Digital Media Wire is organizing the East Coast version of its now seventh-annual DMW Games Conference, gathering industry pundits and up-and-coming game makers this September in New York to look at how digital distribution continues to alter the face of the game industry. Headlining the event is keynote speaker Kristian Segerstrale, co-founder of Playfish who now sits on the board of directors of super successful mobile game maker Supercell.
Much of the conference agenda is broken into two tracks looking at distribution and monetization. Panels within each track gather representatives from large and small game companies to look at strategies for success in every digital game category, from mobile and social games to free-to-play games and digitally released content on consoles. One standout panel features Bethesda founder Christopher Weaver, DDM founder Jeff Hilbert and CiiNOW marketing VP Chris Donahue covering how digital distribution and cloud gaming are evolving on consoles.
Outside of the tracks, a panel titled “View from the Top” looks at the state of the industry with Michael Pachter, Peter Blacklow, president of WorldWinner and EVP of Digital at GSN, and Anthony Borquez, CEO of Grab. There’s also a “Game Marketing Leadership” roundtable with speakers yet to be announced. Whoever this group may be, it’s safe to say the industry’s fits and starts in figuring out how to consistently build and maintain audiences for digital games should give them plenty of fodder for discussion. The conference closes with a session featuring five startup pitches to investors Sunny Dhillon from Signia Venture Partners and Janet Tsai Dargan from Siemer Ventures.
DMW NY Games Conference is scheduled for September 17. The full agenda and event details are available on the conference web site.
