Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2009

Tuesday 19th May/... Edinburgh Interactive Festival today announced that Peter Moore, President of EA SPORTS, will deliver the keynote address for this year’s Conference. The Edinburgh Interactive Festival Conference delivers a lively schedule from a wide range of industry sectors including games, social networking, mobile entertainment, education, music, film and television. It also plays host to a range of free events including a games showcase, Dare to be Digital’s Dare ProtoPlay and the Games Screening programme.

Moore, who is lined up to be this year’s leading keynote speaker, will focus his session on the challenge of reinventing the iconic sports game brand.

Peter Moore, President, EA SPORTS, said: “I am honoured to be invited to deliver the opening keynote at the Edinburgh Games Festival. This event is a milestone on the interactive entertainment industry’s calendar, and I look forward to contributing to this year’s discussions.”

Edinburgh Interactive Festival Chairman, Chris Deering, said: “We are delighted Peter has agreed to give this year’s Keynote. He is one of the industry’s global leaders and his presence at Edinburgh is an indicator of the importance and influence of the Festival.”

Electronic Arts is the world’s leading independent developer of interactive entertainment with titles such as Madden NFL, NBA Live, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and the FIFA football franchise.

EA Sports is one of the most recognizable gaming brands. In his session, Moore will examine how the brand has been reinvigorated through consumer insight, technology innovations, global partnerships and the launch of new product categories. The presentation will also feature strategies and tactics that game developers can apply to their brands.

Also confirmed to speak this year are Jim Crowley of Turbine Inc., Sean Dromgoole of Some Research and Martin Owen from Smalti Technology.

Jim Crowley, President and CEO of Turbine Inc., creators of the world’s most popular and award-winning online games; The Lord of the Rings Online™, Dungeons & Dragons Online™ and Asheron's Call® is also confirmed for this year’s conference.

“Across the globe, social media and the participatory habits of consumers are changing the way companies develop entertainment experiences,” said Jim Crowley, President and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “I am honoured to participate in the Edinburgh Interactive Festival this year and am looking forward to discussing this topic with fellow executives and sharing some of the developments Turbine has made in its award-winning massively multiplayer online games.”

Crowley will look at the multiple types of virtual environments that exist today, and how among each of these environments, community is key. He will also explain how Turbine is addressing this with their own MMOs and reaching out to a broader audience, including licensing Google Earth's API to offer players maps of quest locations and providing an in-game encyclopaedia to connect users via a player-powered wiki.

The Festival welcomes back Sean Dromgoole, CEO of Some Research and GameVision. This year’s session will highlight current gaming trends and the changing demographics of the marketplace. GameVision has been tracking the games industry across Europe for the last six years and talks to over 30,000 gamers a year. In order to provide an exclusive and special presentation for the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Dromgoole and his team have compared current with historical data sets to show the changes in gaming by value through time.

Dromgoole will highlight how, during the last few years, games have broadened their appeal to embrace more casual gamers, and how the market has had to adapt quickly to cater to their needs. Dromgoole will focus on where the market has grown in terms of population and value, which types of games have prospered and which types of gamer will drive the market in the future.

Says Dromgoole “It’s not just about how many new gamers there are, but which ones are spending and on what...”

Martin Owen, an independent consultant, developer and researcher in music technology enhanced learning and founder of Smalti Technology is also confirmed. Owen will talk about “Sound only games” and his work in learning in augmented reality from his development of game-like learning activities in real-life locations. As the session title suggests Martin will focus on the power sound and music has on stimulating the imagination.

Owen, said, "Edinburgh Interactive provides an interesting forum to push forward frontiers of gaming - it is not just about more pixels and quicker rendering. We need to think of new genre."

Chris Deering, Edinburgh Interactive Festival Chairman, added: "I am very enthusiastic about the breadth and quality of the speaker line-up and the conference sessions for 2009. Looks like our best ever. Topics covered will be of interest to all who enjoy the diverse challenges and new opportunities that characterize our rapidly developing industry."

Secure an early bird discount on delegate passes until Friday 29th May 2009.

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2009 will open its doors to the most creative industry in the world during the week of 10th August, with the industry conference running on Thursday 13th and Friday 14th August and the public showcase running over Friday 14th and Saturday 15th August.

To purchase a delegate pass, download the booking form www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com

If you would like receive more details about partnership opportunities available for this year’s festival contact jodie.holdway@edinburghinteractivefestival.com

Press enquiries should be directed to sarah.hartland@bhpr.co.uk or tom.sargent@bhpr.co.uk

Ends.

About Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2009

Now celebrating its seventh year, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is powered up to showcase the continued popularity, growth and influence of video games. And this year, the Interactive Festival is more synchronised with the world famous Edinburgh Festival than ever, appealing to the press, public and professionals from film, television and interactive media backgrounds alike, offering a bigger event for delegates, more consumer focusing – an overall spectacle for all.

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2009 will again host a Free Game Play and Recruitment areas specifically tailored to cater for the public - allowing them access to the latest games and job opportunities in games.

As ever, the Interactive Festival wouldn’t be complete without the cornerstones of conferences, keynotes, panel sessions, debates, games screenings and even more people than ever jostling to get through the doors.

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival is managed by a committee drawn from all areas of the games industry, including publishers, developers and the two industry trade bodies: The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA) www.tiga.org and the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) www.elspa.com.