The night started off with a humming buzz – the sound of 70+ attendees energetically chatting and networking over wine, beer and nosh.  The ngmoco:) office setting of old brick walls and beautiful exposed beams served as the background for our sold-out, industry-heavy event.  The attendees included Electronic Arts, Sony, Playfirst, Lightspeed Ventures, Namco Networks, Mochi Media, Zynga, SGN, RockYou, Serious Business, Inside Facebook… I could go on!

The evening started with a sobering discussion about why there are so few women in games.  The panelists went deep and the discussion touched on the lack of female computer science majors, the lack of female venture capitalists, and the fact that men’s attitudes towards giving other men a hand is much more open and beneficial to men than women’s attitudes and behaviors when it comes to helping other women in business.  Yikes.  It’s a hard thing to hear, but it’s valid, and it’s important to tackle the hard stuff in order to have a meaningful discussion about the things that are hindering women’s advancement in technology and business in general.

As we moved onto gaming specifics, the panelists agreed that the recession has had a positive impact on games as people shift their spending to entertainment and small ticket items.  Another factor that has been beneficial to games is the openness of platforms — Shervin from SGN estimated that a one billion dollar market has developed over the last two years as a result of gaming opportunities arising from open platforms. Due to the new revenue opportunity, the space has become increasingly crowded, though there are still untapped areas of opportunity.  One area of opportunity that was called out is social learning games for kids.  When Joel Brodie of Gamezebo asked the panelists what one word summed up the opportunity in games, they provided the following:  Virality, iPhone and Entrepreneurship. 

The night ended as it began, with the humming buzz of networking and business being done.   A big thanks to our panelists and attendees for bringing such great energy to the discussion about the opportunity in games today!

Game tip:  Several of our panelists are currently addicted to Restaurant City on Facebook