Appealing to the MMOB: Building Massively Multiplayer Online Brands

Lecturer: Brian Robbins, Fuel Industries

With the amazing success MMO’s have had in reaching and maintaining a large audience, it’s only natural that advertisers and brands want to become more involved in the space. This talk will cover the pros and cons of bringing brands into an online world. With the right brands and the right circumstances the results can be outstanding and extremely successful. However it’s just as easy for things to go horribly wrong and waste valuable time and effort on something that should never see the light of day.

The basis for this discussion will be our experience building games and large player experiences around both existing brands, as well as attempting to create new entirely new branded properties. While much of this talk will center around the massively multiplayer arena, other areas will be considered including limited multiplayer and even single-player gaming with limited direct player to player interaction.

In all instances, we’ll discuss how to work successfully with brand owners, things that can (and will!) go wrong during production, and focus on the best ways to bringing a successful project through to release.

Intended Audience: Designers, Producers and development directors
Prerequisites: Ideal attendees should have experience in the business or design of either MMO or branded games.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 9:00 AM
Room: Congress