8 GamesBeat University videos that teach you about the game business

We learned a lot about gaming at our GamesBeat 2016 event a few weeks ago. And we’re still gleaning some of the lessons from those sessions. We’ve written a lot about the news that emerged from those talks, but we also had a lot of talks that were purely educational. Once again, we livestreamed a bunch of talks that we called GamesBeat University, and I thought it was worth recapping here.

If you want to get started in games the right way, you should listen to these talks. A good thing: Not everybody talked about Pokémon Go.

Gordon Bellamy, visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, returned for the second year to moderate our livestreamed fireside chats about important subjects in game business. All of the talks can teach you something from the perspective of industry veterans. I hope you enjoy them. I’ve embedded them below. Bellamy has a very folksy personality, and he coaxed some amusing and informative material from every speaker.

To extract some lessons about gaming’s newest platform, Dan Fiden, chief strategy officer at FunPlus, interviewed Brandon Laatsch, founder of Stress Level Zero (creator of Hover Junkers), about VR game development. FunPlus invested in Stress Level Zero, which has a leg up in getting attention in part because Laatsch is a famous YouTuber.

Jon Kimmich, CEO of Software Illuminati, talked with Bellamy about surviving the indiepocalypse and the VR transition. They talked about counseling game developers about how to turn their games into real business. Kimmich ticks off a bunch of things that developers need to be successful.

Dan Winters, head of business development for Amazon Digital Games, talked with Bellamy about his early days as a baseball player and his current work in helping game developers get the best out of Amazon’s various services, including its Lumberyard game engine.

Sibel Sunar, CEO and principal of 47 Communications, has been doing game PR for a long time. She talked about the right way to do it with Gordon Bellamy at GamesBeat University. How, for example, should a founder develop a “voice” as the public face of a company?

Wanda Meloni, CEO of M2 Research and executive director of the Open Gaming Alliance, talked about the need to create a more open and diverse games business with Gordon Bellamy at GamesBeat University. Meloni talks about the resources that the OGA is making available to game companies. The OGA is growing its special interest groups, such as diversity, and it’s expanding overseas as well.

The music business has been behind the times when it comes to games, and it also has to catch up in virtual reality. Adam Arrigo, CEO of The Wave VR, talked with Bellamy about virtual reality for music lovers.

Surviving for a decade isn’t easy for game studios. Jay Koottarappallil, CEO of White Moon Dreams, talked about how to do that.

Alex Valle, product manager for App Ads, did a solo talk about finding high-value mobile game players with Google at GamesBeat University.