We’ve named new key speakers for GamesBeat Next 2025, our next major event in San Francisco on November 12-13 at the beautiful event location Convene.
We’d love for you to come, either by signing up for GB Max premium or purchasing a ticket at this link. (Here’s a buy-one-get-one-free offer). Our event will be a half-day in the afternoon on November 12 and a full day on November 13.
Our newest speaker is Humam Sakhnini, the new CEO of Discord, who took over earlier this year from founder Jason Citron. Discord has more than 200 million monthly active users who spend two billion hours playing games across thousands of titles.
Sakhnini, who previously took over King after Riccardo Zacconi retired, spent more than 15 years in the gaming industry. Most recently he was vice chairman at Activision Blizzard, managing a multi-billion dollar portfolio including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. Thanks to Candy Crush, he helped King grow operating income from $600 million to $1.3 billion. Michael Metzger of Drake Star Partners will moderate the session with Sakhnini.
We also have Clinton Sparks, CEO of Global Gaming League, who will speak in a fireside chat moderated by Gerard “HipHopGamer” Williams. Sparks teamed up with T-Pain, raising $10 million for GGL to create shows where celebrity-owned esports teams compete against each other. Williams, who is a partner with GamesBeat, will bring excitement to their conversation about how “everybody plays.”
We’ve also got Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox, returning as a speaker. Pitchford, once a professional magican, always has colorful stories about art and entertainment. His studio bounced around a couple of times in the M&A markets, but Pitchford landed the company as part of Take-Two Interactive and was able to bring Borderlands 4 to the market.
We’ll talk about how long it took to realize the ambition of the Borderlands universe, which Pitchford has been working on as a franchise for 20 years.
Another speaker joining Dmitri Johnson, cofounder of Story Kitchen, on a Hollywood and Games panel is Lisa Burgess, the general manager of kids games at Netflix, where she leads the strategy and development of games for young audiences.
She stepped into the role in January 2025, after more than eight years at Netflix leading teams in the Data Science & Engineering organization.
More speakers
Now here are more of the recently named speakers. They include Gordon Bellamy of USC, Veda Cruz and Brandon Huffman of Odin Law, Oksana Kubshyna of Seeker Entertainment, Uri Marchand of Overwolf, Mac Reynolds of Night Street Studios, Mark Stanley of Syndicate of Play, Rich Vogel of T-Minus Zero Entetainment, Bill Young of Twitch, Jen MacLean of Dragon Snacks Games, Ben Granados of Publish, Burcu Hakguder of Layer, Ron Scott of Xsolla, Rich Vogel of T-Minus Zero Entertainment, and Margaret Stohl.
We’ve also got Adam Cunningham of Allied Global Marketing, Alexandra Takei of Ruckus Games, Eric Goldberg of Playable Worlds, Hemal Thaker of Goldman Sachs, Dara Leung of Raine Group, Alexander Lee of GamesBeat, Tsahi Lieberman of Styrax Studios, Pete Hawley, Ethan Levy of Deconstructor of Fun and Kayla Kinnunen of Microsoft.
For our emcees, we have Tadhg Kelly and Alice Martinez, Darion Lowenstein, as well as HipHopGamer. That means we have to add three more emcees.
Previously announced speakers
Our previously announced speakers include John Hight, president of digital gaming and Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro, and the man in charge of the strategy for games for Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons — franchises that have seen so much success in gaming.
It’s great to have him as a speaker at GamesBeat Next, which is close to the gaming hubs of the Bay Area and the tech companies of Silicon Valley. We’ll be happy to have both returning and new GamesBeat community members at the conference, as well as people from the neighboring communities of tech and entertainment. It’s a more intimate event for business leaders, with a target of around 500 or so people each year.
Our theme is Game On: Driving the industry’s next chapter. We know that the video game industry is always on the move. We’ve had tough times, but perseverance is a trait of video game veterans. After a cycle of disruption and reset, we believe a new era is beginning — one shaped by bold builders, adaptive leaders, and next-gen technology.
Let’s drive the next chapter — one where creativity, innovation, and smart strategy lead the way. From reshaping game discovery to retooling development pipelines, the future is being built now, and the people driving it will be in the room.
This event is a special event for us as it’s aligned with our new structure of major focus areas of gaming, entertainment and technology — as well as the focus areas of game development, gameplay and gaming culture.
We’ll have a close look at investment strategy with seasoned VC/investor panel that includes Emily Greer, venture partner at 1Up Ventures; Emily Wang (moderator), partner at Griffin Gaming Group; and Holly Liu, a cofounder of Kabam. [We’re looking for one more speaker to replace another on on this session].
We have our Women in Gaming breakfast that includes our traditional panel kicking off day two with moderator Rachel Kaser, GamesBeat writer; and Raashi Sikka, head of diversity at Ubisoft. We have some unconfirmed candidates for the session as well.
We’re also excited to host the return of Game Changers, the celebrated list of top gaming and tech startups from Lightspeed and GamesBeat. The deadline to apply online is October 5, 2025. Moritz Baier-Lentz, partner at Lightspeed, will host a panel beginning with the insights of our all-star judges as well as our top five startups on the list.
Also returning is our diversity in gaming focus, with a panel entitled Fresh Voices in Gaming and Tech, including Carla Bedrosian of Xsolla and Kanessa Muluneh of Rise of the Fearless in Dubai. We have a couple of openings on this one too.
More speakers on games for health include Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Level Ex and moderator Noah Falstein, founder of The Inspiracy and a frequent moderator at GamesBeat events as well as a longtime GamesBeat adviser.
We have a panel on studio cultures with Gordon Bellamy, professor at USC; Daryl Ogden (moderator), cofounder of Valued Cultures; Feargus Urquhart, founding studio head of Obsidian Entertainment; and Oksana Kubushyna, CEO of Seeker Entertainment.
Veda Cruz, attorney at Odin Law & Media, will talk about legal matters for game companies in a roundtable. Mohamed El Sheakh, CEO of of Games Ventures, will talk about the rise of gaming in the Middle East. Kate Edwards, founder of Geogrify, will talk about the landscape of geopolitics and games; and Marie Mejerwall, consultant, will talk about guiding yourself through a career in gaming.
Brad Hendricks, CEO of Blind Squirrel Games, will address how the right size for a game studio as part of a panel. Chris Hewish and Dean Takahashi will speak about the state of gaming and the opportunities within it.
Dmitri Johnson, cofounder of Story Kitchen, will join us in a session on Hollywood and Games. Uri Marchand will be speaking about brands and user-generated content. Mac Reynolds, cofounder of Night Street Games (and manager of Imagine Dragons), will talk about launching a game next year in the ultra-competitive shooter market. Mark Stanley will lead a panel on building sustainable game businesses in a risk-heavy market.
Other speakers include Aaron Keller, game director of Overwatch 2 at Blizzard Entertainment; Joost van Dreunen, founder of Aldora, author and NYU adjunct professor; Josh Yguado, CEO of Jam City; Holly Liu, cofounder of PKO Investments; Adam Boyes, founder of Vivrato; and David Vogelpohl, CMO of FastSpring.
Gaming in the AI age
AI, of course, is a huge topic of discussion. One of our AI panels is about building personalized player experiences with AI. It includes Hilary Mason, CEO of Hidden Door; Brendan Mulligan, CEO of Liminal Experiences; and Josh English, CTO of Series Entertainment.
We’ll also have a couple of other panels on AI, including one that includes Leo Olebe, chairman of Games for Change; Rich Vogel, CEO of T Minus Zero Entertainment and Alex Kearney, cofounder of Artificial Agency.
Hannah Mankowski, a seasoned narrative professional in gaming, will talk about the case for writers, narrative designers and fresh intellectual property in an age of sweeping cuts and the prevalence of AI. She will talk about why we don’t want to extinguish human voices from the process of making games with strong narrative design.
Ken Wee, chief strategy officer at Mattel and former chief strategy officer at Activision Blizzard, will also do a fireside chat on the intersection of toys, games and tech with moderator Michael Metzger, partner at Drake Star Partners and a GamesBeat adviser.
Audience Profile
Our usual audience for this event is about 500 attendees, where typical 70% are director level and above at game companies. We attract founders, CEOs of bigger companies, executives, developers, investors, and creatives from across the ecosystem.
Thank you
Thank you so much for supporting the newly independent GamesBeat. Gina Joseph and I spun the company out of VentureBeat in April with our existing team; we’ve also added great people to our roster. We are maintaining our GamesBeat community even as we bring you new kinds of content and events. We couldn’t do this without your support and active help in making these events happen.
I hope you’re enjoying my new DeanBeat Backstage personal newsletter under GB MAX, a premier community platform for gaming, tech, and entertainment by the new independent, GamesBeat. GB MAX (sign up here) is a membership platform that our community pays for, and we’ve had some good ones to date. Stay tuned as we’re starting to get organized on the social part of our membership now.
Attendees can sign up for GamesBeat Next through GB MAX to receive priority access to executive roundtables, curated lounges, partner dinners, and editorially-led off-stage programming.
Register now at https://GamesBeatNext.com/ to secure exclusive GB MAX launch pricing of $899, value of $1699.
This event is open to members of GB MAX and non-subscribers. Members receive a $600 discount on GBN ticket prices.
More event plans: I will remind we are also recruiting speakers for our GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games 2025 on December 11.
Sponsors & Partners
Current sponsors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Xsolla, Jam City, Overwolf, AWS and Fastspring. We may have more sponsors coming in, with custom partnership opportunities available. Sponsors interested in thought leadership or branded experiences are invited to contact the GamesBeat team to learn how to get featured at the event, limited slots left secure your partnership here.
Community partners include The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences, Women-led Games, IGDA Foundation, Video Game Bar Association, Moms in Gaming, Women x AI, Zebra Partners, Games for Change, Firstboard.io, WIGI, Black Girl Gamers, and Collegiate Games Challenge.