We’re excited to announce another great speaker coming to GamesBeat Summit May 5 and 6. Taking place at the scenic Cavallo Resort just north of San Francisco, this is an intimate, invite-only event designed to promote open dialogue and debate among senior-level peers. See if you qualify here.
Our newest addition to the roster is Peter Phillips, executive vice president and general manager, Interactive & Digital Distribution for Marvel Entertainment. Of course, Marvel’s Super Heroes are hardly new to video games: the first one appeared in 1982 published by Parker Brothers for the Atari 2600. Hard to believe it’s been over thirty years since Spider-Man launched the brand’s foray into the video game world — and a lot has changed since then.
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In his role, Phillips oversees Marvel’s digital media division, its video games unit, and its digital distribution group(focused on Marvel’s film and TV content). Each carries P&L responsibility as well as a mandate to continue globally expanding the Marvel brand via the multitude of platforms available in this day and age.
With Marvel operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company since 2009, it’s no surprise that last year twenty Marvel characters and three Marvel playsets were added to Disney Infinity across multiple platforms. Of course, Marvel works with numerous publishers, including mobile game publisher Kabam, which last year released Marvel Contest of Champions for both Apple iOS and Android devices which has since been downloaded more than 31 million times, as well as a multitude of other top developers and publishers including TT Games, D3Publisher of America, DeNA, and Gameloft. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll break one of their exciting new partnerships on stage.
Phillips will be shedding some light on where Marvel is headed and the best way publishers can work together with the franchise.
More GamesBeat Summit speakers
Kent Wakeford, the chief operating officer of Kabam. Wakeford’s been strongly outspoken about the urgency for North American mobile game developers and publishers to take their apps to Asia, which ties into one of the key themes of the summit — the need to create top gaming experiences that can cross geographic boundaries and develop loyal audiences in multiple markets.
Adam Boyes, the head of third-party publishing at Sony Computer Entertainment America. Last year, Sony released more than 100 games from indie game developers for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita consoles and now has more than 1,000 developers licensed for self-publishing on its platforms.
Super Evil Megacorp COO Kristian Segertrale, whose pedigree includes executive stints at EA, Playfish, and Glu Mobile, joins us for a fireside chat session. Super Evil Megacorp has focused solely on the development of core gaming for touch devices, as evidenced with the company’s multiplayer online battle arena, Vainglory, released last November.
Kate Edwards, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association International Game Developers Association, addresses essential issues around sexism and diversity for the industry to thrive going forward.
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Yoichi Wada, the founder and CEO of Shinra Technologies; and Jacob Navok, senior vice president of business development for Shinra, join for a fireside session. Shinra recently demoed its cloud supercomputer that breaks the one-processor, one-user model, and will enable developers to create huge worlds that can measure as much as 20 miles-by-20 miles of virtual space.
David Haddad, the executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Peter Levin, the president of interactive media and games at Lionsgate, will be on hand for a couple of those main stage discussions.
Unity Technologies CEO John Riccitiello is also part of the Summit. Unity is one of the most important companies in game development thanks to its Unity game engine, a cross-platform technology that enables developers to make works for just about any device that plays games. The company recently announced its Unity 5 tools at the Game Developers Conference 2015 in San Francisco.
Few people have had as much influence on the game industry over the last 20 years as Riccitiello. He served as the chief operating officer for gaming giant EA in his first stint at the company and returned to be its CEO, helping the publisher as it became a major player in the mobile and online gaming sectors.
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Also speaking at the Summit is Thomas Hartwig, cofounder and chief technical officer of King, one of the biggest publishers of mobile games. King was the No. 2 mobile game publisher in the world for 2014, thanks in part to its major hit Candy Crush Saga. If you play games on your phone or tablet, chances are good that you’ve crushed some candy on it since its 2012 release. And Hartwig’s role at King has helped change how we play games — and pay for them — on our mobile devices.
The focus of GamesBeat Summit is on bold ideas, the kind that will propel the industry forward, particularly in a global context. Limited to only 180 senior execs, we’re looking forward to the kind of open sharing that happens when like-minded visionaries come together.
For more info and to see if you qualify, go here.
Thanks to our sponsors, including King, Samsung, and Supersonic.
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