strategy for Unity Technologies
Michael Agustin, founder, GameSalad
Walter Luh, CEO of Ansca Mobile
Loyd Case, technology writer
Cliff Edwards, writer for Bloomberg Businessweek
George Jones, Invention Media
Baudouin Corman, vice president of publishing in the Americas at Gameloft
Giancarlo Mori, chief creative officer at Glu Mobile
Japheth Dillman, co-founder of YetiZen
Dennis Ryan, head of publishing, PopCap Games
Peter Driesssen, CEO of Spil Games
Rob Wyatt, Chief Scientist, Otoy
Ann Burkett, veteran game developer and chair of the Silicon Valley IGDA
Our previous announced speakers include Wibe Wagemans, Humming Bird of Rovio; Adam Lavine, CEO of FunMobility; Dror Oren, executive director of the SRI Ventures team at Silicon Valley research institution SRI International; Colin DiGiaro, chief operating officer at social and mobile gaming firm MindJolt; Brian Selzer, president and founder of Ogmento; Suli Ali, CEO of TinyCo; Dennis Ryan, executive vice president of worldwide publishing at PopCap Games; Keith Lee, CEO of Booyah; Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry; Eric Eldon, editor of Inside Network; Daniel Terry, CEO of Pocket Gems; Michael Pachter, managing director and gaming analyst at Wedbush Securities; Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion Worlds; Mark Friedler, game industry consultant; Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam; Joe Kraus, partner at Google Ventures; Shervin Pishevar, managing director of Menlo Ventures; Peter Driessen, CEO of Spil Games; Julian Farrior, CEO of Backflip Studios; Kris Duggan, CEO of Badgeville; Jeferson Valadares, general manager of games at Flurry; Gabe Leydon, chief executive of Addmired; Lou Fasulo, chief operating officer of Z2Live; Dave Castelnuovo, CEO of Bolt Creative; David Marcus, founder and CEO of Zong; Rich Wong, a partner at venture capital firm Accel Partners; Chris Bergstresser, executive vice president of online gaming portal Miniclip; Neil Young, founder and CEO of Ngmoco; Andrej Nabergoj, founder and chief executive of Outfit7; Jason Citron, founder and chief executive of OpenFeint; Steve Perlman, chief executive of games-on-demand firm OnLive; Trip Hawkins, chief executive of Digital Chocolate; Peter Relan, chairman of YouWeb and chief executive of CrowdStar; Si Shen, chief executive of PapayaMobile; longtime game entrepreneur and founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell; Tim Chang, partner at Norwest Venture Partners; Suli Ali, CEO of TinyCo; Sana Choudary, CEO of game startup accelerator YetiZen; and Tim Merel, managing director of Digi-Capital.
Each year, GamesBeat follows a big trend. In 2009, we focused on how All The World’s a Game, with the explosion of games onto a global stage. Last year, GamesBeat@GDC focused on Disruption 2.0. This year, our theme is Mobile Games Level Up, and it focuses on the busy intersection of games and mobile technology. We’ll focus on everything from smartphone games to tablets and handhelds.
Console games dominated the news in the past, but the center of attention is rapidly shifting toward mobile as more and more users play games on the run. While there are hundreds of millions of gamers on Facebook, analysts believe the number could be much higher for mobile games. Our speakers are right at this intersection of gaming and mobility. GamesBeat 2011 targets an audience of CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, investors, marketers and other key figures in the game business. Stay tuned for more speaker announcements.
We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Sibblingz, OpenFeint, Spil Games and WildTangent.