It’s not E3, but the Entertainment Software Association is back in the business of convening the leaders of gaming together at a high-profile event.
Stanley Pierre-Louis, CEO of the ESA, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the group has finished its agenda for its first iicon (Interactive Innovation Conference) event in Las Vegas on April 27 to April 29.
The event gathers leaders of the gaming industry, including many who are part of the leadership board of the ESA. On top of that, the event will connect game business leaders and senior executives with the leaders of other industries to form new partnerships. Applications to attend iicon 2026 are open.
The event at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas will showcase the the influence of games and game technologies on finance, retail, media, healthcare, professional sports, and beyond. The interesting thing about the speakers is that it includes speakers who don’t get out as much in front of the public anymore, beyond quarterly earnings calls.
Confirmed speakers include Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive; Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft; Dylan Jadeja, CEO of Riot Games; Brian Ward, CEO of Savvy Games Group; Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts.
Programming will also feature senior voices from Roblox, Microsoft Xbox, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Scopely, AWS, 2K Games, and more.
Additional speakers come from organizations like Major League Baseball, the NHLPA, WWE, American Red Cross, The New York Times, and Yahoo, demonstrating the successful business impacts of games regardless of industry. Sessions led by Warner Bros. Discovery, Story Kitchen, and Skybound Entertainment will showcase the deep interest of Hollywood in video game IP.
I asked Pierre-Louis if he had an idea of the attendance yet, but he noted that the focus for the first event isn’t large numbers. Rather, effort is being made to screen applications for people who are senior leaders in gaming themselves. In that way, iicon is getting away from the trade show and consumer event that E3 represented in the past. iicon is open exclusively to senior executives, giving press access to C-suite and other key decision makers.
The sad thing about the passing of E3 in 2023 was that gaming lost its primary North American show at a time when the industry was beginning to struggle with the challenges of layoffs and shifts in hiring from North America to other parts of the world. Amir Satvat, the game job champion, estimated that gaming’s total work force grew 0.6% by 4,000 jobs to 754,000 in the last four years, but North America’s jobs declined 11.5%.
I asked about the challenges gaming is facing with competition in the “attention war,” where gaming is losing some ground to addiction industries like sports betting, prediction markets, Only Fans, AI companions, online gambling, YouTube and TikTok.
“We are talking in the Unexpected Play session about why the New York Times is harnessing the power of games to help a journalistic endeavor. That’s in large part because we’re able to bring a new audience at times, but also to retain and expand an audience that exists to see more value in what they’re producing,” Pierre-Louis said. “In many ways, this summit will allow us to demonstrate the breadth and the reach of games. And I think that’s probably something not being captured in some of the analysis of pure gameplay, because what we’re seeing is games are part of the growth engine of so many other sectors.”
In other words, just when gaming needed real leadership in the U.S., the main show for doing that collapsed. We’re of course happy to offer GamesBeat events like our GamesBeat Summit coming on May 18-19 in Los Angeles, but it feels like the conversation needs to happen at all levels of the game industry more frequently.
The event will have mainstage and breakouts sessions, intermixed with meals, drinks, and networking opportunities in a unique space the ESA is calling the Game Theater – with branded spaces from brands like Nintendo, Nascar, Amazon Luna, and more.
“One of the things we’re enjoying, and I know that you’ve experienced it, is when you convene people, particularly around the themes that you do, it’s awesome,” Pierre-Louis said. “It’s hard running it, but when you get to walk around, it’s really powerful.”
“We’ve talked about iicon a couple of times in the past, and so it’s great that the things that I’ve said to you in the past have evolved into the things that we are actually presenting,” said Pierre-Louis. “That’s thanks to our strong team, spelled Aubrey Quinn.”
Main stage speakers include:
- Tony Hawk, Skateboarding Legend
- Andrew Wilson, CEO, Electronic Arts
- Strauss Zelnick, CEO, Take-Two Interactive
- Alain Tascan, President of Games, Netflix
- Kendra Johnson, YouTube
- Jules Shumaker, Chief Business Officer, Discord
- Yves Guillemot, CEO, Ubisoft
- Dylan Jadeja, CEO, Riot Games
- Brian Ward, CEO, Savvy Games Group
- Jeff Gattis, Amazon
- Andrew Pedersen, Yahoo
- Jonathan Knight, the New York Times Games
- Crystal MacKenzie, VP of Global Marketing, NBA 2k
- Adrienne O’Keeffe, SVP Global Partnerships & Media, NBA
- Peter Banks, Senior Director of Marketing, MLB
- The creative team behind Mortal Kombat II
- The creative team and showrunner for Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft
- Plus leaders from AWS, Roblox, 2K, WWE, Scopely, Niantic, Goldman Sachs, Atari, Balor Games, and S&P Global.
The impact of games
He said the was to produce something completely different than other existing events, either within gaming or outside in other industries.
“We wanted iicon to introduce business leaders from across industries to the power of interactive entertainment. They know this intrinsically because they use it, but there hasn’t been a forum to share the experiences and the insights. We’re seeing a growing recognition that video games and interactive entertainment technology influence nearly every other industry. If you look in the entertainment sector, you have IP moving from games to film content in the form of movies and streaming programs and vice versa.”
He added, “In sports, we’ve had games for a long time, but now we’re seeing the impact of video game technology influencing the way sports are broadcast and consumed after every touchdown. It looks like you’re in a video game when they’re chasing the recipient of the ball who scored. And so you’re beginning to see that the way that people play games now influences how they’re consuming other media.”
He added, “And then we’re also seeing how games have influenced education, retail, finance, healthcare, all these sectors and more. And bringing them under one roof was the challenge that we really wanted to meet our current industry. Events bring us together as an industry, and it’s to speak to each other, and we think that has tremendous value.”
“We’ve got a network and a dining space where people can come together. We call it the Game Theater. It is not a trade show or a consumer show, but rather some brand activations that are different than other shows, ranging from racing and golf simulations to gaming stations and meeting spaces,” he said.
The creative teams behind Mortal Kombat 2 and Tomb Raider: Legend of Lara Croft are coming, as are sports leagues like the MLB, WWE and the NBA.
“WWE started with us in games, they built that out, and now you’re seeing them on more mainstream programming, right? You’re seeing them on ESPN all weekend long with WrestleMania and so on,” Pierre-Louis said.
There are companies like Amazon, Yahoo and the New York Times talk about gaming tech and why it’s been so important for their business strategies. The event will feature skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. Roblox and AWS will talk about infinitely scaling games, and part of that will touch on AI in game development. There’s also a breakout session about healthcare and the healing power of games.
Pierre-Louis said the gaming CEOs on the ESA board saw the value of what games and game technology could bring to such an event.
“We were able to present them with proof points that are under the hood in their own shops. So as they thought about the impact of games, it made a lot of sense to engage on this front, because the video game industry is one of the, if not the most successful, entertainment sector,” he said.
Future growth
Speakers like Wilson at EA will talk about the precipice of what’s next for gaming after decades of growth.
“And part of that growth for the next iteration is what we’re talking about in these mainstage sessions, as well as the breakouts,” he said. “Everyone loves The Last of Us and Fallout. What does that mean is next for gaming IP? The same is true for healthcare. How do we help outcomes that are on a positive trend grow even further through video game technology?”
Pierre-Louis said the group has not yet decided to do another iicon event, as they want to get through the first one.
“We want to take our learnings from this iicon and determine what we want to do next,” he said.