As the January 16th deadline for early registration approaches, the organizers of CMP's <a href="http://www.gdconf.com/conference/wim.htm">2008 Worlds in Motion Summit</a> at GDC 2008 have revealed a panel on the phenomenon of virtual worlds for kids, wit
January 4, 2008
Author: by Staff
As the January 16th deadline for early registration approaches, the organizers of the 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit have announced more of the speakers who'll be participating in the upcoming event - organized by the creators of Gamasutra sister weblog WorldsInMotion.biz. This time, we reveal an exciting panel focused on the overwhelming success of kids' virtual worlds. The panel, titled "Striking Gold: How Kids' Worlds Took The Crown" will feature leaders of prominent companies making strides in that arena, including Club Penguin CEO Lane Merrifield, Disney Online senior vice president of premium content Steve Parkis, Nick.com senior vice president Jason Root, and Neopets senior vice president Kyra Reppen. Virtual worlds aimed at kids have produced prominent acquisitions, high user numbers, and legions of devoted young fans, and the panel will discuss the burgeoning trend around social virtual worlds for children like Club Penguin, Toontown, Nicktropolis and Neopets -- and how they’ve nailed down knowing how to meet the needs of their audience. Participation from Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, Ph.D, in-world economist for EVE Online, Gaia Online CEO Craig Sherman, and John Bates, director of business development for Entropia Universe has also been announced, and previously-revealed speakers include Multiverse's Corey Bridges and Rafhael Cedeno, MindCandy's Michael Smith, Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel, Areae's Raph Koster, Relic Labs studio head Adrian Crook, Nexon's Min Kim, Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger, among others. The Summit, which is organized by the editors of WorldsInMotion.biz, will be held on Monday and Tuesday, February 18-19th 2008, as part of the 2008 Game Developers Conference. The Summit will focus on the intersection of online worlds and games, and the official description of the event is as follows: "The Worlds in Motion Summit is a definitive event tailored for the growing number of industry professionals and Fortune 500 companies developing interactive online spaces for both entertainment and commercial purposes. Discussion forums will delve into online worlds, social gaming and media and player created activity. These will provide insight for developers of all backgrounds into how the game industry is collectively building socialization into games and integrating personalization and player-generated content into gameplay — while widely accessible Web and networking tools are looking to the game industry for their way forward." The Summit is available to attend via several different Game Developers Conference 2008 passes, and more information on the event plus the speakers announced so far is available on the Worlds In Motion Summit webpage. The deadline for early registration is January 16th, so register today!
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