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4th Dubai World Game Summit – DWGS (November 30th – December 1st, 2011) DWGS is the largest annual gathering of professional game developers, publishers, investors, media, focusing on learning, inspiration, and networking. The DWGS will spotlight the local game developments and business opportunities in emerging market in the Middle East. The focus of the summit will be games development in the MENA region including online games, social games, console games, game design, business and management, localization, and visual arts. |
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| Opening Keynotes |
| Time: |
11:00 – 11:45 |
| Speaker |
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Sidar Sahin
CEO
Peak Games (Turkey) |
| Topic: |
Disrupting Middle East Markets through Gaming |
| Description: |
| How gaming can transform Middle East, by creating a totally new industry and a vast, untouched market. Creating myriad possibilities of jobs in the region through gaming companies. In the beginning serving locally, later on taking things a step further and going global. |
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| Middle East’s Game Development and Government Initiatives Session |
| Time: |
12:00 – 12:45 |
“Middle East’s Game Development and Government Initiatives Session” (12:00 – 12:45) The Middle East has been pretty much off the map when it comes to making video games. However, small Middle East based start-up companies are now growing and supported by the local governments. Government initiatives aim to create the game industry in the Middle East in order to generate more wealth, create more jobs and promote the country as an attractive place to invest and do business. They assist individuals, firms and industries to identify opportunities, develop capability to respond to the opportunities, and exploit the opportunities. It is a key component of sustainable development and complements and is complemented by a range of policies such as those relating to regional development, human capability, the regulation of business, the provision of infrastructure services and the protection. Government has a key role to play in game industry development by providing leadership to overcome the difficulties. |
| Speakers |
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Behrouz Minaei
Managing Director
Iran National Foundation of Computer Games (Iran) |
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Nour Khrais
Chairman
Jordan Gaming Task Force (Jordan) |
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| Ubisoft in the Emirates, Jobs and Career Opportunities Session |
| Time: |
14:00 – 14:30 |
| Topics |
Ubisoft in the Emirates, Jobs and Career Opportunities |
| Speaker |
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Yannick Theler
General Manager
Ubisoft Abu Dhabi (UAE) |
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| Game Design & Programming Session supported by IGDA Middle East |
| Time: |
15:00 – 15:45 |
| Speakers |
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Mahmoud Ali Khasawneh
CEO
quirkat (Jordan) |
| Topics: |
Game production Experience in the Middle East |
The speaker will demonstrate real case studies of Quirkat’s development efforts and firsthand experience in game design and production to bring to market leading titles for PC, mobile, web/Facebook, PSP and PS3. The higher up in the development food chain, the more difficult it is for regional developers since they have to dive in at full throttle without the required experience that’s available in the mature global game development market. What will it take to solidify Arab developers’ positions technically in the world? After all, we might be regional but we compete globally. How do we accelerate this process and catch up? |
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Ahmad Jadallah
Director of Development,
Games and Media
Semanoor International (Saudi Arabia) |
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| Topics: |
Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta - Creating the Middle East's first Multiplatform Episodic Game |
Developing the Middle East's first Multiplatform video game can be a real challenge in itself, but factor in a browser based multiplayer component on Facebook, Console Optimization . Multilanguage localization for text and speech and fitting all this into an episodic structure and you are looking at a huge mountain to climb. This post-mortem outlines the development process that the team at Saudi Arabia-based studio Semaphore adopted for their first game project utilizing the Unity Game Engine along with its hits and misses. |
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| Telecom & Online Games Session |
| Time: |
16:00 – 16:45 |
| Speaker |
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Khaldoun Nimer
Senior Manager / Product - Content Services
Etisalat |
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| Description |
| The session will focus on the Telecom role in expanding the Online Gaming industry in the Middle East, Bundling of Online Games with Telecom Data Packages, Mobile payment. The customer experience, Gaming Revenue Models & Retention from Telecom point view. |
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| Keynotes |
| Time: |
11:00 – 11:45 |
| Speakers |
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Paul Holman
VP Research & Development
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe |
| Topic: |
New Opportunities for Games on Mobile Consoles in 2012 |
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| Description |
Game consoles are crammed full of future-proof features to allow them to be attractive for consumers for more than a decade after their launch. (How many mass-market mobile devices included a 4.3" screen, web browser, wifi, high quality video playback, pictures and the ability to run 3D games when PlayStation® Portable went on sale in 2005?) This presentation will look in detail at PlayStation®Vita, and discuss how developers can leverage its technical innovation and new business opportunities. |
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Shahid Ahmad
Publisher & Developer Relations
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe |
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| Global Marketing for Global Games Session |
| Time: |
12:00 – 12:45 |
The presentation will address the challenges and success factors of international advertising for online games. The presentation will take a close look at the global marketing success of the game Travian, which has been consistently successful in more than 50 countries and over 40 languages. Also the challenges of promoting a new game in a highly competitive environment will be addressed. |
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Martin Kreuzberg
Head of Marketing
Travian Games GmbH (Germany) |
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| New Games Launch Annoucement |
| Time: |
13:00 – 14:45 |
| Companies |
INDEX Middle East
Wizards Productions
Tahadi Games
Maysalward
ALAWAR
Power Hosts Technology
Game Tako |
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| Smartphone & Tablet Games Session |
| Time: |
15:00 – 15:45 |
| The session will bring together top game developers from the Middle East to share ideas and knowledge and present best practices and discuss the future of gaming on emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, including the iPhone, iPad, Android OS phones, tablets and an abundance of similar new handheld devices. |
| Speakers |
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Ayham Gorani
CEO
Alpha-Apps (UAE) |
| Topics: |
Competing with the Big Players |
| Description |
Mobile games have disrupted the whole industry by allowing indie game developers to compete with large gaming houses. This presentation will provide an understanding of the mobile game experience and what developers have to take into consideration. |
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Khaireddin Bushnaq
Game Producer
Wizards Productions (Jordan) |
| Topics: |
Smartphone Games Production Tips & Hints |
| Description |
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Smartphone & Tables game and interactive media filed and widely expanded in the past few years, developers and artist who emerges into this filed usually has a background in developing and creating art assets for more advanced platforms ( PC, Xbox, PS, DS ,Web ) but when it comes to smartphone there is usually a lot of FAQ about best practices for games production, this presentation will focus on answering those FAQ from a producer perspective that work on daily basis with development and art teams and knows what is best approaches and methods to use, among those Q: is 2D Vs 3D gaming, developers programming languages and games engine, art size, MMO games. |
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Ali Hamidi
Co-founder
Piranha Byte (UAE) |
| Topics: |
Getting Started in Mobile Games |
| Description |
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The presentation will cover the basics of what’s needed to enter the mobile gaming space. Learn about the tools the experts are using and what you need to make your first game. Inside knowledge on multi-platform mobile game development will be shared giving you the tools and knowledge to create and publish your first game, and succeed in the mobile gaming world. Suitable for would be game developers and for those who want to know how mobile games developers work their magic! |
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Amir Jahanlou
Co-founder / Technical Director
GW-Gray Wolves (UAE) |
| Topics: |
Mobile Games as a Marketing Tool |
| Description |
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| This talk will briefly introduce the audience to the marketing potential of mobile applications. It is in general discussing the in-app games designed to boost up the appeal of the products and brands as well as indirect advertising and marketing. In general this talk targets low budget game productions for mass users |
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Yousef Shamoun
Co-founder
Jawaker |
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| Localization & Payment & Marketing for the Middle East’s Game Market Session |
| Time: |
16:00 – 16:45 |
| The session will focus on best practices for successful online game localization, payment, marketing, and promotion. The customer experience will also be discussed with successful strategies to attract, retain and effectively monetize players. |
| Speakers |
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Alex tho Seeth
CEO
Monetizur Ltd (Lebanon) |
| Topics: |
Increase Monetization: Virtual merchandize and branded virtual Goods |
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Rami M. Al-Araj
Business Development Manager
OneCard (Saudi Arabia) |
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Fadi Ramahi
CEO
Tahadi Games (UAE) |
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