Introducing GamesBeat 2015: Playing the Game of Thrones

Our next must-attend gaming event is the GamesBeat 2015 conference at the Grand Hyatt Union Square on Oct. 12 and Oct. 13 in San Francisco. You can sign up for it now.

We just had a wonderful GamesBeat Summit event. But that was a more intimate affair — our second event of the year is larger shindig with as many as 80 speakers and many well-known moderators over the course of two days.

Gaming has many kingdoms: mobile, console, PC online, geographic, and more. In each of these powerful realms, companies are fighting to grow fast, to come out on top — and to cross boundaries to rule more than one empire. Playing the competitive game, making alliances, prepping for new platforms like augmented and virtual reality, and surviving the incredibly fast change in gaming right now is more difficult than ever. It’s more complex than the fantasy world of Westeros in HBO’s Game of Thrones … and it’s happening right in front of us all. At GamesBeat 2015, we’ll dissect how these kings and queens are battling for gaming supremacy and growth. We’ll find out who’s leading and how they are winning.

We’re screening our speakers for bold ideas, transparency, global strategies, creativity, and diversity.

Above: Niccolo De Masi, CEO of Glu.

Image Credit: Glu

Our speakers show that gaming has become a global and diverse business with many intricacies and strategies. Here’s the first batch:

Niccolo De Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile. De Masi has been in the spotlight ever since the meteoric success of the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood mobile game. His company is also working on games based on celebrities Britney Spears and Katy Perry. Is this the path to mobile dominance?

Above: Brianna Wu of Giant Spacekat

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

Brianna Wu, head of development at Giant Spacekat: Her team created the mobile game Revolution 60 last year, but Wu gained more notoriety as a vocal opponent of Gamergate, the gamer-rage movement that targeted women such as Wu with a lot of Internet hatred (including attacking a number of game developers while claiming it was about “ethics in journalism.”) She has since become a major figure in the feminist movement to make gaming more accepting of women and female game characters.

Above: Kongregate CEO Emily Greer

Image Credit: Kongregate

Emily Greer, head of Kongregate: Greer cofounded Kongregate with her brother, Jim, as an online site for indie games. They sold the business to game retail giant GameStop, and Greer is now taking Kongregate into mobile.

Above: Rajesh Rao of GameTantra

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

Rajesh Rao, CEO of GameTantra and Dhruva Interactive: Rao founded Dhruva Interactive as India’s first major game company in 1997. He developed the business over the years with work-for-hire on titles such as Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport. More recently, he started the GameTantra incubator for Indian game companies.

Jessica Rovello, CEO of Arkadium: Rovello cofounded Arkadium as a casual game company back in 2001. They bootstrapped the business into a major online casual game maker and expanded into Windows mobile. But the Russia-Ukraine crisis caught their studio in Crimea by surprise. They had to shut down the office and relocate it, and Rovello and her husband, Kenny Rosenblatt, swapped the top job earlier this year, making Rovello one of the few top executives in gaming that’s a women. And she was responsible for salvaging the company’s fortunes in Eastern Europe.

Above: Manish Agarwal, CEO of Reliance Games

Image Credit: Reliance Games

Manish Agarwal, CEO of Reliance Games: The Mumbai-based Reliance Entertainment has become a big player in media, film, and entertainment. And now Agarwal’s Reliance Games has become a global player by specializing in movie-based mobile titles such as Real Steel and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Above: Owen Mahoney of Nexon tells Ian Sherr of The Wall Street Journal that game designers shouldn’t make junk.

Image Credit: Michael O'Donnell/VentureBeat

Ian Sherr, executive editor of Cnet: Sherr has covered games and tech news at places such as Cnet and the Wall Street Journal. We’ll have him ask astute questions of our speakers, as a moderator. He previously moderated sessions with Kabam’s Kent Wakeford and the Entertainment Software Association’s Mike Gallagher.

Above: Mike Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association.

Image Credit: Michael O'Donnell/VentureBeat

Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA, the game industry’s trade association, is back at GamesBeat’s big event as well. Gallagher is the spokesman for the game industry, and he always has something to say about its direction and growth.

Above: Kate Edwards of the IGDA at the GamesBeat Summit.

Image Credit: Michael O'Donnell/VentureBeat

Kate Edwards, executive director at the International Game Developers Association: Edward represents the game developers of the world, and she has emerged as a voice of for diversity, creativity, and fairness in what has been a wild and raucous business.

Our GamesBeat 2015 advisory board includes:

• Ophir Lupu, head of video games at United Talent Agency
• Jay Eum, managing director at TransLink Capital
• Phil Sanderson, managing director at IDG Venture
• Sunny Dhillon, partner at Signia Venture Partners
• Reinout te Brake, CEO of GetSocial