Below is the tentative schedule for Interplay 2008. Click here to jump to the workshops.
| Times | Main Stage |
|---|---|
| Morning: Gaming Platforms and Companies | |
| 8:00 | Doors Open (Breakfast Provided) |
| 9:30 | Social Games Everywhere: Methods for Distribution and Development
Justin Smith of InsideFacebook and Watercooler, Inc, will moderate a panel that explores the strategies and business models of social gaming’s most significant channels. Meebo’s captive audience presents an opportunity to create synchronous games that, with the exception of Zynga’s Poker, have not yet gained a real foot-hold on the major social networks. Social Gaming Network and Zynga offers both a development environment and a means to get distribution, while Kongregate is providing developers a social environment for their games AND funding. What are the challenges they see and how do they expect to turn a profit?
|
| 10:30 | Break |
| 11:00 | Gaming Launchpad: Social Networks and Social Platforms speak out Moderated by Eric Marcoulier, co-founder of MyBlogLog and adviser to Zynga, the panel will dig at the questions, concerns, challenges and opportunities facing the social networking platforms upon which the next generation of online games are being built. Will the social network platforms mold themselves to allow increasingly rich interaction between their users? What are the best avenues about when money comes into the picture? What does Google think of all this? Featuring participation from both social networks, OpenSocial, and core platforms like J2Play, this one’s sure to open some eyes.
|
| 12:00 | LUNCH |
| Afternoon: Monetizing Social Gaming | |
| 1:30 | The State of Social Gaming: The Good News, the Bad News, and why the Bad News Doesn’t Matter Charles and Jing, from Developer Analytics, will be addressing aggregate global engagement metrics since the dawn of the Facebook platform, as well as comparing the progression and traction of different verticals in social applications to social gaming. Is the platform showing signs of app fatigue? Is social gaming sticky? Lucrative? How far have we come since we started? And where do the numbers say we are headed now? |
| 2:15 | Straight from the VC’s: Why Invest in the Space?
Moderated by Eric Eldon of VentureBeat, this panel will explore the thinking behind the people who are putting their money where the games are. What is the opportunity they see? Where do they see the space going? How do they think social games will monetize and deliver massive returns? The participants are Ping Li from Accel Partners, Naval Ravikant of Hitforge and Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed Venture Partners, whose companies all have significant stakes in the future of social games.
|
| 3:15 | Break |
| 3:30 | TBA
|
| 4:00 | Show me the Money: Monetizing and Advertising
One route to monetization of social games comes in, yes, advertising! But how to advertise effectively in social gaming is not so clear. Dean Takahashi from VentureBeat, will moderate a talk that features in-game advertising expertise straight from the mouths of very clever people finding ways to bridge the gap.
|
| 5:00 | Managing a Virtual Economy: Tips and Insights from Virtual Goods Pioneers Virtual goods are being touted as the next big monetization opportunity. Moderator Bret Terrill of Bret on Social Gaming, and game development company, Tenuki, Inc., will lead a panel discussing the pitfalls and opportunities of managing a virtual economy. The panelists include pioneers from a full spectrum of the games industry: from text MUDs to MMOs to virtual worlds to casual games to games on Facebook.
|
| 6:00 | End of Day |
Workshops
| Times | Workshop |
|---|---|
| 11:00am to 12:00pm | Top 10 Ways to Monetize your Social App ( without turning off users) Sponsored by OfferPal Media
|
| 2:15pm to 3:15pm | Workshop sponsored by Social Gaming Network |
