Playfish confirmed for Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2009

Posted: June 26th, 2009.

PLAYFISH CONFIRMED FOR EDINBURGH INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL 2009

Third wave of guest speakers confirmed for 2009 conference

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival today announced that Kristian Segerstrale, CEO and Co-founder of Playfish, and respected industry consultant, Margaret Robertson, are both confirmed to speak at this year’s event. Segerstrale and Robertson join an impressive list of guest speakers: including, among others, Peter Moore, President of EA Sports and Peter Cowley, Managing Director of Digital Media for Endemol UK.

Segerstrale will be addressing the audience with a session titled “Lessons from Social Games – or How Today’s Social Networks Will Change the Way You Make, Play and Sell Games Tomorrow”. He leads Playfish, one of the largest and fastest growing social games companies in the world, which creates titles for friends to play together over social and mobile platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, iPhone and Android. Each of the company’s seven games has been a top 10 hit on Facebook, including Pet Society, the platform’s most popular game enjoyed by more than 11 million people every month.

Segerstale will discuss how social games – or games designed for play with friends on social networks such as Facebook and MySpace – have experienced explosive growth and are right at the centre of broader industry trends such as free-to-play, games-as-a-service, social game design, user-generated content, and digital distribution. He’ll also offer some predictions of how the game industry might change as a result.

Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Playfish, said: “I’m delighted Playfish has been invited to deliver a keynote presentation at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival, an important showcase event for the gaming industry.

“Social gaming has attracted tens of millions of enthusiastic players and rapidly risen to become a key gaming sector. I’m looking forward to offering insight on how companies such as Playfish and social networks are changing the way games are created, played and sold.”

Industry consultant and former EDGE magazine editor, Margaret Robertson, will offer the Edinburgh crowds a rare insight into the videogames industry with a session titled ‘Stop Telling Tales’.

What if someone told you that you could make fans just as happy for a fraction of the effort and cost? Typically, fans of triple ‘A’ game titles expect lavishly told and epic stories. Though anyone who’s been on the thinking end of the development process for such titles will tell you that it’s a very expensive, cumbersome and inefficient process – which can often take its toll on the overall quality, budget and deadline of a game.

As a consultant and advisor to companies such as EA, Sony and Channel 4 on game design and industry trends, Robertson will draw on her consultancy experiences across a wide range of story-based games. While breaking down concepts and highlighting elements to which fans relate and demonstrating how studios might deliver these to consumers in a more timely and cost-effective fashion.