Heroes and bosses
We’ve got John Linden of Mythical Games talking with Harold Goldberg about one of my favorite topics: the Leisure Economy, or getting paid to play games. Gary Whitta (screenwriter for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is talking about “Choose Your Own Adventure” on storytelling in games with Tina Amini of IGN.
I’ll be talking about “We are who we pretend to be” and the advent of virtual beings with Edward Saatchi of Fable Studios. Ryan McDermott of RPG will do a rapid-fire review of game investments in the age of the coronavirus. Doron Nir of StreamElements will talk about brand strategy in the age of the influencers.
Brandon Sheffield of Necrosoft will speak about alleviating crunch in games and academia with Richard Lemarchand, an associate professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Peter Levin of Griffin Gaming Partners will also talk to Danny Bilson, head of USC Games, about the future of narrative and world-building.
On day two, Andrea Rene is moderating a panel on influencers Mari Takahashi, Joshua “Jovenshire” Ovenshire, and MissesMae, and Rene is also moderating our Women in Gaming virtual breakfast panel with Kellee Santiago of Niantic, Nonny de la Pena, and Elizabeth Howard.
We’ve also got some great and short lightning talks. Elan Lee of Exploding Kittens will talk about making games to play in quarantine with tabletop games fan (and digital tabletop games maker) Theresa Duringer.
Charitable causes are a big deal at our conference. Renee Gittins of the International Game Developers Association will talk about assisting game developers during the pandemic. Bernard Kim of Zynga and Patrick Shanley of the Hollywood Reporter will talk about #PlayApartTogether campaign on behalf of the World Health Organization.
In a groundbreaking session, John Smedley of Amazon Games is talking about mental wellness for game professionals with Mark Chandler of TIGS and Eve Crevoshay of Take This. And Jessica Chobot will talk with Nika Nour about diversity and inclusion in the nonprofit space for games. James Zhang of Concept Art House is leading a blockchain games panel for the second year in a row. Lisa Cosmas Hanson is once again leading a panel on demand for games in China. And Kate Edwards is leading a session on shutting down toxic players.
David Hoppe of Gamma Law is moderating a panel on esports, and I did the same, except with a focus on brands. We’ve also got some great investment panels, covering everything from seed funding to Series A/B funding to acquisitions — and fireside chats involving Jon Goldman of GC Tracker Fund and Mitch Lasky of Benchmark.
Digital hubs
But digital events have big drawbacks. You don’t get the feeling that you are there. You can’t travel to a cool place. You can’t really look someone in the eye or shake their hands. And you don’t even know if some of the people are real. You need some kind of security in place as well.
We’re finding a lot of ways to enhance digital conferences. WN Hub has an event going on right now. I gave a talk there, and I looked around the online hub, which had a virtual expo with animated pictures of people walking through the show floor. They also sent an electronic goodie bag with things like coupons for speakers.
We’ve already opened up our Slack channels to paid attendees, VIPs, and speakers. And people are already introducing themselves to the broader crowd. Those watching on livestreams can contribute to charities, and that is a small way where they can feel like a part of the event. As Julia Lebedeva of White Nights noted, you don’t have to shut down the online hub. You can just keep it going long after the event is over.
For our opening night reception, we’re going to try a couple of cool adventures. We’ll be giving away a couple of awards: our third-annual Visionary Award and our brand new Up and Comer Award. These awards will help us foster our GamesBeat community.
We have an excerpt from Josh Tsui’s upcoming documentary Insert Coin, about the history of Midway Games. Tsui will introduce the film and our attendees will be able to watch it on Oculus Venues via the Oculus Quest, Oculus Go, and Samsung Gear VR; or you can watch in a group movie-viewing virtual theater hosted by Hearo.Live. In both formats, our attendees will be able to chat with each other via audio while watching the excerpt from the film.
The idea is to try to do something that is more immersive than the Zoom events that we’ve all become very familiar with. We’ll see how it works. It’s all a grand experiment. We couldn’t have pulled it off (and gulp, we still haven’t pulled it off) without the help of so many hard-working staffers, advisers, speakers, and sponsors. What excites me is that a lot of people are returning as speakers and supporters, which I take as an expression of trust in GamesBeat. So thank you. And hope to see you there.
I also hope that we’ll see each other again at real-world events. I don’t want to be in denial about that. As I said, digital events aren’t easy and they aren’t as fun as the real thing yet. But they may be all that we’ve got for a while. We hope we can spread a little happiness with our best stab at a quality digital event. Eventually, as the world tilts digital, and that much-hoped-for Metaverse comes around, these digital events may be our best future.