17 reasons to attend GamesBeat 2011

We’ve been writing a lot of posts about our speakers at GamesBeat 2011. But here’s a summary of why we think this will be the must-attend game conference for you.

We’re gathering the industry’s top CEOs, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, journalists, marketers, developers and other key executives for a two-day gathering at the elegant Palace Hotel in San Francisco, from July 12 to July 13. The event is co-located with our MobileBeat conference this year and it focuses on the hottest sector of gaming: the intersection of mobile and games.

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1. Great headliners:

We’ve got some of the best minds in the game industry giving talks and doing fireside chats. Many of our talks are one-on-one conversations, not unwieldy panels or lectures. Our speakers include:

Nolan Bushnell, father of video games and board member at Atari (speaking on the arc of history in games)
Bing Gordon, partner at Kleiner Perkins (speaking on the Golden Age of Gaming)
Jordan Weisman, founder of Harebrained Schemes (speaking on the Talent Migration)
Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate (speaking on Digital Disruption)
Tim Chang, partner at Norwest Venture Partners (speaking on Investing in Mobile/Social Games)
Rich Wong, partner at Accel Partners (speaking on Deconstructing Angry Birds)
Steve Perlman, CEO of OnLive (speaking on Cloud Gaming Goes Mobile)
Wibe Wagemans, Humming Bird at Rovio (speaking on Making Angry Birds even bigger)
Peter Relan, chairman of Youweb (speaking on Next-generation Mobile)
Neil Young, CEO of Ngmoco (speaking on DeNA — Building a global mobile social network)
Andrej Nabergoj, CEO of Outfit7 (speaking on brands born from mobile)
Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion Worlds (speaking on The Deep End or the Shallow End of Gaming)
Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam (speaking on Raising a Big Pile of Money)
Joe Kraus, partner at Google Ventures (speaking on Raising a Big Pile of Money)
Shervin Pishevar, managing director of Menlo Ventures (speaking on Raising a Big Pile of Money)
Dennis Ryan, head of publishing at PopCap Games (speaking on Rise of Cross-Platform Games)
Keith Lee, CEO of Booyah (speaking on Learnings From Mobile)

2. We’ve also got some of most interesting newcomers on the gaming scene:

Andrej Nabergoj, CEO of Outfit7
Suli Ali, CEO of TinyCo
Daniel Terry, CEO of Pocket Gems
Colin Digiaro, COO of MindJolt
Jussi Laakkonen, CEO of Applifier
Brian Selzer, president of Ogmento
Laurent Gil, CEO of Viewdle
Gene Becker, AR strategist at Layar
Evan Kirchhoff, co-founder and chief technology officer at Qubop

3. And the king makers of the mobile social networks

Neil Young, CEO of Ngmoco
Jason Citron, CEO of Open Feint
Si Shen, CEO of Papaya Mobile
Jude Gomila and Immad Akhund, founders of Heyzap
Jussi Laakkonen, CEO of Applifier

4. Some of the best-known developers in mobile will be on stage:

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Jeferson Valadares, a veteran studio exec and general manager for games at Flurry
Dave Castelnuovo, founder of Bolt Creative and creator of Pocket God
Gabe Leydon, CEO of Addmired
Lou Fasulo, chief operating officer at Z2Live
Julian Farrior, CEO of Backflip Studios
Giancarlo Mori, chief creative officer at Glu Mobile

5. Supporting players and smart business leaders who matter:

David Marcus, founder and CEO of Zong
Teemu Huuhtanen, executive vice president of Sulake/Habbo Hotel
Kevin Henshaw, vice president of business development, IMVU
Chris Bergstresser, executive vice president and commercial director at Miniclip.
Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry
Matt Shea, executive vice president of product development at Wild Tangent
Brian Wong, founder of Kiip
Joshua Hernandez, CEO of Tap.me
Peter Driesen, CEO of Spil Games

6. Some interesting thinkers:

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Rob Wyatt, chief scientist at Otoy
Peter Relan, chairman of Youweb and CEO of CrowdStar
Michael Pachter, analyst at Webush Securities
Nicole Lazzaro, founder of XEO Design

7. Investors worth meeting:

Tim Chang, partner at Norwest Venture Partners
Rich Wong, partner at Accel Partners
Tim Merel, managing director of Digi-Capital
Suli Ali, CEO of TinyCo (which manages the Tiny Fund)
Joe Kraus, partner at Google Ventures
Peter Relan, chairman of Youweb
Charles Hudson, partner at SoftTech VC

8. Outsiders who matter:

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Keith Rabois, chief operating officer, Square
Dror Oren, executive director of Ventures, Licensing, & Strategic programs at SRI International
Adam Lavine, CEO of FunMobility
Kris Duggan, CEO of Badgeville

9. The tool makers and analytics experts:

Brett Seyler, vice president of strategy for Unity Technologies
Michael Agustin, founder, GameSalad
Walter Luh, CEO of Ansca Mobile
Josh Williams, head of special projects, Kontagent
Frederic Thuard, executive vice president of App Annie
Michael Oiknine, CEO of Apsalar

10. Breadth of speakers: We’ve got 78 speakers and moderators lined up and two more to confirm.

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11. Wide range of topics: We have 28 sessions that cover the gamut in mobile, social, and digital gaming. They range from a debate on Deep End vs. the Shallow End of Gaming to Augmented Reality Games.

12. Eight fresh and cool startups in our “Who’s Got Game?” Best Game Startup Contest: We went through 39 applications and pulled the top eight to present for four minutes each on stage.

MetalCompass — Maker of social real-world games and peripherals for smartphones
Haptify — Creator of games that make use of haptics; started by Immersion
Kaiju Empire – Developer that wants to bring back the Japanese classic monster characters
Zipline Games – Maker of Moai mobile game creation tools
Protege Production — Creator of DreamHome social network casual games
Gbanga – Developer of mixed-reality games
OneUp Games – Maker of a live sports game.
Guerillapps — Maker of games with green goals

13. Excellent startup competition judges: Sana Choudary of YetiZen; Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners; Michael Chang of Electronic Arts’ corporate development department; and Terence Fung, head of corporate development at Zynga.

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14. Great moderators: Yukari Kane Iwatani of the Wall Street Journal; Cliff Edwards of Bloomberg Businessweek; Charles Hudson of Bionic Panda Games; Mark Friedler, gaming consultant; Anand Iyer of IGN, Anthony Ha of Adweek; Matthew Lynley of VentureBeat; Sana Choudary and Japheth Dillman of YetiZen; Rich Wong of Accel Partners; Eric Goldberg of Crossover Technologies; Jeferson Valadares of Flurry; Margaret Wallace of Playmatics; Loyd Case of Maximum PC; Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities; Eric Eldon of Inside Network; George Jones of Invention Media; and yours truly, Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat.

15. The press will be there. It’s a good place to get noticed with journalists from the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, CBS Interactive, Electronic Gaming Monthly, 1Up.com, Gamasutra, Gamerlive.tv, GameSpot, Gaming Business Review, Inside Network, Inside Social Games, Maximum PC, Pocket Gamer, the San Jose Mercury News, Social Times, IGN, Adweek, Wired, and dozens more attending the co-hosted MobileBeat event.

16. Don’t forget MobileBeat 2011 is next door. You can get a combination ticket that will gain you entry into two world-class conferences, each happening over the same two days in the same location, side-by-side.

17. Awesome sponsors: Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Sibblingz, Open Feint, Spil Games and WildTangent.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Sibblingz, Open Feint, Spil Games and WildTangent.