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By
Gamasutra Staff
Gamasutra
July 3, 2006
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 Features
Conference Week 2006: A Recap
The week of June 26 through June 30, 2006 was a very busy time for video game development conferences, with The Hollywood and Games Summit, Casuality, and MI6: The Conference all taking place in that time period and in different regions, at times overlapping. Gamasutra's reporting staff attended all three, and here we present a recap of the most important events, presentations an announcements in the areas of Hollywood and games convergance, casual game production, and game marketing.
Hollywood and Games Summit
 The 2006 Hollywood and Games Summit took place June 26 at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. The conference explored the bursting synergy between the film and game industries, and brought together a number of important names from both fields, including a keynote by Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat director Paul W.S. Anderson, and discussions and panels featuring EA L.A.'s Neil Young, Shiny's Dave Perry, Treyarch's Chris Archer, and many more. Gamasutra was there to highlight the conference's most important events:
  Keynote: Paul W.S. Anderson Talks Successful Video Game Movies At the opening of the 2006 Hollywood & Games Summit in Beverly Hills, noted film director Paul W.S. Anderson delivered an intriguing keynote speech titled "Pressing the Right Buttons: How to Successfully blend Game and Film," based on his significant experience directing video game movies such as Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat and the upcoming Castlevania.
 EA's Young, Fox's Asbell On 'The Art Of Pitching' At today's Hollywood and Games Summit in Beverly Hills, Electronic Arts Los Angeles Vice President and General Manager Neil Young and 20th Century Fox Vice President of Production Steve Asbell gave fascinating presentations on 'Who, When, Why, Where and How to Pitch' video games and films, respectively.
 H&G: Marvel, Games, And Hollywood: 'Nuff Said Treyarch Executive Producer Chris Archer (Spider-Man series) and Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige were the subjects of a question and answer session today at the Hollywood and Games Summit in Beverly Hills entitled 'Establishing the Buzz for Collaborative Franchises.' The duo fielded questions mainly pertaining to the success of Marvel's franchises, which have been impressove both in the film and video game worlds. This was a straight question and answer session, with inquiries coming from both the audience and the panel's moderator, 'The Hollywood Reporter' Editorial Director of Digital Media Chris Marlowe.
Casuality Seattle
 Casuality Seattle was a three day event held at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle June 27th, 28th and 29th. The event was presented by The Casual Games Association, described officially as being "focused on providing educational resources and community support for the entire gaming industry for the purpose of bringing developers, publishers and distributors together to achieve our common goal of growing the industry," and brought together speakers and attendees from all corners of one of the industry's fastest growing market segments.
 Casuality Keynote: RealNetworks’ Rob Glaser “We make games for the rest of us,” began Rob Glaser, founder/CEO of RealNetworks during his Casuality Seattle keynote on Tuesday, June 27 in Seattle, Washington. Glaser has been in the PC game business for 25 years. He watched games move from arcade to console and the game industry form a focused business on narrowed-in genres and specific consumers.
 Casuality Keynote: Electronic Arts' Bing Gordon “This is my casual gaming machine,” joked Bing Gordon as he brought out his Dell XPS for his presentation. Casuality Seattle opened with a keynote by Gordon, a co-founder and Chief Executive of Electronic Arts, on Tuesday, June 27 in Seattle, Washington. Gordon aimed to share lessons he feels the entire game industry can learn from casual games.
 Casuality: Luxor, Mah Jong Quest, Fish Tycoon Devs Talk Postmortems The team leads behind the casual games Luxor, Mah Jong Quest, and Fish Tycoon met for the panel 'Casual Games Postmortems: How To Make A Great Casual Game' at Casuality Seattle on Wednesday, June 28. The panel immediately jumped into breaking down the process of creating a successful casual game, from idea to launch and sales.
 Casuality Panel: Getting The Most Out Of Your Contract “Nobody gets paid until something gets sold,” said Business Development representative of Reflexive Michael Mei as he set the tone for the panel ‘Negotiation: What to Look for in a Contract’, held on Wednesday, June 28 at the Casuality Seattle conference. A range of representatives from the game industry met to discuss the developer and publisher relationship in the context of contract negotiation.
MI6: The Conference
 MI6: The Conference took place June 27 through 28 at the Moscone Center, downtown San Francisco, and is described as "the premier conference for marketing, promotion and design professionals in the gaming and interactive media. MI6 is a non-profit initiative organized to increase your effectiveness and recognize your achievements, and is the foremost source for ideas and information for those who want to win in the new digital marketplace."
 MI6: Chris Di Cesare Talks Halo 2, Xbox 360 The MI6 game marketing conference kicked off Tuesday with a keynote talk from director of Xbox marketing Chris Di Cesare, and Gamasutra was there to record his thoughts on Microsoft's marketing challenges in launching the Xbox 360 and Halo 2.
 MI6 Report: IDG Reveals Console Predictions In a presentation at the recent MI6 Game Marketing Conference, Jason Anderson, director of research for the International Development Group (IDG) revealed the research company’s predictions for the near future of console sales, with the controversial remark that the Xbox 360 will retain the market lead all the way through 2009.
 MI6 Report: Game Marketers Announce Senet Award Winners The Promax/BDA marketing association has announced the winners of the inaugural Senet Awards for game marketing, which took place alongside MI6: Marketing Interactive '06, a new conference specifically designed for video game marketers, held last week in San Francisco. Activision was the big winner, with the Tony Hawk Secret Skatepark Tour taking the prize for Best PR Piece.
 MI6 Report: Allison: Midway Opted Out Of NFL License At a panel at the MI6 Game Marketing Conference, Steve Allison, chief marketing officer for Midway, made some particularly notable comments regarding his company's ditching of the NFL license for its Blitz series of games.
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