Making Money from Social Gaming: Short Term Bubble or Sustainable Future?

It’s been three years since Farmville was launched, and for a long time its San Francisco creator, Zynga, was the darling of the industry, generating one billion dollars (and a whole lot of buzz) with its initial public offering last December.

But since then its stocks have failed to live up to the hype - falling 40% one day in July after reporting a surprise loss in revenue.

More than 200 million people are estimated to use social gaming platforms, which generated nearly $5 billion in revenue last year alone.  But with most players spending less than $5 a month, are this summer's events a sign that the bubble is starting to burst , or a mere blip in the path of progress?

On Tuesday October 16, 2012, the BABC is proud to bring together some of the industry’s most influential players for an interactive panel discussion on the future of social gaming.

Are companies successfully developing sustainable strategies to make money from these platforms? Is it possible to build a long term business model for investors? What trends are we going to see over the next few months and years?

Confirmed speakers include:

Peter Moore, Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts, a global leader in digital interactive entertainment which delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones, tablets and social networks.

Jude Gomila, Co-Founder and President of Heyzap, the largest social network for mobile gamers.

Stephen Clements, Executive Creative Director at AKQA, a global advertising agency with a focus on success in the digital age.

Josh Williams, President and Chief Science Officer, Kontagent, a leading user analytics platform for developers, marketers, product managers and strategic partners.
 

Moderator: Sana N Choudary, CEO & Founder, YetiZen Games Accelerator, a cornerstone of the social mobile game community.
 

Held at the Mission Bay Conference Center, there will be plenty of time for networking whilst enjoying complimentary drinks and light hors d’oeuvres.

Many thanks to ARAMARK for generously sponsoring this event.


SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES


Peter Moore
Chief Operating Officer, Electronic Arts

Peter Moore is Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts, providing strategic leadership for all global operations that enable EA to bring products to market via retail and digital direct-to-consumer channels, including publishing, sales, media, central development and channel management.

Mr. Moore has more than 25 years of experience in gaming, entertainment and consumer products. From September 2007 to August 2011, he held the position of President of EA SPORTS, leading one of the most recognized brands in sports and entertainment. During his tenure, EA SPORTS delivered some of the top-selling sports video games of the current console generation from franchises including FIFA, Madden NFL, NCAA Football and NHL. Mr. Moore’s leadership was also instrumental in the expansion of digital game experiences from EA SPORTS, extending console games through downloadable content as well as bringing EA SPORTS franchises to new gaming platforms including social media and mobile devices.

Prior to joining EA, Mr. Moore was Corporate Vice President of the Interactive Entertainment Business of Microsoft Corp., where he was responsible for leading both the Xbox® and Games for Windows® businesses, driving games development at Microsoft® Game Studios, as well as cultivating relationships with third-party game publishers and developers around the world. Before joining Microsoft, Mr. Moore was President and COO of SEGA of America, where he was responsible for overseeing SEGA’s videogame business in North America. Prior to his role at SEGA, Mr. Moore was Senior Vice President of marketing at Reebok International Ltd.

Mr. Moore holds a bachelor’s degree from Keele University, United Kingdom, and a master’s degree from California State University, Long Beach.

Jude Gomila
Co-Founder and President, Heyzap
Jude Gomila is co-founder of Heyzap - the largest social network for mobile gamers. Based out of sunny San Francisco and backed by some of the greatest investors in tech including: Union Square Ventures, YCombinator, super angel Naval Ravikant, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Dixon, Joshua Schachter and many other great angels.  Jude was featured in Inc Magazine's 30 under 30 in 2012.
 
Jude was born in London, attended the University of Cambridge and holds a Masters in Engineering.

Jude mentors for Seedcamp, Springbaord and speaks at a wide variety of industry conferences. He has invested in technology startups and advises a range of companies. Jude blogs about business and tech on judegomila.com and is interested in shaping future technology.


Stephen Clements
Executive Creative Director of AKQA
Stephen Clements has been with AKQA, one of the world's most respected advertising agencies, for nearly 9 years. Having spent 4 years working at AKQA London he has since relocated to the San Francisco office, where he is co-Executive Creative Director. An architect by training, he's intensely passionate about virtual spaces, especially video game design. His first assignment at AKQA was designing the – then new – Xbox 360 user interface. And recent career highlights include the launch of Kinect, Halo:Reach and Trinity. He still is the creative leader for the global AKQA Xbox account.

You can read an article about Stephen Clements' appointment here.

Josh Williams
President and Chief Science Officer, Kontagent

Josh is responsible for strategic revenue projects, data science and R&D.  He is responsible for driving Kontagent's world class proprietary data processing, analysis platform and algorithms into new verticals and markets.  A serial entrepreneur, Josh has led two successful start-ups to two large exits - the first as CTO at an early big data firm in automated real-time financial securities analysis which was acquired in 2003, and the second as CEO and CTO at a leading game technology company which was acquired in early 2007.  Josh is an investor and loves helping other entrepreneurs however he can.  In his personal time, he... well, mostly just works more, much to his lovely wife's bemusement and occasional chagrin.

Moderator: Sana N Choudary
CEO & Founder, YetiZen Games Accelerator

Sana is the CEO and Founder of YetiZen, a cornerstone of the social mobile game community. YetiZen has two arms. The first is the YetiZen Innovation Lab,  a 10,000 square feet games innovation space in the heart of San Francisco that provides free coplay for the game industry and 150+ events for game developers yearly. This includes the San Francisco Game Developer’s Workshop series (SFGDW) which has 5000+ members making it the largest regularly meeting game developer event globally. The second is YetiZen Games Accelerator program, the only games focused accelerator program in existence. The accelerator has 150+ mentors, 300 angels and 9 VCs (like Tim Chang from Mayfield Fund and Baris Aksoy from Intel Capital) who are the leaders of the game space.

At YetiZen, Sana’s role is to help phenomenal entrepreneurs thrive by developing strong business, marketing, and fundraising strategies, and by building the professional network that would become instrumental in the success of accelerated companies. As a well known thought leader in the games space Sana often shares her essays on the business of games at Tumblr. Reach out to her via twitter @SanaOnGames