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audio (29 MB) The casual games market is evolving. New types of online game experiences are expanding the audiences for casual games and introducing new business/monetization models. This panel will look at the many directions in which online game content is growing, from daily/episodic content and short-session games to richer online gaming experiences such as casual MMOGs and virtual worlds. Hear from the creators, distributors and platform providers at the forefront of this evolution discuss how business models for online casual games—and the audiences that play them—will change in the future.
Delivered at Casual Connect Amsterdam, February 2008
Roy Sehgal (email) Roy Sehgal is the VP of Consumer Products and Strategy at Shockwave & AddictingGames (an MTV Networks Company). In this role, Roy is responsible for managing direct-to-consumer revenues and creating strategies/partnerships to accelerate revenue growth for Shockwave.com and AddictingGames.com. Roy is a new media veteran with extensive experience building new businesses in the online, digital and mobile industries over the past 10 years. Previously, Roy was Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Atom Entertainment (acquired by Viacom in 2006) where he managed partnerships, strategy and M&A for AddictingClips.com, AddictingGames.com, AtomFilms.com and Shockwave.com). Prior to Atom, he served as SVP of Sales and Business Development at July Systems, where he helped companies such as Cingular Wireless, Electronic Art’s POGO and RealNetworks create and launch mobile content services including the industry’s first try-before-buy and subscription business models for mobile games. As Vice President of Mobile Commerce at InfoSpace(NASDAQ: INSP), he was part of the early business development team in 2000 that built the company into one of the world’s largest creators, distributors and enablers of content and merchant services for online and mobile platforms. Prior to InfoSpace, Roy was Director of Business Development at Prio, a provider of turnkey online and mobile promotion services (acquired by InfoSpace in 1999) and an Associate at Marakon Associates, a strategy consulting firm to Fortune 100 clients such as Nordstrom and Bank of America. Roy graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics.
Jameson Hsu (email) Jameson is the CEO and Founder of Mochi Media, creators of the casual games ad network MochiAds. For the past eight years Mr. Hsu has been immersed in brand marketing and casual games. In 2005 Jameson started Mochi Media with the goal of empowering game developers from around the world to build great games. With the launch of MochiAds his goal has taken seed by providing game developers with monetization, analytics, and distribution for their games. Prior to founding Mochi Media, Jameson was a founder of the award winning interactive advertising agency WDDG. He has produced numerous advergames and award winning advertising campaigns for companies such as HP, Kraft Foods, Altoids, Burger King and many more.
Derrick Morton (email) Derrick is CEO of FlowPlay, a company developing virtual worlds where casual games drive the economy. Derrick began his career in casual games in 1994 as VP Development of Graphix Zone – publisher of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune PC games among others. In 1999 he joined iWin as VP, Executive Producer. After iWin was purchased by Uproar for $80 million and Uproar was purchased by Vivendi for $140 million, he became VP, Product over all of Vivendi’s casual games websites – Uproar, iWin, Virtual Vegas and Flipside — which in 2002 had a combined audience of over 20 million monthly uniques. He left Vivendi to join GameHouse in January 2003 with the chief responsibility of running GameHouse.com. GameHouse was acquired by RealNetworks a year later. At RealNetworks, Derrick was GM of Mobile Games, a division he founded. His team developed and distributed over 20 titles during his tenure. He left to form FlowPlay in September 2006. Derrick attended USC School of Cinema-Television on a full scholarship and received a BA with magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. He received an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School.
Christian Batist (email) During the last year of International Business School (1996), where he studied International Marketing & Management, Christian Batist started his own company, under the name Seven Monkeys New Media. He and his partner served over 150 small and medium businesses with Internet strategies and e-commerce applications. Early 2000, Seven Monkeys was sold and Christian took on the position of Internet Publisher with the magazines department of the largest media house in The Netherlands, De Telegraaf. Christian was responsible for the Internet strategy of the magazines and the initiator or their email publishing and email marketing activities. During the last of five years, Christian came across Habbo Hotel on the Internet and convinced his superior at De Telegraaf to participate in Habbo Hotel Netherlands. The result is a Joint Venture between Sulake Corporation Oy (Helsinki, Finland) and Telegraaf Magazines Group (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Habbo became an almost immediate success in The Netherlands, and Sulake approached Christian within a year to take on the role of Regional Director Europe, to grow the brand in 9 additional territories in Europe, Sulake’s strongest foothold. Christian joined Sulake in May of 2005, holding office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In July of this year Christian stepped up to Senior Vice President of Consumer and B2B Marketing at Sulake, moving his office to Helsinki, Finland. Habbo was successfully launched in 32 countries and has offices in 18 countries: Finland, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, USA, Norway, Denmark, France, Australia, Singapore, Brazil and Russia.
