Social, Mobile, Location-Based Games
Developers are tapping into mobile devices’ built in features to produce feature-rich, social game experiences. Hear from gaming startups who are offering social education (Andrew Hsu, Airy Labs), alternate-reality (Gregory Trefry, Gigantic Mechanic) and competitive virtual crime gameplay experiences (Mike Ouye and Pete Hawley, Red Robot). Andrew Hsu, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University left the program to found Airy Labs, a startup building the next generation of global, social learning games. Creator of the Come Out & Play Festival, author and teacher on casual game design, Gregory Trefry co-founded Gigantic Mechanic to make the everyday world more fun and help people connect with others. Mike Ouye and Pete Hawley from Red Robot will offer insight on building a location-based game platform, why they launched on Android first and how their Facebook and console game backgrounds influenced the direction of Life Is Crime.
Presenters
Greg Trefry has wide array of experience designing games. He has designed everything from web-based MMOs to hit casual games to alternate reality games. Prior to starting Gigantic Mechanic, Greg was the Creative Director at Gamestar Mechanic, a web-based massively multiplayer game for tweens. Before that he was a Senior Game Designer at Gamelab where he created and led design on the hit franchise Jojo's Fashion Show.
Greg doesn't limit his design interests to video games. Greg created and served as director of the Come Out & Play Festival, a three day festival of street games that brings designers and players from around the world to New York City every summer. He co-designed the Webby-nominated Case of the Coveted Bottle ARG.
Before working in games Greg was a Vice-President at LPC/Reuters where he managed a suite of financial information web products.
Greg has been invited to speak at conferences around the world about location-based and social games. He also teaches about designing games and ARGs at New York Univeristy's prestigious Interactive Telecommunications Program and Parsons The New School for Design.
Greg has written an entire book on casual game design and how to create game mechanics and experiences that engage wide audiences of players. The book, Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us was published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2010.
Heather Sorensen is the Founder and President of Plugged In PR®. Heather has represented emerging startups to global industry leaders across numerous technology categories, launching dozens of products and services. Able to consistently deliver strong media results across national business, online and trade publications, Heather excels at corporate positioning, competitive analysis, social media strategy and designing high-impact PR campaigns.
Heather works on the iOS, Android and Barnes & Noble Nook game, "Bag It!" from Hidden Variable which is one of Entertainment Weekly's top 10 Apps of 2011 and USA Today's top iPad Apps. She has secured national attention for Future's Nintendo Power magazine 20th Anniversary celebration, the launch of World of Warcraft: The Magazine as well as hundreds of business and technology articles for JAJAH, a consumer and business VOIP service. Key consumer and gaming coverage was garnered for multiple gaming clients including: four of Capcom’s games including Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition on the 3DS, Hidden Variable's award-winning mobile game, Bag It!, Crave Games Sing4 and the Wii-compatible game/peripheral Cyberbike from Bigben Interactive. Through agency partnerships, she has represented Pandora, Best Buy, Slim Devices (purchased by Logitech), Webroot, Mozy, Palo Alto Software, Red Robot, Glitch from Tiny Speck and others.
Through the end of 2005, Heather represented software and hardware products at Sony Computer Entertainment America and served as broadcast spokesperson for the global announcement of PlayStation 3. She launched more than two-dozen games including the SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs franchise, The Getaway: Black Monday, EyeToy: AntiGrav, the first and only EyeToy-controlled 3D character based game, providing a level of physical immersion unprecedented in video games. She also worked on Rise to Honor starring Jet Li, Amplitude from Harmonix and managed the reviews program for the entertainment device, PlayStation Portable (PSP).
Mike is CEO and Co-Founder of Red Robot. Previously, Mike ran monetization and revenue for social gaming start-ups Playdom and Crowdstar. Prior to his work in social gaming, Mike ran monetization for Adteractive, leading performance ad network and worked on online payment integrations at Cybersource, an online payment gateway. Mike earned a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Santa Clara University.
Hi - I'm the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Red Robot. At Red Robot, I'm responsible for all game design, production, and studio management. Before RR I'd been making console games for over 15 years, previously as a creative exec at Sony PlayStation, Electronic Arts, and Crowdstar. I've had the great pleasure of working with the amazing teams behindvconsole hits Killzone, Black and White, Fable, Little Big Planet, Black, Burnout Paradise, and Driver.
Now I'm focused on mobile and tablet. Life is Crime was just the beginning for the team's ambitions in 2011. 2012 is an amazing time for Red Robot. We're focused 100% on the creative opportunity offered by gameplay in the real world - in relation to escapism, gameplay, engagement and creating gaming alternatives to the real world.
My all-time favorite game: Asteroids
Talk to me about: video games, music, cycling
Don't mention: gamification
Sunday, March 11
