Savvy Games Group’s Brian Ward will speak at GamesBeat Summit 2024

Brian Ward, CEO of Savvy Games Group, will be a key speaker at GamesBeat Summit 2024, our annual game conference which takes place on May 20 to May 21 in Los Angeles.

The event at the Marina del Rey Marriott will focus on the theme of resilience and adaptation, zeroing in on the relevant real-world issues facing the game industry.

We know that the game industry has had a rough year and an even rougher first two months of 2024 regarding layoffs. Why is this happening? Is this part of a cycle, or is there something structurally changing in the game industry? And how can companies and people be more resilient and adapt to the change?

Ward, who runs one of the most influential new gaming companies in a fast-growing region, is one of the people who can provide some answers. He will do a fireside chat with Lisa Cosmas Hanson, president of Niko Partners.

A background in gaming

Ward has more than 25 years of experience leading companies and teams in games. He is the former head of worldwide studios at Activision Blizzard. He also worked at gaming giants Electronic Arts and Microsoft as well as LottoInteractive.

As senior vice president of worldwide studios at Activision, he managed all development from portfolio planning and concept design to quality assurance, code release and customer service. While in this role, Call of Duty became the industry’s first multi-studio annualized franchise.

In 2021, Ward put Saudi Arabia on the gaming map when he became CEO of Savvy Games Group, which is owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which has pledged to invest $37.8 billion to build up Saudi Arabia’s presence in the global games industry. The country is trying to accelerate its modernization through games as it moves its economy beyond oil and steel into the digital realm. I’ve interviewed Ward multiple times and visited Riyadh to get a grasp on the change.

For sure, the company represents our theme of adaptation. Savvy acquired Los Angeles-based mobile game publisher Scopely for $4.9 billion in 2023, and it bought a $1 billion stake in Sweden-based game publisher Embracer Group. It also acquired ESL Gaming and FaceIt in esports to create ESL FaceIt Group. That gave Savvy more than 3,450 employees in gaming in 69 locations. And the core market of the Middle East is growing fast, according to Niko Partners.

But its resilience is being tested like every other game company right now. ESL FaceIt Group recently laid off 15% of its team, and a purported additional investment in Embracer Group didn’t materialize, resulting in a lot of cutbacks at that company. The jury is out on this grand entry into games. Yet the fact remains that Ward runs one of the most fascinating companies in all of gaming right now — and all eyes are on him.

More speakers

We’ve also announced a number of speakers including the GamesBeat team’s Rachel Kaser, Jordan Fragen, and Dean Takahashi.

On top of that, we have Purnendu Mukherjee, Founder and CEO of Convai; Caroline Stokes, founder/executive coach of Forward; Mark Chandler, founder of TIGS; Songyee Yoon, president and CSO of NCSoft; Alex Seropian, CEO of Look North World; Ed Fries, general partner at 1Up Ventures; Eric Goldberg, cofounder Playable Worlds; Kim Kunes, vice president of Trust & Safety at Xbox; Mike Morhaime, CEO of Dreamhaven; Alina Soltys, cofounder of Quantum Tech Partners; Amir Satvat, director of business development at Tencent; Lisa Cosmas Hanson, president of Niko Partners; and Jim Huntley, associate professor at USC School of cinematic arts.

I’m also looking forward to a chat about creators with Jia Shen, who cofounded RockYou way back when.

Return to Los Angeles

Last year, our event in Los Angeles at the Marina del Rey Marriott drew more than 900 people. We’ll shoot for a more intimate audience this year but we remain committed to getting some of the most interesting speakers in the gaming world, including fresh faces.

Our conference will address how to adapt to a rapidly changing world, and will address big topics like GenAI, cross-media adaptations (games and Hollywood), and the challenge of layoffs in an industry that is becoming part of mainstream culture. We’ll look at how the industry is responding with innovation, creativity, resilience, and collaboration — and what to do about layoffs.

We’ll have another Women In Gaming Breakfast on the morning of May 21, sponsored by Xsolla. And we aim to get about half of our speakers coming from diverse backgrounds. Women can sign up here. Indie game devs at companies with fewer than 50 people can sign up here. And for the first time we have an indie sponsorship package listed for Rising Stars.

As Matthew Ball noted in a long piece on the game industry, gaming has strong secular tailwinds that signal good years ahead. The new generation of kids plays a lot of games and they’re replacing generations that rarely played games. Players are getting access to more platforms with access to quality games.

Gaming culture is being elevated to the mainstream, and gaming is evolving as an art and tech platform. Access to high-quality gaming devices continues to improve. Gaming culture continues to proliferate, and the art form of gaming continues to evolve. But these tailwinds do not guarantee that every year will see uninterrupted growth, significant growth, or profitable growth.

In other words, growth isn’t guaranteed. We have to work at it. We’ll bring the top minds in the industry to discuss these topics in an interactive format.

A short time ago, we named Purnendu Mukherjee, founder and CEO of Convai, which is producing some amazing AI-based non-player characters for games and virtual awards, as our first speaker.

You can pitch us on speakers/sponsorships at this link. You can also sign up here to attend using You can get 25% off with this discount code: gbs24dean25.

We appreciate the support of our sponsors including our longtime partners Xsolla, Playtika, Modulate, TikTok, Scopely, Fastspring and Heroic Labs. But we could use more support to make the conference into a great event that will be as memorable as last year’s event, which featured Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead. You can contact us for sponsorship information here.

The gaming media has struggled as well. We are not immune to that, but I believe our events have a real community following and something special to offer. I hope you’ll all continue to see value in supporting GamesBeat as it also supports the game industry.

We could also use sponsor support and speakers for our other events, including GamesBeat Next on October 28 to October 29 in San Francisco and GamesBeat at the Game Awards on December 12. We’ll be launching signups for those events as well. Our sponsorship team is at [email protected].

Also, I’m recruiting judges for the Visionary Awards now.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz