Posts Tagged ‘nintendo wii’

LA Games Conference features stellar lineup, April 28-29

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Kicking off tomorrow, the LA Games Conference features an outstanding collection of speakers and panelists from across today’s gaming landscape.  The conference is slated to have over 250 senior decision makers from games, media, entertainment and tech companies all under one roof.

lagc_logo_2009Held at the historic Roosevelt Hotel, in Los Angeles, California, this year’s conference features a number of presentations and talks by a number of industry leaders.  Featured keynote speakers include:

Nolan Bushnell – founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, CEO of uWink and Chairman, NeoEdge.

We’ve previously highlighted Bushnell’s innovative concept and use of microtransactions in the traditional ‘diner’ setting.  Bushnell is expected to talk about his thoughts on game consoles like the Nintendo wii and the new and emerging landscape of gaming (presumably with a heavy focus on microtransactions).

“Distribution of Games and Digital Media – A Glimpse of the Future”

Mike Yuen – Senior Director, Game Services, Qualcomm

Yuen is expected to give his thoughts on what drives the move towards digitally distributed content.  He’ll also be discussing Qualcomm’s investment in the new wireless 3G game console in developing countries, called Zeebo.  This new console targets middle class gamers in emerging markets including Brazil, Russia, India and China.  This console plays only downloadable games, combating the piracy of disc based games.

“Casual is the New Black – If You Want to Avoid the Red”

David Roberts, CEO, PopCap Games

Quickly becoming one of my personal favorite gaming destinations, PopCap Games’ CEO David Roberts plans on discussing the future where innovations in casual games help create the environment for tomorrow’s hardcore game experiences.  Roberts will lay out the PopCap vision of bringing games to the other 80% of the market that even the broadest appealing casual games have yet to reach.

“Finding Money in Games”

Mitch Lasky, General Partner, Benchmark Capital

Given the current economic situation, Lasky’s talk on the latest investment trends and opportunities in games and digital media, might just be the one not to miss.  A 20+ mobile gaming, new media, and interactive entertainment business veteran, Lasky has served as EVP of Mobile and Online at EA before joining Benchmark Capital.

Other top panelists and Moderators include:

John Kavanagh, SVP, Interactive / Head of Games, Paramount Pictures

Gareth Davis, Platform Manager, Facebook

Spencer Hunt, VP, Game Production & Digital Development, Sony Pictures TV Int’l

Kuk Yi, Managing Director, Best Buy Capital

Bill Young, Western Region Sales Director, Electronic Arts

Jason Oberfest, SVP of Business Development, MySpace

Robert Norton, Managing Director, North America, King.com

Jana Friedman, SVP of Worldwide Advertising Sales, Double Fusion

David Reitman, VP, Content & Ent. Practice, Switch and Data

Kate Connally, Vice President, AddictingGames/MTV Networks

Bill Kispert, VP, Interactive, NBC Interactive

Jesse Redniss, Vice President, USA Network Digital

Ned Sherman, CEO and Publisher, Digital Media Wire

Eric Goldberg, Managing Director, Crossover Technologies

Nick Williams, Director, Media &, Entertainment Insights, OTX Research

Jay Baage, VP of Content, Digital Media Wire

Anu Shukla, Founder and CEO, Offerpal Media

Scott Scherer, VP of Product Management, Hands-on Mobile

Michael Rubinelli, SVP of Game Development, Genius Products

George Kurtyka, 3P Account Manager, Nokia

Nash Parker, Director, Emerging Technology & Media, Alcatel-Lucent

Braden Moulton, Senior Manager, Partner Development, Massive (Microsoft)

Nichole Goodyear, CEO & Co-Founder, Brickfish

Michael Chang, CEO & Co-Founder, Greystripe

Vijay Rao, VP, Director of Open Planning, Optimedia US

Ted Cohen, Managing Partner, TAG Strategic

Kyle Laughlin, Senior Director, Yahoo! Games

Bob Ferrari, VP, Publishing & Bus. Dev., Sanrio Digital

Michael Cai, Vice President, Video Games, Interpret

Kyu Lee, President, Gamevil

Mike Vorhaus, President, Magid Advisors

Dave Long, CEO/Co-Founder, Exponential Entertainment, Inc.

Matt Palmer, EVP & GM, Stardoll Network

Jim Drewry, Executive Director of Marketing, Turbine

Michael Rosenberg, COO, Future Ads (Owner and Operator, Gamevance.com)

Teemu Huuhtanen, President, N.A., Sulake Inc. (Habbo)

Matthew Bellows, VP, Consumer Strategy, Vivox

Ryan Barkan, Senior Director, Advertising & Video Games, Primary Wave Music

Mark Friedler, Partner, Worlds and Games LLC

Greg Short, Executive Chairman, EEDAR

Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners

Bjorn Book-Larsson, COO & CTO, K2 Network

John Canning, Principal, MediaSherpa

Dennis Fong, CEO & Founder, Raptr

Alex Hackford, Head of A&R, Sony Computer Entertainment America

John Hayase, Exec. Director of Development, Sony Online Entertainment

Steve Hoffman, CEO, RocketOn, Inc.

James Hursthouse, Bus. Development Director, Japan/Korea, BigWorld PTY

Dave Laux, Global Executive, InterActive Media

Nicole Lazzaro, President, XEODesign, Inc.

Calvin Ng, CEO & CSO, iLemon

Ken Rutkowski, President/Host, KenRadio

Tommy Tallarico, President, Tommy Tallarico Studios, Inc.

Dan Yue, Co-Founder & CEO, Playdom

David Zemke, Director of Marketing, Glu Mobile

Ethan Titelman, VP Media & Ent. Group, Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB)

Jon Snoddy, Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer, Big Stage Entertainment

Ron Williams, CEO, The Zeev Exchange (Zeevex)

Stay on top of the LA Games Confernece at www.lagamesconference.com

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fatfoogoo on twitter and twestival

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

We’ve been flying a bit under the radar on this one, but it’s time to let the cat out of the bag: fatfoogoo is on twitter.  We’ve been slowly adding lots of interesting people from all over the business and gaming community and not only adding our own little bits, but more so, doing a lot of listening.  There are plenty of game community and industry folks actively participating on twitter, and lots of great news and opinions to be read and heard.

We’re also proud to announce that we’ve taken more than a passive interest in the twitter community, and are donating a Nintendo wii as the grand prize drawing in tonight’s Vienna westival event.  Twestival is a collection of over 185 cities around the world that are coming together not only to facilitate a twitter meet up, but to do so for a great cause, charity:water.

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London UK decided to organize an event where the local Twitter community could socialize offline; meet the faces behind the avatars, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, via Twitter and utilized the talents and financial support of the local Twittersphere to make this happen.

Around the world similar stories started appearing of local Twitter communities coming together and taking action for a great cause. Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but working from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact.

By rallying together globally, under short timescales, for a single aim on the same day, the Twestival hopes to bring awareness to this global crisis.

charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.
But don’t just take out word for it, check out charity:water founder Scott Harrison’s video about the event.

http://www.vimeo.com/3170682

The foogoo team will be in attendance at tonight’s event, stop by and say hi, or tweet us!

Cynthia Lederer – @_whitenoise_
Dan Taylor – @MountainDan
Daniel Petri – @massiveattack55
Johannes Sperlhofer – @timeactor
Martin Herdina – @iznogud
Moritz Bayer – @ViennaMoB
Patrick Krippner – @locoloki
Patrick Pachner – @Adamantos
Ritchie Pettaur – @datadirt
Stevie Case – @killcreek
Thomas Stagl – @herrstagl

 

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Holiday 2008 online video game sales top brick and mortar

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Comscore has recently released figures comparing holiday spending 2007 vs. 2008 revealing that both online sales of Sports and Fitness equipment and Video Games increased and outperformed offline sales during the holiday 2008 season.

Data compared data from comScores’s overall (online and offline) consumer e-commerce spending published by MasterCard Avisors’ SpendingPulse Unit from November 1 – December 24 of 2007.

The data doesn’t lie, with comScore showing that the top growing online product category for the holiday season was Sports and Fitness, growing 18 percent yoy, with Video Games, Consoles and Accessories growing a close 14 percent.  Naturally, the top grossing platforms include the big three: Nintendo Wii, Microsoft xbox 360, and Sony’s Playstation 3.  The only other positive growth segment was apparel and accessories, which generated higher sales as a result of retailers’ price slashing and promotions, combined with bad weather across most of the country.

And while certain categories lost significant traction across the board, the silver lining is that the online component of these sales is significantly higher than their offline counterparts

  • Sales of Apparel & Accessories was up four percent online, compared with a 19-21% decline in overall sales of the category.
  • Electronics declined five percent online, while Home, Garden and Furniture declined 14% online. This compares with a 26% decline in overall sales of Electronics/ Appliances.
  • Jewelry & Watches declined 24% online, compared with a 34% decline in overall sales of Luxury Goods (including Jewelry & Watches).

“For an online holiday shopping season that recorded a disappointing three-percent decline in sales, a positive note is that e-commerce trends outperformed overall consumer spending in several product categories, which is to say that e-commerce continued to capture an increasing share of consumers’ wallet,” said Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman.

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