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KEYNOTE

Michael Denny
Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studio [Europe]

Keynote: Digital Reality

Michael Denny is Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide
Studios [ Europe ]. He joined Psygnosis in 1995 and became Director of
External Product Development for SCEE in 2000. Following the formation of
SCE Worldwide Studios in late 2005, Michael is now jointly responsible
for Product Development strategy and management based in Europe together
with the Division's other Exec Board members.

Lord Sainsbury
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Science and Innovation

Lord Sainsbury was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science and Innovation in July 1998, with responsibility for the Office of Science and Technology, Research Councils and space matters.
Chairman of J Sainsbury plc until July 1998. Finance Director of J Sainsbury plc from 1973 to 1990 and Deputy Chairman from 1988 to 1992.

David Sainsbury became Lord Sainsbury of Turville in October 1997.
Chairman of the Governing Body of the London Business School from 1991 to 1998. Received the Award for Distinguished Leadership in Business from Columbia Business School in 1990. Member of the Committee of Review of the Post Office (Carter Committee) from 1975 to 1977; member of the Dockland Joint Committee from 1978 to 1981; member of the IPPR Commission on Public Policy and British Business from 1995 to 1997.

Shaun Woodward
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Shaun Woodward studied English Literature at Cambridge University. Former Chair of Understanding Industry and the Ben Hardwick Memorial Trust. Former academic, Harvard University and Queen Mary and Westfield College. Former researcher on That’s Life. Worked for National Consumer Council. MP for St Helen's South since June 2001. Former MP for Witney (1997 - 2001). Labour MP since January 2000. Member, Joint Committee on Human Rights. Patron of Oxfordshire Macmillan Nurses, Sobell House hospice, Witney Enterprise for Local Learning and a Patron of Mulberry Bush School, which provides safe homes for abused children. Member of the advisory board of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a Director of English National Opera and a Director of the Marine Stewardship Council. Has published three books, including his story about Ben Hardwick, which was a number one bestseller in 1984. Currently planning a book with Peter Kilfoyle on Labour values.

SESSION SPEAKERS

Cindy Armstrong
Webzen America

Virtual Customers: Competing in the Online Entertainment Business

Cindy Armstrong is the chief executive officer for WEBZEN America, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of global online entertainment company WEBZEN, Inc. In this role, Cindy oversees all strategy and execution of WEBZEN America’s commitment to become one of the top online games publishers in North America.

Before taking the helm of WEBZEN America, Cindy was vice president of business development for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), where she was responsible for expanding the publisher’s business: launching into new Asian territories, developing licensing opportunities, scouting new products and exploring new business models. Before that, Cindy was SOE’s vice president of international operations, where she built and managed the team that launched SOE’s suite of games in new European and Asian territories.

Prior to SOE, Cindy was the chief financial officer for Retro Studios, an exclusive developer for Nintendo. Before that, she was director of sales analysis and planning for Nintendo of America. Reporting to the president, she was a critical member of the team that brought the Nintendo 64 video game console to market in the U.S.

Thomas Bidaux
NCsoft Europe

Session: Everything You Know About MMOGs is Wrong: Why the Online Business Model is the Way Forward in a Global, Digitised Economy

Prior to joining NCsoft Europe, Thomas Bidaux was heavily involved in the development and execution of online games at Wanadoo, where he led the team that launched Dark Age of Camelot.

Bidaux was one of the original four who set up NCsoft Europe in September 2004. As the company expands, Bidaux's role at NCsoft is to manage the product development teams, covering localisation and QA, as well as researching and acquiring new titles.

Sean Dromgoole
Some Research and GameVision

Session: Information is Power - What You Need to Know - When - to Succeed with New IP

Sean Dromgoole has been researching games for 12 years. Founder of both Some Research and GameVision, Sean works regularly with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, EA, Activision, Eidos, Ubisoft, VUG, Disney, THQ and a host of other games publishers. Sean's companies have worked on over 200 games related projects including strategic work on Brain Training, Tomb Raider, Splinter Cell, Formula One, Getaway, Prince of Persia, Hitman, King Kong, and the launch of the Nintendo DS.

Prior to working in games Sean's career included Broadcast and Advertising Research, Film-production, Soap-writing, Acting and Turkey-plucking.

David Gosen
CEO
I-Play

Session: Making Licensing for Mobile Work

David Gosen joined I-play as its COO in August 2004 and was appointed CEO in March 2006. He has over 18 years of sales, marketing and distribution management experience with blue-chip entertainment and consumer goods
multinationals, most recently with Nintendo Europe as its Managing Director of sales and marketing. He was responsible for driving Nintendo's significant European growth from 1999 to 2004 and notably launched three new market-redefining platforms: the Nintendo GameCube, the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP. Prior to Nintendo, David was Marketing and Distribution Director at British Sky Broadcasting from 1996 to 1999, and previously held a number of senior marketing and sales positions at Mercury One-to-One,
Pepsico, and Coca-Cola & Schweppes Beverages.

Adrian Hon
Director of Play
Mind Candy

Session: Alternate Reality Games - Five Years In

Adrian Hon is the Director of Play at Mind Candy, and the lead designer of Perplex City (winner of the Origin Vanguard Award for Most Innovative Game). At Mind Candy, he supervises the development of the Perplex City ARG and orchestrates live events involving thousands of players and the occasional helicopter. Adrian was previously a neuroscientist at Oxford University and Cambridge University, and still retains a healthy interest in the exploration of Mars (which saw him spend two weeks in the Utah desert participating in a simulation of a human mission to Mars).

Matthew Jeffrey
Head of Recruitment for Electronic Arts European Studio, EA Tech, Mobile Development, Online and EA Partners

Session: The Future of Games Recruitment: The UK - A Talent Pool in Crisis?

Matthew Jeffery is the Head of Recruitment for Electronic Arts European Studio, EA Tech, Mobile Development, Online and EA Partners. Electronic Arts is the world’s leading independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software. EA’s broad portfolio of franchises includes global sports blockbusters from its EA Sports brand including FIFA and Madden NFL. The diverse offering from its EA brand features Need for Speed, Burnout, Spore, Sims and Army of Two franchises, as well as key Hollywood licenses for games including Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Superman.

Gunnar Larsén
Director, Mobile Games Europe for RealNetworks, Inc.

Session: Digital Distribution Panel

Gunnar is the European Director of Mobile Games for RealNetworks with responsibility for driving the RealArcade mobile games business throughout Europe.  Previous to joining RealNetworks, Gunnar was the Head of Marketing at Mobile Innovation, a user experience consultancy now part of Adobe.  Prior to that he spent 5 years as Head of Product Management at Purple Software, a pioneer in the mobile casual games industry which produced the first ever BAFTA winner for mobile games in 2002.  Gunnar has spoken at key industry events such as E3, GDC Mobile, MEM, Casuality, Mobile Games Analyst Summit, Mobile Games Forum, Games and Mobile, and Symbian’s The Smartphone Show. Gunnar is a native of Sweden with a degree in Political Science from Lund University. His current favourite mobile game is Turbo Camels: Circus Extreme!

Ian Livingstone
Creative Director, Eidos

Session: Digital Distribution Panel

Ian Livingstone is the Creative Director at Eidos and a leading pioneer of interactive entertainment. In 1975 he founded Games Workshop Ltd with Steve Jackson and launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe and the Games Workshop retail chain. In 1977 he launched White Dwarf, the UK’s first interactive games magazine, and was its editor for 5 years. In 1982, again with Steve Jackson, he wrote the first in the series of Fighting Fantasy interactive gamebooks that sold over 15 million copies in 23 languages, including his own best-selling Deathtrap Dungeon. He has written more than 20 books and has also invented many board games including Legend of Zagor, Boom Town, Automania, Judge Dredd and Battlecars. In 1992 he became Deputy Chairman of computer games company Domark. In 1995 he was instrumental in the merger and flotation of Domark with technology company Eidos and was appointed Executive Chairman of the Board of the new interactive entity Eidos plc, a position he served until 2002. At Eidos - one of the UK's leading developers and publishers of video games - he has helped to secure many of the company's major franchises including Tomb Raider, Championship Manager and Hitman.

Nicholas Lovell
CEO, GameShadow

Session: Digital Distribution Panel

Nicholas has been involved in the overlapping areas of games, theInternet and finance for more than a decade. He is CEO of GameShadow, anintelligent tool for keeping PC games up-to-date that also offers gamers easyaccess to thousands of demos, trailers and essential purchases that arerelevant to their games. From 2003-2006, he was Managing Director and Founderof Lodestar Partners, a corporate finance boutique focused exclusively on thecomputer and video game industries. Prior to Lodestar, Nicholas was a Directorof Deutsche Bank Investment Banking covering on the media and Internet sectors.Nicholas was formerly CFO of ShopSmart.com, a venture-backed internetcomparison shopping engine with 60 staff.

Peter Molyneux
Founder
Lionhead Studios

Session: Taking Lionhead from Inception to Microsoft

Peter Molyneux is one of the computer games industry's most articulate and eloquent speakers on computer games development. He co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987 and created a new genre of computer games, 'the god game' with the release of POPULOUS. Since then, Peter has been responsible for a string of massive selling games including POWERMONGER, THEME PARK, MAGIC CARPET and DUNGEON KEEPER.

In 1997 Peter left Bullfrog Productions to form Lionhead Studios. Lionhead has released two games, BLACK & WHITE and FABLE, and is working on four new titles. He recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Abertay and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.

Jonathan Newth
CEO of Kuju plc

Session: Digital Distribution Panel

Jonathan graduated from York University in 1985 with joint honors in Physics and Computer Science. In 1989 Jonathan co-founded Simis Limited and, as the technical director, guided its successful growth in the professional simulation training market and to its position as a leader in flight simulation video games. During this period, Jonathan designed and wrote a number of highly rated games including FLYING NIGHTMARES and FLIGHT SIM TOOLKIT. In 1995, Jonathan led the sale of Simis Limited to its principal customer, Eidos and since that time has led a management buyout, flotation of the company and guided its growth to one of the UK's largest multi-site developers.

Adam Singer
Group CEO
MCPS-PRS Alliance

Session: The Games Industry: Competing for Audiences and Wallet Share

Adam Singer is Group CEO of the MCPS-PRS Alliance. Adam joined the Alliance in 2005 from the broadcast industry where he has been a major force both domestically and internationally since the 1970s. Adam is one of few people to have been involved in all aspects of communications at CEO level. He has made television programmes, created TV channels for cable and satellite and run a telecommunications and broadband business. He has dealt extensively with government at ministerial level and with regulated businesses.

As Chairman and CEO, of Flextech PLC, Adam helped take the business from a value of £60 million to its eventual sale price of £2.4 billion.

Adam created and launched 24-hour coverage of Parliament in the UK (subsequently taken over by the BBC) and launched and managed the Discovery Channel in the UK and Europe.

He was one of the architects of UKTV (the Flextech joint venture with the BBC) and chaired it, and has dealt extensively with international broadcasters in France, Scandinavia, Argentina, Japan and the US.

He was formerly the COO of John Malone’s TCI International, and CEO of Telewest Plc and has been a non-executive director of the Scottish Media Group.

Adam has founded Cordelia UK Ltd, a management consultancy, and in May 2006 was appointed Vice Chair of the Ofcom Content Board.

Sutton Trout
Vice President of Consumer Products, Digital Distribution and Professional Services for IGN Entertainment, a division of FOX.

Session: Digital Distribution Panel

Sutton’s career started in the games business as an art director back in 1993 at Sega. He joined Sony Computer Entertainment in 1995, where he worked on the launch of the first PlayStation console. He followed that up with over 6 years at Eidos Interactive, where he was Director of Creative Affairs and Licensing. At Eidos, Sutton was part of the core team that worked on Tomb Raider, and Hitman franchises. He joined Konami in 2001 as their Director Business Development. Sutton joined IGN in late 2003, and is now responsible for aquistion and digital distribution of games via the industry leading site, direct2drive.com, and the tech services sales of IGN’s GameSpy technologies.

Mike Vorhaus
Managing Director
Frank N. Magid Associates

Session: The State of the US Gaming Market

Mike Vorhaus is Managing Director at Frank N. Magid Associates where he founded the Internet practice in 1995, with AOL and Excite as his first clients. Magid has completed over 2,500 engagements with over 100 Internet clients.

Mike began the Magid Gaming Practice in 2001 with EA and Sony Online as his first two clients. Magid works with most of the major game publishers.

Mike has participated in hundreds of studies for his clients and personally consults a number of leading Internet and gaming companies, including the launch of new services and content, as well as development and implementation of online and offline marketing programs. Mike has also consulted on a number of film projects such as You've Got Mail and The Matrix.

Mark Webley
Development Director
Lionhead Studios

Session: Taking Lionhead from Inception to Microsoft

Mark Webley was one of the founders and is currently the Development Director of Lionhead Studios.

His career in computer games began when he joined Bullfrog in 1993 where he set up and managed the Conversions Department, responsible for the conversion of all Bullfrog games from Populous 2 through to Theme Park. He was also one of the original programmers on Theme Park and the lead designer/programmer on Theme Hospital - one of Bullfrog’s most successful titles which was voted BIMA Game of the Year in 1997 and continues to be listed in the budget charts some 9 years later.

Lionhead Studios have released four major titles; Black & White, (nominated in 2001 for 6 BAFTA’s; winning 2), Fable, The Movies and Black & White 2. Mark was heavily involved in 3 of the titles in a programming or design capacity as well as being a member of the management team steering these projects.

Gabe Zichermann
Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer
Boonty

Session: Digital Distribution Panel

Gabe Zichermann is the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer for Boonty, a leading provider of digital game services worldwide. Prior to joining the Boonty team, Gabe was the VP of Strategy and Communications for Trymedia Systems and the Marketing Director for the Game Developers Conference, Gamasutra.com and Game Developer magazine. Gabe vaguely remembers having done something with his life prior to joining the games business...but right now he's too busy playing Civ4 to remember what it was.