This year’s 3D Gaming Summit and LA Mobile Entertainment will co-locate with sister 3D Entertainment Summit for a three-day conference Tuesday – Thursday, Sept. 20-22 at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood.
Mick Hocking, Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, will be a featured speaker on Thursday, Sept. 20, at the second annual 3D Gaming Summit: 3D Gaming and Beyond.
Keynote and featured speakers at the 3D Entertainment Summit include RealD chairman, CEO & co-founder Michael V. Lewis, Samsung Electronics America senior VP, home entertainment product marketing John Reyne, Sony Pictures Digital Production president Bob Osher, and Cinedigm chairman and CEO Chris McGurk.
LA Mobile Entertainment Summit is presented by Ortsbo, and both are presented in association with Variety. All three conferences are produced by event management company Unicomm, LLC, and The Bob Dowling Group.
Attendees will gain practical insight into technology developments, market considerations, adoption rates, creative and production strategies, content aggregation, talent and licensing issues.
Hocking is also Director of the Worldwide Studios 3D Team supervising the development of 3D games across Sony’s entire platform. He has been largely responsible for the creation and development of some of PlayStation’s leading racing brands and has won numerous awards.
“Similar to HDTV and Blu-ray, 3D adoption will be led in large part by gamers,” Hocking said. “One of the most important factors in the continued growth of the 3D market is the need for the games industry to produce high quality 3D experiences. This will certainly bring more consumers in and it’s clear that once they experience true stereoscopic 3D, the feedback is overwhelming positive.”
3D Gaming Summit will feature the latest in gaming technology as part of the Entertainment Technology Showcase, an exclusive exhibits/tabletops area within the event venue. The conference will explore how videogames, aided by new technologies like stereoscopic 3D and augmented reality, are bridging the gap between interactive and linear entertainment.
“With Sony pushing stereoscopic 3D with top releases like “MLB 11 The Show,” “Uncharted 3” and “Resistance 3,” coupled with Nintendo’s recent $80 price cut on Nintendo 3DS, and Market and Research forecasting the global 3D TV market will reach $100 billion by 2014; 3D gaming isn’t going away,” said John Gaudiosi, Senior Content Advisor to the Summit and co-founder of Gamerlive.tv, a partner with this 3DHollywood.net site. “Companies like Sony, Nintendo, NVIDIA, Sprint, LG, AT&T, and HTC are investing heavily in 3D games. But the game industry is also growing at a record pace with Gartner Research forecasting global video game sales reaching $74 billion in 2011, which is why this year’s conference is expanding to include some key growth areas like cloud gaming, augmented reality gaming, mobile gaming, and social gaming.”
Speakers and sessions at the 3D Gaming Summit: 3D Gaming and Beyond® will include:
■ Mike Chase, CTO, dinCloud
■ Matt Costello, President, Polar Productions Ltd.
■ Ethan Einhorn, Creative, Director, Sega America, Inc.
■ Loren Lanning, Co-Founder, Odd World Inhabitants
■ Rick Marazzani, Director of Content and Programming, Exent
■ Matt Norton, Studio Director, Bigpoint
■ Chris Petrovic, GM GameStop Digital Ventures, GameStop Corp.
■ Matty Rich, Hollywood 3D Director and Game Creator
■ Neil Schneider, Executive Director, S-3D Gaming Alliance
and President/CEO, Meant To Be Seen
■ Mike Schramm, Contributing Editor, JoyStiq
■ Brian Selzer, President/Co-Founder, Ogmento, Inc
■ Shane Shatterfield, VP, Content, MTV Networks
■ Bruno Uzzan, Co-Founder & CEO, Total Immersion
■ Jay Wright, Senior Director, Business Development, Qualcomm
■ Careen Yapp, Vice-President, Acquisitions and Franchise Development
Konami Digital Entertainment
Social Gaming
Companies like Zynga and Facebook have changed the face of gaming, while introducing millions of new fans to the hobby. Social games are also attracting sizable female demographic as well as older gamers. And the new line-up of smartphones and tablets are opening up social gaming beyond the PC. A panel of experts will explore what’s next for the evolution of social games.
Glasses-Free 3D Gaming is Officially a Trend
A look at how autostereoscopic devices like the Nintendo 3DS, the Sprint HTC Evo 3D and the AT&T LG Thrill are opening up new audiences to glasses-free 3D gaming and entertainment. A panel of some of the leading game developers from THQ, Gameloft, Ubisoft and EA Mobile discuss what 3D opens up to them creatively. They’ll also explore the cross-over effect of glasses-free gaming to the living room.
A New Augmented Reality
New tablets like Apple’s iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom, smartphones like the iPhone4 and LG Mobile Optimus 2X, and gaming devices like Nintendo 3DS and Sony PSP are opening up a mainstream audience to augmented reality. Game makers, advertisers and technology experts will discuss the ramifications of this new technology, which combines real-world objects with virtual characters for unique user interactions.
Gaming in the Cloud
Video game companies like Gaikai and OnLive are bypassing traditional retail stores and serving games to consumers through TVs, laptops, tablets and other devices. The age of gaming in the cloud, where servers host the software and allow any device to run high-end games, is here. A panel of experts will discuss why gaming in the cloud will change the business of video games.
— By Scott Hettrick