Wednesday, January 4 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM Track I - GP5: Game Power I - Entertainment as Franchise - Crossover into Music, TV, Cable, Movie, Mobile, Advertainment & Custom Branded Experience In today’s global entertainment environment, the successful extension of a franchise is not only part and parcel of the business plan, it is also welcomed and embraced by the consumer. The power, quality and popularity of the various entertainment mediums, make it possible for a game to enable a successful movie franchise, just as a successful ‘70s TV show can be recast as a worldwide movie blockbuster. This of course can start the cycle all over again, generating the next generation of game, DVD, toys, CD, t-shirts, live events and so on. Unique to this phenomenon today however, is the need to protect the brand as it is extended into each category. Competition and consumer sophistication today demand a level of creativity in the games, movies and TV shows produced, something that brand extension itself can not overcome. David Cohn, General Manager, MTV2 Don L. Daglow, President and CEO, Stormfront Studios Tim Harris, SVP/co-founder, SMG Play Louis Castle, Vice President, Electronic Arts Los Angeles Kevin Browne, General Manager, Xbox Worldwide Marketing and Content, Microsoft Corp. Germaine Gioia, Vice President, Licensing, THQ Matt Ringel, President, Games Media Properties, Moderator Louis Castle, Vice President, Electronic Arts Los Angeles: As a Vice President and a senior studio leader at EALA, Louis Castle is responsible for assisting the studio’s management team in developing EALA’s business strategies, as well as helping EALA’s creative teams realize their product vision. Castle was co-founder of Westwood Studios, which became a part of EALA in January 2003. EALA creates product for some of the most successful and best-known intellectual properties within Electronic Arts’ formidable portfolio including the original product lines of Medal of Honor and Command & Conquer and licensed properties Lord of the Rings and James Bond. Prior to EALA, Castle was the General Manager of Westwood Studios from 2000-2003 and served in creative, business and financial roles while growing Westwood from two employees in 1985 to over 250 in two locations in 2002. In his creative roles, Castle has contributed as executive producer, creative director, technical director, programmer and artist to over 100 games created by Westwood over the past 18 years. His business positions include serving as the COO and finance officer for Westwood Studios between 1992 and 2000, a period in which the company negotiated 4 multinational acquisitions. Castle is passionate about the products and the people who create them. His role as Vice President at EALA allows him to leverage his considerable interactive entertainment experience to add value across the spectrum of EALA’s creative and business developments. Tim Harris, Senior Vice President/Founder, SMG Play: Tim Harris represents the creative component of the leadership duo helming SMG Play, the advertising industry’s premiere agency unit dedicated to leveraging video games as a consumer contact medium. He applies years of communications experience, a reputation for ingenuity and an obsession with pop culture to create marketing plans that connect brands with people via the gaming experience. Along with fellow Play co-founder PJ MacGregor, Harris shows clients how to maximize effort and success in the gaming world. He is directly responsible for guiding creative ideation and content development, crafting brand value through gaming marketing implementation, searching out forward-thinking clients and consulting with brands and games companies on new ways to partner. Before launching Play, Harris shared his unique business sense with digital and online sister agency Starcom IP in 1999 to help launch the company and garner new client business. During his time, Harris served as the Director of Messaging and Cross-Contact Architecture for Starcom IP, working with clients such as Miller Brewing Company, Coca-Cola, Nintendo, U.S. Army, General Motors and Lego. Harris’s trend-spotting skills contributed to some well-known and award winning marketing campaigns, such as Nintendo’s Perfect Dark Viral campaign and the content aggregation model of the Miller Lite Network. Harris graduated with a B.A. in telecommunications from Indiana University in 1996. A native of Portsmouth, Virginia, Harris currently resides on the north side of Chicago with his wife, Amy. When he’s not focused on marketing, Harris can be found at home devouring media, from games to comic books to music. Don L. Daglow has served as president and CEO of Stormfront Studios since founding the company in 1988. Stormfront's most recent best-seller is "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" for PS2 and Xbox from EA Games, based on the film from New Line Cinema. Don's work has earned recognition in publications ranging from Computer Gaming World to Inc., Upside, The Red Herring and the San Francisco Business Times. Electronic Games called him "one of the best-known and respected producers in the history of the field." Prior to founding Stormfront, Don served as director of Intellivision game development for Mattel, as a producer at Electronic Arts, and as head of the Entertainment and Education division at Broderbund. He developed the first-ever computer baseball game in 1971 (now recorded in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown), the first mainframe computer role-playing game (1976), the first sim game (Intellivision Utopia, 1982) and the first original play-by-email game (Quantum Space for AOL, 1989). Don co-designed Computer Game Hall of Fame title Earl Weaver Baseball (1987) and the first massively multiplayer online graphic adventure, Neverwinter Nights for AOL (1990). He holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pomona College and a M.Ed. from Claremont Graduate University. Matthew Ringel, President and CEO, Games Media Properties: Matthew Ringel, President and CEO of Games Media Properties, has helped pioneer the integration of video games with "traditional" media throughout his career. Ringel founded Games Media Properties in 2002 as an entity to create properties, programming and strategies that integrate video game franchises into other mainstream media, entertainment and branding campaigns. The company’s flagship touring property, GameRiot, has now appeared 120 times in over 60 cities and 200,000 attendees. Games Media Properties has worked closely with such video games companies as Microsoft, Activision, Ubisoft, Vivendi Universal Games, LucasArts, Electronic Arts, Namco, and ESPN Video Games; technology companies such as nVIDIA, AMD and Alienware; and consumer brands and media such as Blockbuster, Pepsi, DaimlerChrysler, Kraft, and SpikeTV. Ringel also has an extensive background in television and live entertainment. He frequently speaks and writes about the video games industry and branded entertainment, leading panels on "Games and Advertising" and "Games and Hollywood" at CES, The Media Summit, and Digital Hollywood, and "The Future of Branded Entertainment" as part of Advertising Week 2004. Ringel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale, and a Ph.D. from the University of London, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.