As the January 16th deadline for early registration fast approaches, we're pleased to announce more of the speakers who'll be participating in the upcoming Worlds In Motion Summit! This two-day event continues to gain momentum, and this time, we reveal an exciting panel focused on perhaps the biggest headline-making issue of the year: the overwhelming success of kids' virtual worlds, as discussed by the global leaders in that arena, including Club Penguin CEO Lane Merrifield, Disney Online senior vice president of premium content Steve Parkis, Nick.com senior vice president Jason Root, and Neopets senior vice president Kyra Reppen.
Prominent acquisitions, stunning user numbers, and legions of devoted young fans: social virtual worlds for children like Club Penguin, Toontown, Nicktropolis and Neopets accomplish feats of success other online worlds have only dreamed of. The message is clear: we have a phenomenon on our hands, and this exciting panel convenes the heads of these leading kids worlds to discuss the burgeoning trend, the issues unique to this space – and how they’ve nailed down knowing how to meet the needs of their audience.
Participation from Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, Ph.D, in-world economist for EVE Online, Gaia Online CEO Craig Sherman, and John Bates, director of business development for Entropia Universe has also been announced, and previously-revealed speakers include Multiverse's Corey Bridges and Rafhael Cedeno, MindCandy's Michael Smith, Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel, Areae's Raph Koster, Relic Labs studio head Adrian Crook, Nexon's Min Kim, Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger, among others.
The Summit, which is organized by the editors of WorldsInMotion.biz, will be held on Monday and Tuesday, February 18-19th 2008, as part of the 2008 Game Developers Conference. The Summit will focus on the intersection of online worlds and games, and the official description of the event is as follows:
"The Worlds in Motion Summit is a definitive event tailored for the growing number of industry professionals and Fortune 500 companies developing interactive online spaces for both entertainment and commercial purposes. Discussion forums will delve into online worlds, social gaming and media and player created activity.
These will provide insight for developers of all backgrounds into how the game industry is collectively building socialization into games and integrating personalization and player-generated content into gameplay — while widely accessible Web and networking tools are looking to the game industry for their way forward."
The Summit is available to attend via several different Game Developers Conference 2008 passes, and more information on the event plus the speakers announced so far is available on the Worlds In Motion Summit webpage. The deadline for early registration is January 16th, so register today!
