Morning Session Spotlight

10:30am-11:15am –Nanu Nanu! How to bring social functionality into traditional game design…and actually make it work

How can traditional game design utilize social functionality…and actually do it well?

Moderated by David Cole (President | DFC Intelligence)
Amy Jo Kim (CEO | Shufflebrain)
Kai Huang (Founder | Guitar Hero )
Dennis Fong (CEO | Raptr ),
Dan Fiden (GM, San Francisco Studio | Playfish)
Mike Verdu (SVP, Games | Zynga )

Afternoon Session Spotlight

3:40pm-4:25pm – It’s not fair!” said the T-Rex: How monetizing games-as-a-service will save you from extinction

How will games-as-a-service, virtual goods, and micro-transactions will save game companies from extinction AND increase their bottom-line?

Atul Bagga ( VP Equity Research | ThinkEquity)
Brandon Beck ( CEO | Riot Games)
Howard Marks (CEO | Acclaim)
Susan Wu (CEO | Ohai)
John Cahill (CEO | Meez)

Join Bill Grosso, Live Gamer’s CTO as he discusses practical ways to optimize your virtual economy using common merchandising techniques, including many found at your local Safeway!

12-12:30 – North Hall Room 123

Visit the official VCON website

The event is free with your GDC admission, Register Now!

To schedule a meeting with Live Gamer at GDC, Contact Us

Congratulations to Sony Online Entertainment for launching PoxNora today on Facebook. The new Facebook application comes with a complete storefront powered by Live Gamer Elements platform.

Here is a peak at the PoxNora game on Facebook and the storefront.

Play PoxNora on Facebook

PoxNora Screenshots

Live Gamer is thrilled to have the following line up of industry CEO’s, founders, visionaries, and executives at this year’s VCON 2010!

Other Speakers Include:

Atul Bagga | VP Equity Research | ThinkEquity

Brandon Beck | CEO | Riot Games

John Cahill | CEO | Meez

Ed Castronova | Associate Professor of Telecommunications | Indiana University Bloomington

Tim Chang | Principal | Norwest Venture Partners Patrick Chung | Managing Director | SK Telecom Ventures

M. Lee Clancy Jr. | SVP Product Management & GM of Direct Revenue | IMVU

David Cole | President | DFC Intelligence

Mitch Davis | CEO | Live Gamer

Dan Fiden | GM, San Francisco Studio | Playfish

Dennis Fong | CEO | Raptr

Eric Goldberg | Managing Director | Crossover Technologies

William Grosso | CTO & SVP Product | Live Gamer

Eyjolfur Guomundsson | Economist | CCP

Kai Huang | Founder | Guitar Hero

Daniel James | CEO | Three Rings

Amy Jo Kim | CEO | Shufflebrain

Daniel Kim | CEO | Nexon

Vili Lehdonvirta | Researcher | Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

Howard Marks | CEO | Acclaim

Niranjan Nagar | Chief of Game Operations | Outspark

Mike Verdu | SVP, Games | Zynga

Jordan Weissman | Chairman & Chief Product Officer | Smith & Tinker

Susan Wu | CEO | Ohai

To see the complete list of speakers and agenda please visit the VCON 2010 website

V-Con 2010: How Games-as-a-Service & Virtual Items Have Changed the Playbook Forever

produced by Live Gamer

03.10.10 // 10:00am – 5:15pm // West Mezz Room 270/272

@ Game Developers Conference // San Francisco, CA

V-Con is a 1-day exploration into how Games-as-a-Service and Virtual Items have changed the playbook forever. Led by the game industry’s most sought-after CEOs, founders, visionaries, and executives, we’ll discuss the industry’s undisputed transition to this new business model, as well as its ramifications on development, product management, operations, and strategy.

We hope to see you there! Stay tuned – exciting speaker announcements, keynotes, and the official agenda coming soon!

The event is FREE with the purchase of your GDC ticket.

Register Now

Learn More

[Excerpt From Think Equity Report]

Think Entertainment: Gaming
Virtual Goods: An Interview With The Founder And
CEO Of Live Gamer
THINK SUMMARY:

We had a chance to speak with Mitch Davis, the founder and CEO of Live
Gamer, one of the leading payment and ecommerce solution companies for
virtual economies serving more than 85 million users. The company sees
payment solutions as a commodity business and ecommerce suite (analytics,
merchandising, item management, and marketing) as much more valuable,
given its ability to drive up conversion rates and ARPPU for publishers. The
company is seeing a strong interest in the micro-transaction model from
traditional media companies (newspaper, TV, and films) to monetize their
content, which could significantly expand the market opportunity, which at
present seems to be largely focused on online gaming.

Live Gamer is one of the leading payment and ecommerce solution
companies for the virtual economies, akin to an SAP for real goods business,
according to Davis, powering 85 virtual economies and serving over 85
million users.

• The company is focused on online gaming but is seeing strong interest from
traditional media companies like newspaper, magazine, television, and film
studios in adopting a micro-transaction model to monetize their existing
content.

• According to Davis, the size of the online gaming market could be about $15
billion, and assuming a 7% take-rate, the market for ecommerce and
payment solutions could be about $1 billion currently and could grow to about
$2 billion in the next three to five years. Including the emerging opportunity
from the traditional media space, the addressable opportunity could grow to
about $3 billion over the next three to five years, according to the company.

….

Download the full report

Today we are pleased to announce that we have expanded our relationship with Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) to implement Elements, our core microtransaction platform, to power micro-payments across their social, web, and in-game channels.

SOE and Live Gamer will work closely over the next quarter to seamlessly augment and upgrade SOE’s existing proprietary infrastructure.  This collaboration will enable a unified cross-platform e-wallet and item merchandising experience within SOE’s traditional client-side PC online game business.  Games to take advantage of the Live Gamer platform will include PoxNora®, Free Realms™, EverQuest® and EverQuest®II, as well as future titles.

“The microtransaction industry has become increasingly specialized, and Live Gamer has helped us with advanced functionality that allows us to continually stay ahead of the curve in ecommerce,” said John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. “We chose Live Gamer to power our payments, merchandising and primary-secondary market solutions based on innovative technology, recognized track record in the market and an advanced, holistic approach.”

Along with this announcement are significant upgrades to the core platform itself such as an upgraded enterprise storefront, retail merchandising capabilities, advanced item offers and new analytics features for payment gateway optimization to improve publishers’ ability to drive conversion rates, ARPU, and retention.

Read the official announcement or contact us to learn more about our new platform upgrades.

Stevie case

Live Gamer is please to announce that female gaming icon, Stevie Case has joined our team as Senior Director of Business Development, bringing her passion for the industry and long-standing experience in the professional gaming business to the company.

In her career, Stevie has been acknowledged as both one of “20 Women to Watch in Business Under 30” by Working Woman Magazine, and as one of the “Next Game Gods” by PC Gamer.

She most recently served as the N. American Business Development and Sales lead at fatfoogoo. She has previously served as Director of Business Development and Sales at Tira Wireless, as well as at Spleak Media Network as Director of Product Management, designing features for an IM-based social network.

Ms. Case is a widely respected figure in the industry and is celebrated for being one of the first professional female gamers in the world. Stevie gained notable recognition for defeating John Romero in a Quake deathmatch. Soon after, she joined Ion Storm: first as a game tester, then as a level designer. Stevie, Romero, and id Software veteran Tom Hall then went on to co-found Monkeystone Games, where she was CEO.

We are thrilled to bring her industry expertise to the Live Gamer family!

Virtual Goods News recently caught up with Live Gamer’s president, Andrew Schneider to talk about likely trends of 2010 in microtransactions and virtual goods.

Here’s what he had to say…

To read the entire visit, Virtual Goods News

Virtual Goods News: What do you see happening with free-to-play business models in the immediate future?

Andrew Schneider: Free-to-play models will become king online and on mobile, with revenue coming from microtransactions. We’ll also start hearing hype around the first free-to-play console title.

VirtualGoodsNews: What company do you think will have the most impact on virtual goods in 2010?

Andrew Schneider: Apple will open the door for virtual currencies and virtual goods sales on the iPhone and iPod Touch via the App Store. Over $100 million in virtual goods will be sold within the App Store economy in 2010 alone, with overall virtual goods sales rivaling overall iPhone app sales.

VGN: What impact do you see microtransactions having on total mobile revenues?

AS: Mobile microtransactions will reach 20% of mobile revenues. The introduction of microtransactions through the iPhone App store will be a major influencer here.

VGN: Do you see any innovations coming in the ways publishers use virtual goods?

AS: Multi-purpose, cross platform item use will become commonplace.  For example,
single items may have functional use in games or virtual worlds, but then also be used outside of that context — in user profiles or other social display outlets on multiple platforms.

VGN: Where do you see brands fitting in to 2010’s virtual goods picture?

AS: Brand licensing will increase, both for free-to-play games and for virtual goods inside games, social networks, and virtual worlds.

VGN: Do you see publishers trying to monetize virtual goods differently in 2010?

AS: Publishers will focus on an integrated approach to revenue that expands beyond monetization of the “super-user,” with a targeted combination of virtual goods, virtual currency and advertising.

VGN: Do you see traditional media companies adopting a microtransaction-oriented business model?

AS: Traditional media companies will increasingly mirror the virtual goods market in social gaming for monetization. The first major move to this will occur when Google starts charging for content.

…

[read full article]

Live Gamer president, Andrew Schneider joined “Virtual Worlds, Virtual Economies, Virtual Goods and Services and Virtual Gaming” at the Digital Hollywood Game Power Conference at International CES.

The moderator included Cindy Cook, former Chief Marketing Officer, Vivendi Games

Other Panelists included:
Mark Hansen, Director of Business Development, LEGO Group Project Lead, LEGO Universe
David Laux, Global Executive, Games & Interactive Entertainment, IBM
Karl Mehta, Co-Founder & CEO, PLAYSPAN, Inc.
Christopher Romero, World Designer & CTO, WorldWide Biggies
Cary Rosenzweig, President and CEO, IMVU
Craig Sherman, Chief Executive Officer, Gaia Online

We would like to thank our fellow panelists and audience members for an interesting look on the virtual universe and how technology will  positively impact the experience by creatively engaging more users in addition to driving the growth of the virtual economy both in innovation and economic growth.

The Live Gamer Exchange for Free Realms enhances the in-game experience by offering its players of 18+ with a legitimate, easy and fun way to buy and sell in-game items and characters to one another. All listings are authenticated through Live Gamer and buyers never have to pay a fee to use the service.

In this latest player-to-player trading intergration Live Gamer has added…

• A slick new look
• Interactive roll-overs on all items display stats more dynamically
• Transparent images with image overlays increase cosmetic appearance of all listings
• Experience bar highlights abilities and pets tricks giving an easy graphical summary of the character
• Seamless account linking page for increased user experience
• Users can send characters in-game easily to LG with the Sell Character Button on the “My Profile” page

Check out the new design and updated platform features! View Website