More Industy Interviews

Nokia (System Rush),
Will Shen

Dynamism, Douglas Krone

MDM, Barry Cottle

MiTAC Mio, David Lin

ViewSonic, Marc McConnaughey

Handspring, Joe Sipher

PalmSource, Michael Mace

Faces Behind the Games Interviews

Jaybot7,
Jason Surguine

MetalShard,
Tully Edson

iNDUSTRY Entertainment,
Nemanja Bondzulic

Cascata Games,
Neil Wooding

Sony Online Entertainment,
Rob Hill

Gameloft,
Mathieu Rolland

Digital Concepts,
Douglas Beck

DreamQuest, Christopher Williamson

Infinite Ventures/ MEG Expo preview,
Eugene Evans

AIM Productions,
Stefan Calle

Eidos Interactive (Tomb Raider),
Nick Robinson

Astraware,
Tomlinson & Oakley

ZIO Interactive, Hongsuk Lee

Ionside (Argentum), Javier Dávalos

Have you ever wondered about who the people are behind the games you love? What they look like? What they eat? Well, I came up with 5 questions for my five-minute interview with the leaders of popular game software companies. We will feature one Chief each week. And I've also got a photo of each Chief I've interviewed, so that you can see what they look like. As for what they eat, that's highly classified information.

About the Show: Jade Dragon: Mobile computing and mobile entertainment seem to be the hot ticket this year. Is that why you are hosting the first MEG Expo? Mr. Evans: It is hot and we felt that the time was now right for a conference dedicated to mobile entertainment and gaming. Mutimeteor, the show organizers, held the successful Pocket PC summit last October in Los Angeles and last June in Philadelphia. There was clearly strong interest in gaming and entertainment on the Pocket PC. I had presented the “Future of Mobile Gaming” panel at each event and was approached by Mutimeteor to host the conference. This gave us a great opportunity to explore beyond the Pocket PC and bring in exciting new PDA’s, mobile phones and smart phones.

Jade Dragon: You’ve run some briefs in Variety and Hollywood Reporter. How much does it help having the show in L.A.? Has it generated much noise outside the PDA industry?

Mr. Evans: This is the entertainment and gaming expo, and Los Angeles is still one of, if not, the entertainment capital of the world. Hollywood will clearly have a lot to deliver in the form of mobile entertainment and so it means a lot to have this in Los Angeles, actually right in the heart of Hollywood. From what we’re hearing the show is generating a great deal of interest as people know that mobile entertainment is a fast developing arena that they need to be on top of.

Jade Dragon: What do you expect to achieve with the Expo?

Mr. Evans: I hope that we can bring together the pioneers that are working on the cutting edge of mobile gaming and entertainment. Everyone from the wireless carriers to mobile handset and device manufacturers, from the content providers to the software developers. By bringing together all these great people who’ll all learn some more about the opportunities that we may be able to take advantage of and the great entertainment that we can all enjoy today and in the future on wireless devices.

Jade Dragon: Could you give us some highlights on who you have lined up for the keynotes and the conference? Give us a brief description of what they will talk about.

Mr. Evans: Doug Dyer and Robert Tercek will keynote the two days. Doug is the General Manager of THQ Wireless, the wireless gaming arm of THQ. THQ is one of the top video gaming companies and there interest in wireless gaming shows how hot this category has become. He will bring the perspective of an established and successful game publisher to the developing world of wireless gaming. Robert Tercek is a pioneer in the area of wireless entertainment. He was a VP with Packet Video and has worked for MTV and Columbia Tri-star. His perspective of what consumers want and will expect from entertainment and communication via wireless devices is always informed and fresh.

In addition we have two days of panels on gaming and entertainment. We’ll hear from wireless carriers and headset manufacturers; we’ll hear from them about new hardware developments and new services. We’ve got large publishers and small independent developers; hear what they think about entering the wireless gaming arena. We have music companies, video companies and messaging companies; from them we’ll be hearing how all these forms of messaging and communications will be hitting the small new screen soon.

Jade Dragon: Could you tell us how many developers, publishers and providers have signed up to exhibit at the Expo so far? Were they excited about this opportunity?

Mr. Evans: We’ve had a lot of excitement from the industry; we’ve had no problems filling our panels with great speakers. It’s too early in the registration process for us to say too much about the number of attendees but from what we’re seeing we’ll be pulling in plenty of developers, publishers and providers.

Jade Dragon: What’s the percentage of the PDA gaming industry vs. mobile phone gaming industry exhibiting at the show?

Mr. Evans: It’s becoming very hard to draw such a distinction. With the convergence that is going on between PDA’s and mobile phones some exhibitors fall into both categories. Having said that I think we’ll have fairly even representation of both sectors.

Jade Dragon: How many people are you expecting to attend?

Mr. Evans: It’s too early in the registration process to say but we’re obviously hoping for a very strong turn out and all indications are that we’re going to get just that. The conference is being designed to appeal to people with different areas of interest in the mobile gaming so we’re seeing sign-ups from developers, content providers, carriers and media companies in general.

Infinite Ventures has just release an outstanding futurist sports game Speedball 2. Read our review here.