Jagex CEO Gerhard To Keynote At Develop In Brighton

Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard will keynote the Business track at the Develop in Brighton conference this July 13-15, event organizers announced today. Gerhard, who is also the company's chief technology officer, plans to discuss the company's path to success, stressing the merits of being self-directed. Jagex, developer of free-to-play MMO RuneScape, claims the title of the UK's largest independent game publisher. Gerhard has been CTO at Jagex since joining the company in February 2008, and was promoted to the chief exec role in January 2009. His 14 year career has seen him hold numerous executive positions in the technology sector. At Develop, he also plans to talk about the future of the industry, planning to warn developers against prioritizing profit ahead of gameplay and fun. The Business track will feature numerous sessions and panels on topics like marketing, downloadable content and media strategy, with speakers including Doublesix studio head James Brooksby, Channel 4's Alice Taylor, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's Chris Bruce, and more. The Develop event will also play host to keynotes from BioWare's Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, InstantAction CEO (and Westwood co-founder) Louis Castle, and Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason, among many others. It's the fifth year for the Brighton-based game development conference, and this year's event expects some 1200 attendees to its more than 80 sessions. It kicks off with July 13's Evolve event, a day with a specific focus on emerging platforms, markets and technologies. Detailed information on the conference is available at its official website.