Social Gaming Summit

The Social Gaming Summit is a one day conference focused on the intersection of casual gaming, immersive worlds, and social networking. Games are becoming one of the most popular activities within social networks and game developers continue to spend increasing amounts of energy figuring out how to leverage and apply the growth in social networking to the games they are developing. The conference will bring together leaders in the social networking and gaming spaces to share insights into the convergence of these worlds.

 
What: Social Gaming Summit (http://www.socialgamingsummit.com)
Where: UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA
When: Friday, June 13th 2008
Register Here: http://socialgamingsummit.eventbrite.com/

Confirmed speakers already include the following list of folks:

• Dave Williams, Shockwave and AddictingGames
• Craig Sherman, Gaia Online
  
• Jim Greer, Kongregate
• Siqi Chen, Serious Business (Friends for Sale)
• Blake Commagere, Mogad.com / Vampires / Werewolves
• Erik Bethke, Go Pets
• Teemu Huutanen, Sulake (Habbo)
  
• Daniel James, Three Rings
• Cary Rosenzweig, IMVU
  
• Amy Jo Kim, ShuffleBrain
• Nicole Lazarro, XEODesign
• Matt Mihaly, Sparkplay Media
• Shervin Pishevar, Social Gaming Network
• Mark Pincus, Zynga
• Jeremy Liew, Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Mike Sego, (fluff)Friends
• John Welch, Playfirst
• Matt Palmer, Stardoll
• Ted Rheingold, Dogster
  

Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds
Many so-called "casual MMOs" and immersive worlds are casual only in the sense that the point of the game is not to bash gruesome looking monsters or the game isn't set in a sci-fi fantasy world. The engagement story around existing and upcoming casual MMOs is real and very compelling. This panel will discuss what it takes to build a successful casual MMO  that users love to play.

Asynchronous Games on Social Networks
There are a lot of interesting asynchronous activities happening on social networks. Some of them are traditional games, others are games in disguise. Join us and hear from some of the leading voices in this space share their views on how to build great gameplay characteristics into social networking applications and what opportunities exist for gameplay to take advantage of the social graph.

Building Communities and Social Interaction In and Around Games
Social networking and games go hand in hand. Whether it's taking advantage of the relationship data in social networks to build novel gameplay or building community among people who play games, game developers are discovering clever ways to build real communities around the games they're developing. Hear from our panel of thought leaders about what it takes to successfully integrate community and social interaction into the next generation of games.

What Makes Games Fun?
We all like to have fun, right? What is it about games that makes them so fun? Is it gameplay? Social interaction? Achievements and accomplishments? Our panel of thought leaders will share their perspectives on what it takes to build a fun game and why building fun into games is more difficult than it looks.

 
User-Generated Games in Social Networks
Curious about how social network users are creating games of their own within the context of existing game structures? This is the panel for you.