February 17, 2010

Live Gamer Announces VCON 2010: How Games-as-a-Service and Virtual Items Have Changed the Playbook Forever

NEW YORK, NY -- 02/17/10 -- Live Gamer, the premiere total commerce solution for online games, social networks and virtual worlds, is presenting VCON, a full-day event within the Game Developer Conference (GDC), to be held March 10 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. VCON will explore how games-as-a-service and virtual items have changed the gaming and entertainment playbook forever.

Led by the game industry's most sought-after CEO's, founders, visionaries, and executives, VCON will discuss the industry's undisputed transition to the emerging service-based business model, as well as its ramifications on development, product management, operations and strategy. Speakers will push the envelope while offering insight to the vast changes within the industry.

Speakers

Live Gamer has brought together an outstanding line up of visionaries in the gaming world to discuss the industry's changing business as well as strategize for the future. Some of these key players are:

--  Keynote: David Perry, CEO & Founder, Gaikai.com
--  Keynote: Nanea Reeves, SVP & COO, EA Global Online
--  Keynote: John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment
--  Howard Marks, CEO, Acclaim
--  Patrick Chun, SK Telecom, Cyworld
--  David Cole, President, DFC Intelligence
--  Kai Huang, Founder, Guitar Hero
--  Vili Lehdonvirta, Researcher, Helsinki Institute for Information
Technology
--  M. Lee Clancy Jr., SVP Product Management and GM of Direct Revenue, IMVU
--  Mitch Davis, CEO & Co-Founder, Live Gamer
--  Andrew Schneider, President & Co-Founder, Live Gamer
--  Bill Grosso, CTO & SVP of Product, Live Gamer
--  Susan Wu, CEO, Ohai
--  Dennis Fong, CEO, Raptr
--  Brandon Beck, CEO, Riot Games
--  Atul Bagga, Vice President Equity Research, ThinkEquity
--  Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings

Topics and Agenda

--  Nanu Nanu!: How to bring social functionality into traditional game
design...and actually make it work
--  The Virtual Fed: Unleash Your Inner Bernanke with (Little-Known) Virtual
Item & Currency Strategies
--  What Safeway Can Teach Us: Applying Retail Strategies to Item
Merchandizing
--  Dev-onomics: Economics 101 for Game Designers
--  Taxation & Virtualization: What To Expect for Taxation of Virtual Goods
--  You are  Not Looking for Nunchuck Skills?: How to Build an Olympic Gold
Team in Today's Gaming World
--  "Its not Fair!" said the T-Rex: How Monetizing Games-as-a-Service will
Save you from Extinction
--  Coming to a Theater Near You: How Micro-Transactions Will Change the
Entertainment Landscape

"Last year saw a huge turn in the industry towards virtual goods for monetization as developers rushed to integrate virtual economies and services into their strategies," said Andrew Schneider, president & co-founder, Live Gamer. "Now, the focus has turned to how we optimize virtual economies for the best possible return. This event will bring together the most forward-thinking visionaries in the industry to shed light on current & future strategies for managing virtual economies, merchandising, development and other ways that microtransactions can generate significant revenue for gaming and entertainment companies."

The event will be held in Mezzanine Room 270/272 from 10:00 am to 5:15 pm. To register to please go to: https://secure.gdconf.com/2010/index/registrations/profile. For more information VCON 2010 please visit http://www.livegamer.com/gdc/index.html or follow us on Twitter (@livegamer) or Facebook.

About Live Gamer

Live Gamer is the global leader of total commerce solutions for micro-transaction-based businesses. Spanning online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, Live Gamer provides an advanced offering that goes beyond monetization to drive core business metrics and optimize new transaction-based revenue streams. Combining its micro-transaction platform, primary and secondary market management, fraud and security solutions, scalable publisher support and international payment gateways, Live Gamer's technology has been adopted by leading publishers in gaming, social and entertainment including Acclaim, Funcom, NHN USA, Quepasa, MEG Toys and Sony Online Entertainment, supporting over 65 million users in 23 countries.

Founded in 2007, the company is backed by $28 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Kodiak Venture Partners, Rustic Canyon Partners, Triple Point Capital and Venrock. Live Gamer is headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles and Palo Alto, CA and Seoul, Korea. For more information, visit www.livegamer.com or connect with us on Twitter (@livegamer), Facebook or MySpace.

Media Contact
Jennifer Lankford
theMIX agency for Live Gamer
Email Contact
415-829-7902