Organizers for the Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2008 have announced three virtual world conference sessions for the event, which will take place August 10 - 12 at the Edinburgh International Conference Center.

The first talk, "Inline Transactions," will be delivered by Karl Mehta, CEO of of publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network PlaySpan. He plans to discuss how virtual world economies impact real-world economies through real money transactions.

Hemisphere Capital's Matt Rothman will host a session on “The 3 MMO’s– from Content to Community,” in which he will moderate a panel looking beyond technology to address "what it takes to build these new forms of entertainment." Redbedlam (RomaVictor) president Kerry Fraser-Robinson, Monumental Games (Football Stars) CEO Rik Alexander, and NiceTech CTO (Tronji-The Happy Lands) Toby Simpson are scheduled to participate.

For the third session, “Real Politics invade Virtual Worlds– dealing with social and economic issues in EVE online,” Redbedlam executive director Fred Hasson will interview Eve Online's lead economist and head of research and statistics, Eyjlfur Guâmundsonn, on the social and economic consequences of in-game communities.