Last Day of Regular Registration
One pass covers just about everything at the LOGIN Conference. No separate expo passes. No tutorial passes. No multi-tier pass system, where you're left wondering what you're missing. Just one pass that gives you the access of a VIP among other dignitaries at one of the game industry’s premiere conferences. If you’re ready to register for LOGIN, get started here:
Once you've registered for LOGIN, we definitely recommend booking your stay at the official conference hotel, the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel, for the exclusive LOGIN rate of $209/night. This rate is only available to LOGIN attendees until April 28, so don't delay. Regrets, I've Had a Few... It is in achieving this latter goal that I ironically find myself disappointed. As Conference Director, I'm about as busy as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest during the actual conference. I'm lucky if I get to sit down and take in an entire session. LOGIN is the conference where I can't be a guest. And this year I wish I really could, because we've got the best agenda we've ever produced. Here are six of the sessions that I most wish to attend: Procedural Techniques for Optimized Distribution of Online Games and Large-Scale User Generated ContentAnyone who has been involved in anything other than the most trivial project knows that content creation demands have been escalating out of control over the past five years. We all know the procedural generation is the answer, but how far can it take us? Dr. Sébastien Deguy, Founder and CEO of Allegorithmic, probably knows more about the subject than anyone, and will demonstrate how procedural generation techniques can not only save time and money, but open up new distribution opportunities. Spam Filtering in MMOsI've already had a sneak peak at Nandor T. Szots technical paper, and a talk of this depth on this subject is long overdue. Spam is a problem that affects every online service where humans (or human directed bots) can create messages to each other. SOE blocks over half a million spam messages in their MMOs per day, and Nandor gives real world examples of their application of Bayesian filtering techniques. The Heterogenous Cloud: Comparing Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine and Your Own ServersIt seems lately that everyone is talking about cloud computing, and major service providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are all offering distributed data center solutions. Don Alvarez compares and contrasts the major cloud computing platforms and discuss their applicability for hosting game servers. Building Like You Play: The Mechanics of a 100% Virtual Development TeamThe idea of a completely virtual studio: no physical office and all staff working from home on flexible schedules seems like a pipe dream. Yet, Christopher Natsuume of Boomzap Entertainment is going to tell us how it helped them develop eight AAA quality casual games on time and under budget since 2005. He shares the benefits and challenges of running a virtual studio, walking through the particular mechanics and processes the team has used to make it work, and sharing some of their hard earned lessons. Funding StoriesThis is perhaps one of the most timely sessions at LOGIN this year. Already this year, many game development companies are being forced to merge or shut their doors. This panel will focus on what forms of partnerships and funding are available to companies, and what are the risks and rewards for taking on these types of funding. Four entrepreneurs share their experiences funding recent startups in a stand-out panel moderated by Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat. The Business of Design: Designing for your Monetization ModelDesigning a successful MMO requires more than simply great game design: it requires an understanding of how design and business fit together. James Portnow, CEO of Divide by Zero, addresses why viewing monetization models and game design as disparate problems is a recipe for failure, and provides high level thoughts on how to design for any of the major monetization models used today. Those six sessions are just the tip of the iceberg. Look a bit deeper and you'll find a wealth of excellent and hard-hitting talks given by folks who really know their stuff. I wish I could attend all of them, and I know you will feel the same way after looking at the conference agenda. One talk that I personally won't miss, and I suggest you don't either, is Online Games 2014: Twelve Spoilers for the Future, a recurring annual panel that I again have the pleasure of moderating. Each of the four distinguished panelists will be presenting three very unique and daring predictions about changes in the online games industry over the next five years. Some of these prognostications will greatly surprise you, some may unsettle you, but they may just be your best chance to get a head start on the future. Fortunately for you, you have the chance to attend any one of the over sixty outstanding keynotes, lectures, panels, debates, and roundtables at LOGIN. But don't wait to register, because after today, the online registration price goes up to $895. Wait too long and you might have some regrets of your own.
New Speakers AnnouncedWe are very pleased to announce we have some amazing additions to speaker lineup. We will be announcing more speakers over the next two weeks, so stay tuned for the complete list.
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This conference is at the top of my list for 2009. This was honestly a perfect conference as far as I'm concerned. The networking was fantastic, the environment was lush (even decadent), the speakers were terrific, and I loved the location. Erin Hoffman |
While looking over the complete list of sessions for LOGIN today, I was struck with a familiar gloomy thought. It's a pang of remorse that I've gotten every year about this time while working on the conference. You see, with LOGIN I've tried to create the kind of conference that I've always wanted to attend: big enough to facilitate great networking, but small enough that you are not lost in a sea of faces; a hip, relaxing environment that allows you to recharge your mental batteries instead of getting worn down; and great talks filled with useful, serious, and innovative content instead of rehashes of the same old general audience topics.
