Here’s the preliminary agenda for our GamesBeat Summit 2017 event coming on May 1 and May 2 at the historical Claremont resort hotel in Berkeley, California.
The event is GamesBeat Summit 2017: How games, sci-fi, and tech create real-world magic.You can secure your seat here. Use the “Deantak” code at checkout for 20 percent off. We think we’ve built a unique slate of speakers and experience that you won’t find at any other event.
We’re excited that most of the key slots are filled, and we’re in talks with various parties to fill the rest of the slots and bring you a great conference on the inspiration cycle that is happening between science fiction, video games, and real-world technology in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
We’re going to do an event for the geeks in all of us. It’s about the inspiration cycle that happens between games, real-world technology, and games. It’s like how Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, Snow Crash, inspired virtual worlds and spawned a thousand game startups, and how people like Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, are still talking about Snow Crash today. I still remember Will Wright telling me, “A dog-eared copy of Snow Crash is the business plan for every startup in Silicon Valley.” We’re also going to hear from John Underkoffler, science advisor for Minority Report. He will talk about the gesture-controlled computer that inspired things like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s Kinect.
Now we are getting our material from new shows like Westworld, where, as Parisi noted in his speech, we will be immersed in a future where we can’t tell what is real and what is not. We’ve also got inspiration from the big screen coming, with the upcoming film Ready Player One, a Steven Spielberg movie based on the book by Ernest Cline.
I explained this idea for a conference to Jamil Moledina of Google Play. He once ran the Game Developers Conference, he’s a science fiction novelist himself, and he immediately got the idea about how people are thirsty for inspiration from across industry lines. That’s why I asked him to be emcee at our GamesBeat Summit.
As a community, we’ll be searching for the next big thing, wondering what will happen in this cycle as real-world technology catches up to the visions of science fiction and games, and figuring out how we’ll have to move that all forward to keep us wondering about what dreams may come.
Monday, May 1, 2017
1 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Registration
2:15 p.m. to 2:25 p.m. Welcome Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat VentureBeat
2:25 pm to 2:30 pm. Emcee remarks: Jamil Moledina, game strategic lead at Google Play
2:30 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. Opening session on the inspiration between games, tech, and sci-fi with Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games; Moderator: Dean Takahashi
2:50 p.m. to 3:10 p.m. TBD
3:10 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Inspiring creativity. Owen Mahoney, CEO of Nexon; Moderator: Dean Takahashi
3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Science fiction and games. Gary Whitta, screenwriter for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; Moderator: Jamil Moledina
4:00 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. Reality and fiction in Watch Dogs 2 Thomas Geffroyd of Ubisoft and Violet Blue, columnist.
4:20 p.m. to 4:40 p.m. Break
4:40 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Blending the real world and the virtual in game shows Ellyn Lyse Einarsen of the Future Group.
5:00 pm to 5:30 pm. Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, cofounders of Sledgehammer Games; Moderator: Dean Takahashi
5:30 p.m. to 5:50 p.m. Science fiction and games as the prototypes for real world tech John Underkoffler, science advisor for Minority Report and CEO of Oblong Industries
5:50 p.m. to 6:10 p.m. Esports, traditional sports, and big business with Greg Richardson, chairman of Team Dignitas, and Akshay Khanna, vp of strategy at Philadelphia 76ers
6:10 pm to 6:30 pm Science fiction writer Rob Reid, founder of Listen.com; Moderator: Adam Gazzaley, UCSF
6:20 pm to 8:00 pm Reception/Dinner
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
8:15 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. Breakfast
9:15 a.m. to 9:20 a.m. Welcome Dean Takahashi
9:20 a.m. to 9:50 a.m. Lightning talks: Five presentations, five minutes each with Raheel Hasan, CEO of 1app.com; Ravi Belwal of Samsung.
9:50 a.m. to 10:10 a.m. Opening fireside chat on Leadership. Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games, and Mike Gallagher, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association
10:10 a.m. to 10:40 a.m. Bucking the Status Quo: Redesigning Leadership for Diverse Talent, Perspectives & Products. Moderator: Guy Bendov, CEO of Side-Kick Games. Panelists: Asi Burak, Power Play; Megan Gaiser, CEO of Spiral Media; Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer; Asra Rasheed, producer at Disney
10:40 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. TBD
11:00 am to 11:20 am. TBD
11:20 am to 11:40 am. TBD
11:40 am to 12:00 pm. TBD
12:00 pm to 12:15 pm Break
12:15 p.m. to 1:05 p.m.
LUNCH BREAKOUT SESSIONS:
Intersection of sci-fi, games, and tech: Sebastian Alvarado, cofounder of Thwacke
Monetization: How to acquire and retain your user base
Is the gaming world flat?
Deals: Follow the money: Michael Chang of NCSoft; Phil Sanderson of IDG Ventures
Esports and community
Platforms: Where to place your bets?
1:05 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. BREAK
1:20 p.m. to 1:40 p.m. Driverless Cars and Project Cars. Rod Chong, chief commercial officer of Slightly Mad Studios, and Laszlo Kishonti, CEO of AImotive.
1:40 pm to 2:00 pm David Dohrmann, CEO of Gazillion
2 p.m. to 2:20 p.m. Richard Marks, researcher at Sony PlayStation, and Lewis Ward of IDC
2:20 p.m. to 2:40 p.m. TBD
2:40 p.m. to 3 p.m. TBD
3 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. Closing talk Chris Roberts, CEO of Roberts Space Industries, and Rich Hilleman of Amazon Game Studios
3:20 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Closing reception
If you’re interested in sponsoring, message mike.sly@venturebeat.com. Thanks to our initial sponsors include Samsung, Intel, Gazillion, the Canadian Consulate, and Blackstorm.
Advisory board
- Sam Barlow, game developer of Her Story and creative director at Interlude
- Michael Chang, senior vice president at NCSoft
- Daniel Cho, chairman at Innospark
- Jay Eum, managing director, Translink Capital
- Clinton Foy, chairman of the Immortals and managing director at Crosscut Ventures
- Megan Gaiser, co-CEO at Spiral Media
- Lee Jones, global business lead Google Ads
- Perrin Kaplan, principal at Zebra Partners
- Roy Liu, general manager at Linekong USA
- Wanda Meloni, executive director of the Open Gaming Alliance
- Jamil Moledina, game strategic lead at Google Play
- Adam Orth, founder at Three One Zero
- Mihai Pohontu, vice president of emerging technologies at Samsung
- Mike Sepso, cofounder of MLG and senior vice president at Activision Blizzard
- Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors
- Margaret Wallace, CEO of Playmatics
- Marco DeMiroz, cofounder, The Venture Reality Fund
- Phil Sanderson, managing director at IDG Ventures
I’ve been writing about our theme for a while. I’ve written about the accelerating cycle of inspiration between tech, games, and science fiction. I interviewed Shane Wall, HP’s chief technology officer, about the connection between sci-fi and tech. The Westworld TV show also explored the seams between artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and video games.