Foretelling the Future at LOGIN
Have you ever attended a conference and had a tough time deciding which sessions to attend? Sometimes you're faced with plethora of good talks and need to decide between two or more competing for your attention at the same time. Other times it feels like you're looking for scraps in a wasteland of poor talks. Or maybe you're the kind of person who doesn't go to talks at all; you've never found them useful. If only you could peek into the future; you'd know which speakers you'd want to hear and which sessions you'd want to skip.
At LOGIN, we can't give you clairvoyance, but we can offer the next best thing when it comes to our agenda: the LOGIN Session Preview on Monday evening with Master of Ceremonies Pat Cashman. Imagine a speaker being given just 30 seconds to tell you about their session and why you should attend. Now imagine speakers from each of nearly 60 sessions doing their pitches in rapid succession, and you've got the basic idea behind the LOGIN Session Preview. Maybe you'll be able to decide between two or three sessions you've been having difficulty choosing between. Or maybe you'll get interested in a talk that you hadn't realized was so relevant to your work. In any case, we think you'll enjoy the preview — it will be fun as well as informative.
The preview is immediately followed by the acclaimed LOGIN Welcome Reception. This could just be one of the best networking opportunities you'll have all year. Here you'll be able to rub elbows with hundreds of fellow industry movers and shakers in a relaxing environment with the perfect mix of ambiance and refreshments.
"I always look forward to coming to LOGIN. The event always has a great signal-to-noise ratio. I learn a lot when I come, and perhaps most importantly, the people there are almost always exactly the people that I'm always trying to find at other larger events. Simply put it's attended by the people I want to talk to."
— Brian Robbins, President and Founder of Riptide Games
Weigh the positives and negatives about attending the 2011 LOGIN Conference, but remember that time is quickly running out to claim your place at one of the most acclaimed events in the games industry. No matter what your role in the online games industry, I'm confident you'll find the content at LOGIN to be educational, thought-provoking, and enlightening.
See you next week!
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Peter Freese Director LOGIN Conference |
Online Registration Ends Friday
This Friday, May 13, is the last day to register online and guarantee your place at the historic fifth annual LOGIN Conference May 16-18, 2011, in Bellevue, Washington, where you'll have access to some of the best minds in the industry, face-to-face, at one exclusive event. LOGIN will host nearly 100 speakers from leading online game development companies in keynote presentations, technical sessions, panel discussions, and interactive roundtables.
LOGIN sessions deliver the in-depth knowledge you need to take your games to new markets, new platforms, and new levels of profitability. At LOGIN, you'll have quality time with speakers and other industry leaders in an intimate environment, without being surrounded by posers and wannabes. Check out some of the highlights from this year's session line-up:
- The Portal 2 ARG Experiment
Michael Austin (Hidden Path Entertainment) - Does Facebook Suck the Fun Out of Hardcore Games?
Geoffrey Zatkin (EEDAR), Jim Ying (6waves), John S. Coligan (EA2D, EA), Linda "Brasse" Carlson (Sony Online Entertainment) - What "Traditional" Video Game Designers Need to Learn from Social Games
Dan Fiden (Gazillion Entertainment) - Massively Social != Massively Multiplayer
Paul Furio (Novel) - Writing Secure iOS Applications
Ilja van Sprundel (IOActive) - Defining Today's MMO Gamer
Hubert Thieblot (Curse)
View the complete list of sessions.
The 2011 LOGIN Conference is the only annual game industry event with a laser-sharp focus on the rapidly evolving business of online game development on all its platforms. LOGIN brings online game developers and business leaders from around the world together to celebrate and further the online game ecosystem.
Top 10 Reasons to Attend LOGIN
#10. Incredible amenities. Ask anyone who attended last year: The sit-down lunches, gourmet snacks, and fine wine are just a part of what made LOGIN one of the most memorable and superior game industry experiences in 2010. Everything at LOGIN is step beyond what you've experienced elsewhere.
#9. Networking opportunities galore. Whether at the classy LOGIN welcome reception, the LOGIN Business Lounge, or one of the speed-networking breakfasts, you'll have more opportunities to rub elbows with some of the online game industry’s most powerful movers and shakers than any other event.
#8. First-class content. You'll have access to more than 60 lectures, panels, and roundtables over two days, covering topics important to the breadth of the online game development world, including business, legal, production, new technologies, social games, community, and much more, delivered by some of the industry's most influential and knowledgeable speakers. Unlike other events where you just go for the meetings, at LOGIN you'll actually WANT to attend the sessions.
#7. Location, location, location. The greater Seattle area is not only one of the fastest growing locations for gaming development in the world, but it s already home to major game development and publisher names we know about in our daily business and leisure time. Nintendo, Microsoft, Valve, NCsoft, Wizards of the Coast, Big Fish Games, Pop Cap, and many others.
#6. Online focus.The LOGIN Conference doesn’t aim to be all things to all people. LOGIN focuses exclusively on the developer and businessperson creating online games, whether they're MMOs, Facebook games, or online console experiences.
#5. Sit-down lunches. No need to gulp down a stale sandwich in plastic wrap while standing on your feet or rush off to find a table at a nearby restaurant. At LOGIN, you can continue the dialog and networking during the classy sit-down lunches, included with all full conference passes.
#4. International viewpoints and networking. The online game industry is a worldwide business, so why shouldn’t the conference reflect that melting pot of technological and cultural viewpoints? To that end, we have influential game developers and business people from around the world coming together to share their unique views as both attendees and speakers.
#3. Great value for the money. For a mere $595, you are treated like a star at LOGIN. For less than $300/day, you get access to every keynote, lecture, panel, roundtable, snack break, gourmet lunch, evening reception you are willing and able to attend. LOGIN even offers one-day passes for local attendees to minimize their time out of office and maximize their value.
#2. Quality over quantity. Not everyone time has the time and interest to pick a needle from a haystack. For those people, there is the LOGIN Conference. LOGIN consistently brings CEOs, CTOs, lead programmers, directors, directors, and other thought leaders into one venue for one event.
#1. Everyone you want to meet is here. If you haven't registered for LOGIN at this point, you may feel like you're on the outside looking in. Hundreds of companies associated with the online game industry are going to be participating at LOGIN. While many companies will be at LOGIN, the event is highly focused and not over-populated — perfect for the kind of networking that matters and makes a difference to the senior online game development industry professional.
Interview With Jennifer Bartlett and Lee Clancy
Game Discovery — Being Found in a World Filled With Games
As viral techniques for having online games shared between friends become fewer, one of the techniques that have become becomes more important over time is that of game discovery, which allows games to find the games themselves — and enjoy the process in doing so. This is the central topic for the Game Discovery — Being Found in a World Filled With Games panel at LOGIN 2011. Two of the panelists, Jennifer Bartlett with Somatrics and Lee Clancy with IMVU, offer an in-depth view into the mechanisms that make game discovery work in the competitive world of online social games.
PAUL PHILLEO: Through the filter of your background and respective experiences, what do you feel some of the best means of creating game discovery might be?
JENNIFER BARTLETT: In my work with Game Coins, we've seen success in game discovery by providing players with centrality, personalization, community, and fun. The goal in game discovery is to find a way to rise above and beyond the constant chatter from competitors to catch (and keep) the attention of current and potential players without spending a fortune. This isn't easy, especially as the market becomes ever more competitive. Being able to match players with the right games, based on behavior and demographics, is key.
To make sure target users discover the games you want them to, you have to make it easy and fun for them to do so: Provide a single location to centralize the experience and create a one-stop-shop for finding games and game material that they'll enjoy. If you personally don't have the resources to create such a destination, look to other partners who do (such as Game Coins), and find out more about how they can help you to engage and acquire new users from its established audience. Such destinations should include content that is engaging on multiple levels — whether that involves interacting with a community, aspects related to players' personal interests, a recommendations engine that responds to a visitor's preferences, or just plain old fun.
LEE CLANCY: It's important to consider this question from both the game developer and game publisher/portal perspective. For developers looking to get their games discovered by users, they clearly have to find ways to stand out amid an increasingly crowded shelf of games. For those lucky enough to have established large userbases for some of their games, cross-promoting your newer games to users of your past games is a no-brainer. For example, Zynga powered Cityville's massive ramp by driving trial of Cityville among its huge legacy Farmville base. Most developers don't have that luxury, however, so other strategies come into play. One important approach that developers such as Playdom and Lolapps have pursued successfully is distribution on alternative social game platforms beyond Facebook (like IMVU, Hi5, and a host of smaller indigenous social networks in foreign markets). That is, being a bigger fish in a smaller or less-crowded pond can be a lucrative strategy for getting your game discovered.
From the publisher or portal perspective, fostering game discovery is a 24/7 activity. It goes without saying that most consumers hear about new games via good old word-of-mouth, but game publishers and platforms can do plenty to make that word of mouth travel as quickly as possible for their games. On IMVU, important sources of user-to-user lighter fluid for new games include a Facebook-style status update system called Pulse, game-specific user forums, interest-based groups, sharing options for major social networks, and both asynchronous and real-time messaging among users. As a platform, we also offer developers a vast set of promotional resources for driving game discovery such as email newsletters, IMVU-to-user messaging, sitewide promotional banners, highlighting of "new" games in the navigation bar of both our website and 3-D Chat software, and high-click-through "blue bars" that blast timely news and promotion to every IMVU user with every page view. And as mentioned above, alternative platforms can give your game affordable promotional channels, more engaged users, and better monetization than larger platforms. A final must-have game discovery feature for portals and publishers is a games "lobby" or destination that merchandises new and popular games in one place to all visiting users, and it is important to keep content in the games lobby fresh and updated frequently.
Read more and post your comments at LOGIN News
