Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Peter Freese: The ION Game Conference is the only event in the industry (and in the world) that is completely focused on online games across all the platforms, which means it’s the best place for people involved in online games to network, share ideas, and get a sense of where the industry is headed. We get panelists and speakers who are decision makers from the major developers, publishers, and platform providers, so you can count on hearing news about their strategies and initiatives, as well as announcements about new projects and services.

Peter: I’ve been a game developer for nearly two decades and about half of that has been creating games exclusively online. By online, I don’t necessarily mean multiplayer, although a lot of what I have been involved in has been massively multiplayer games. The key element for me about online games is that they represent a service to the player. The benefits of games-as-a-service to the player are many, and include continuous evolution of content, ability to play/install anywhere, lower cost (and even free play), and of course being able to co-exist with thousands of others in virtual worlds. For developers/publishers, online games offer a solution to one of the oldest problems in our business – that of piracy. You don’t need cumbersome copy-protection schemes when your goal is to give away your game client to as many people as possible.

Besides being involved with developing online games, I’ve always been passionate about finding ways for people to share knowledge. A lot of my professional career has been devoted to helping companies share technology between teams. I would find it frustrating that different development teams at the same company would independently reinvent the wheel, often making the same mistakes along the way. Establishing the right shared technology base can help companies develop games faster, more efficiently, and with greater mind-share between developers.

In the same way, knowledge can be shared between people from different companies. A lot of projects are doomed to failure because teams are repeating the mistakes of others, rather than learning from them. The online game market isn’t a zero-sum game – exchange of information benefits everyone by allowing us to expand the market.

Peter: Our original concept was that the event would be primarily for in-the-trenches developers, so “Online Game Development Conference” was the most straightforward and descriptive name. I also liked the visual form of the letters “ogdc” in the san-serif font we used for our logo – four repeated circle shapes. We had a little bit of concern that the name could get lost in the mix with the alphabet soup of conference abbreviations, so we tried to make it clear that we were an independent event.

After our event last year, we received so many comments from attendees about how OGDC was the best event they’d ever attended for making business deals, it made sense for us to expand our focus to include international business development (as it relates to online games). We felt with the larger focus, it was time to create a new image and name for the conference.

Peter: You know what they say: “Loose lips sink ships!” We’ll start announcing speakers before the end of January. I’m confident that everyone will be impressed with our lineup.

Peter: We have great plans for our pressroom this year, including making it available to select developers for press announcements – we’ll have a schedule so that our press partners will know when to be there for announcements they don’t want to miss out on. We also help the press in contacting speakers and attendees to arrange on-site interviews.

Peter: Our call for speakers ends on January 21, 2008, so there is still time for prospective speakers to submit abstracts. Our topic and speaker guidelines are on the ION Game Conference speaker submission page: http://www.ionconference.com/submissions.html.

Peter: One of the more interesting things going on is a growing acceptance of online games as “third places.” One of our speakers last year, Constance Steinkuehler, assistant professor in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has published some great research in this area. I think we’ll start to see a convergence of online social networks and online games that recognizes this. When you consider something like how easy it is to find people with similar interests on Facebook versus how hard it is to find a good guild in WoW, it’s obvious that game developers have a long way to go. That represents a lot of opportunity for some new company.

Peter: I’ve been to a lot of conferences over the years, and I’d been dissatisfied with my experience at game industry events. Most of the best networking and information sharing seemed to happen away from the actual event, whether it was at a private dinner across town, in the hotel lobby bar after the show, or on the plane ride home. I wanted to create an event where the conference activities worked for the attendees, rather than against them. In essence, ION represents the kind of conference that I wish I could go to as an attendee.

Peter: Global internet growth is the single most important factor that is changing the market for online games. Asia has nearly double the number of internet users than North America, and the trend is swinging even farther in that direction. The growth in China alone is staggering (about 20% versus 2% in the United States), and it is expected that they will overtake the United States by the end of 2008. Given issues with rampant software piracy in Asia, online games are the key to financial success, which is why big western publishers are now trying to invest heavily in Pacific Rim game developers and publishers.

Our theme for 2008 is redefining online, and we are looking at the future of online games and methods of monetization in the new global market. But it’s not just about business – we’re looking at the technical issues, design issues, and community aspects as well.

Peter: Evergreen Events was founded in the fall of 2005. Our goal is to create the highest quality events like ION for the game industry. We are also passionate about education of young people; we do a series of events called Career Discovery for middle and high school students, intended to encourage, motivate, and inspire them to follow their passion and dreams, even if it means taking the hard classes.

We see our attendees as participants rather than just consumers, so it’s very important that we treat them like VIPs. We consider them the best of the industry, and we want them to think of us the same way. We really are passionate about quality and although we want the event to be profitable, we measure our success by the kind of experience our attendees have.

Peter: If you’re a developer, don’t procrastinate on getting your speaker submission in – the deadline is fast approaching and the competition for speaking slots will be even fiercer this year. If you are a student or someone pursuing a career in the games industry and want to work on your networking skills and learn more about online games, we have a volunteer program that lets you attend the event in exchange for helping out – just follow the  volunteer link on the front page of the ION site. Finally, online registration will open January 28th; we anticipate the event selling out this year, so there is no guarantee of onsite registration!

Ten Ton Hammer is your source for industry news and events!

Don't forget to check out the ION Game Conference website!