Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Digital Hollywood Events at CES 2010 Wednesday, January 6th 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Track II- GP3 - Game Power Virtual Worlds, Virtual Economies, Virtual Goods and Services and Virtual Gaming Virtual worlds, virtual gaming and virtual communities have spawned a universe of goods and services. With hundreds of millions of users consumed in online gaming or social media, the phenomenon of the virtual economy is becoming ever more innovative and based in impressive economic numbers. As the technology enables better and more creative consumer experience, enabling full rich media virtual services and economies, the size, scope and future of the virtual world will only first become understood and realized. Andrew Schneider, Co-Founder & President, Live Gamer David Laux, Global Executive, Games & Interactive Entertainment, IBM Cary Rosenzweig, president and CEO, IMVU Karl Mehta, Co-Founder & CEO, PLAYSPAN, Inc. Mark Hansen, Director of Business Development, LEGO Group & Project Lead, LEGO Universe Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online Christopher Romero, World Designer & CTO, WorldWide Biggies Cindy Cook, former Chief Marketing Officer Vivendi Games, Moderator Andrew Schneider, Co-Founder and President, Live Gamer: Andrew Schneider has been a digital entertainment industry leader and catalyst for emerging business opportunities at the crossroads of media and technology for over 14 years. Prior to founding Live Gamer, Schneider served as executive vice president of marketing at Wind-up Records, the world’s leading independent record label, where he focused on digital innovation. Previously, during his eight year tenure at Sony Pictures Digital, Schneider developed and launched award-winning interactive marketing campaigns for major entertainment franchises, developed consumer broadband content services, and launched user generated media tools and applications. Schneider began his career in at NBC Television Network, where he inaugurated the company’s interactive marketing practice with the network’s first online presence. David Laux, Global Executive, Games & Interactive Entertainment, IBM: As the Global Executive for Games and Interactive Entertainment, Dave Laux leads IBM’s efforts in this rapidly growing and strategically important industry. A long time industry participant (played a lot of games), Laux is responsible for helping games and entertainment companies leverage IBM’s strength and assets to reduce expenses while increasing efficiency and profitability. He has worked with a number of the largest and leading games developers and publishers all over the world to enhance the overall development, delivery, and deployment of their games. Laux has presented at a number of conferences, including The Game Developers Conference, Austin Games Conference, Digital Hollywood, China Joy, E3, Leipzig Games Conference, and the GCDC to name a few. He has been quoted on games topics in The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Gamasutra, Game Daily, Marketwire, CNN, Fox News, Game Planet, AfterTV, cNet and several other publications. He also has a number of podcasts on the games industry and technologies available on the web. He actively encourages industry interest and participation among high school girls and minority students through IBM’s Future of Games program, which is presented to high schools throughout the community. Laux joined IBM in 1994 to help form a new sales organization, which grew in sales from $25 Million to $1.6 Billion in 1998. He went on to lead a national telecommunications sales team for IBM and IBM’s GMB ‘NetGen’ business unit. In 2000, Laux joined IBM’s venture development organization to explore new emerging opportunities for IBM, as well as manage IBM’s relationships with several key venture capital firms. Prior to IBM, Laux was an investment banker and retail broker for several national and regional investment banks and brokerage firms.  He also started and managed several successful entrepreneurial endeavors. Cary Rosenzweig, President and Chief Executive OfficerIMVU: Cary began serving as the President and CEO of IMVU in November 2007. Previously, he served as either CEO or Chief Marketing Officer at four other technology startups, including mySimon.com (acquired by CNET) and Autoweb.com (acquired by Autobytel). Cary was VP and General Manager at Intuit, responsible for QuickBooks Payroll, which he grew from $100 million to $200 million over a three-year period (2003-2006). Cary began his career in marketing and brand management at Procter and Gamble, where he was Tide Brand Manager. He then went to Clorox, where he rose up the marketing ranks before becoming General Manager of the Clorox Pet Products Company. Cary earned an A.B. in International Relations from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Michael Pole, co-Founder and CEO, Trilogy Studios,: As CEO of Trilogy Studios, Michael Pole is setting a benchmark for Virtual World and Next Generation game development in terms of financing and business models that support the industry’s changing climate. Throughout his 20-year career in the entertainment industry, Pole has produced dozens of hit game titles including NASCAR Racing, Knockout Kings, Simpsons: Hit & Run, Simpsons: Road Rage, Chronicles of Riddick, The Hulk, AVP2 and No One Lives Forever.  Prior to co-founding Trilogy Studios in 2005, Pole was Executive Vice President, Worldwide Product Development for Vivendi Universal Games where he spearheaded the deal that resulted in the successful sale of Fox Interactive to Vivendi Universal Games. Michael has held similar positions with two of the industry’s most successful companies, Activision and Electronic Arts, where he led production efforts for hit franchises and played a key role in studio negotiations with hardware manufacturers, developers, talent and content providers. Michael’s background also includes 10 years developing television and animation programming for CBS, NBC and ABC Entertainment. Mark Hansen, Director of Business Development, LEGO Group & Project Lead, LEGO Universe: Mark has been with LEGO Group for more than 8 years, where he has created new business strategies and play concepts focused on consumer-generated products and content. Mark was the original architect of LEGO Factory, an experience that bridges virtual design with real world construction by allowing anyone to design custom LEGO models online which can then be ordered as a set for assembly "offline." He currently serves as the project lead in the development of LEGO UNIVERSE, a massively multiplayer online game. Previously, Mark spent 3 years researching mass customization and agile systems at Aalborg University and served twelve years in the United States Navy. He holds a bachelor's of science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and a master's in engineering from Aalborg University. Craig Sherman, CEO, Gaia Online: During business hours, Craig Sherman lives in gaiaonline.com, the leading online hangout for teens and young adults. Prior to joining Gaia Online, Craig served as Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital. Craig was also COO of MyFamily.com/ancestry.com (now called The Generations Network), where he helped grow the company from $10 million to $150 million in sales and transformed it from an advertising-based site to a highly profitable consumer subscription business. Before this, Craig held senior positions at American International Group, where he ran marketing for all divisions of AIG in Japan and Korea plus managed the region's highest margin subsidiary. Previous to AIG, Craig was CEO of Cendant Japan, a joint venture founded by Cendant and Mitsubishi Corporation. Craig is currently on the boards of kongregate, Netquote and Singlefeed. Previously, Craig also held board positions with Photobucket, prior to its sale to the Fox network, Homestead, prior to its sale to Intuit, and Logoworks, prior to its sale to Hewlett Packard. Craig graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University. Cindy Cook, former Chief Marketing Officer Vivendi Games: is an innovative marketer and creator of new businesses in the entertainment space. She is a 20 year veteran of Fortune 100 companies in interactive entertainment, digital media and beverages. Most recently she was Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Vivendi Games. There she was responsible for leading the formulation of company strategy and driving the worldwide marketing activities for the company. She conceived, built and was the general manager of two divisions focused on casual online and mobile games. Cook was one of the pioneers in digital music launching the first commercial service at Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company. She was responsible for the development of the consumer proposition for Pressplay subscription service, now Napster. Previously she ran marketing for Flexplay, a ‘disposable’ DVD technology startup which was successfully sold to the Convex Group. Earlier in her career Cook held a variety of management roles at Pepsi-Cola, Seagram and General Electric. Cook is a frequent speaker at industry events. Cook has a master’s degree in business administration from New York University’s Stern Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Lehigh University. She is the executive advisor to the Lehigh Women’s MBA Association. She resides in New York City with her husband and daughter. Christopher Romero, World Designer & CTO, WorldWide Biggies: Christopher Romero (World Designer & CTO, World Wide Biggies) is a 16-year veteran of interactive development. A San Francisco native, he began his career animating home improvement techniques in Macromind Director for delivery on floppy disks at a start-up in Palo Alto called Books That Work. CD-ROM work followed which included educational and scientific topics at InfoUse in Berkeley, Ca. In 1995 he moved to Toronto, Ontario and joined ICE (Interactive Communications and Entertainment), then Canada’s largest and most well-known multi-media agency, where he worked on a number of projects including CaribbeanTravel.com (Applied Arts Awards winner), eTrade Canada (their first international port), Location Based Entertainment installation for Playdium (Applied Arts Award Winner). In 1999 he moved to New York City and began work at Nickelodeon Online, where he was quickly promoted to Vice President, Technical Production. There he managed operations, technical strategy and application development on nick.com, nickjr.com, tvland.com and addictinggames.com. Applications and games include: NickPoints, earned points on nick.com; E-Collectibles, virtual trading cards; TurboNick, an online video player; Wildlife Rescue, a game simulation where kids find wild animals in need of care, nurse them back to health and then release them back into the wild; Developer Upload, a way for game developers to get their games on to addictinggames.com; and Nicktropolis, a massive casual game world. Nick.com has won two Webbies and these sites together have won numerous BDA and other awards. With combined traffic of over 30 millions uniques per month, an entire generation of kids has interacted with his work. At Biggies he has designed the Princess Bride Game, tuned a celebrity fantasy sports league for Star vs. Star, and is now designing and developing a virtual world for a major toy client, as well as building an iPhone game. He is beginning work on his third virtual world this Fall.