Programme

09:00 am: Registration and Coffee

09.30 am: Welcome by Kristine Ploug (DADIU) and Ene Katrine Rasmussen (MEDIA Desk). Ene Katrine Rasmussen also gives an introduction to MEDIA's support for interactive content.

09.45 am: Inga von Staden: User Generated Content
It’s not new. It’s been around for centuries. The Speaker’s Corner, the best home videos on TV, call-in discussions on BBC or letters to the publishers … But never before have users had access to enabling media production technologies or media publishing platforms as they have to today. What we are seeing today is a proliferation of self-expression on a multitude of platforms creating ever-changing formations of communities. What formats are emerging? What motivates the user? How do communities evolve and dissolve? How do users change the media industry? And how does it change them? Welcome to a short helicopter ride through the worlds of UGC.

10.30 am: Dan Moskowitz: Player Creativity in Spore: Removing Roadblocks for Creating, Sharing, and Browsing User Generated Content
A creative person shouldn't have to be a technical person.  With Spore, literally anyone with an inkling of creativity is able to dive into the community by creating, browsing, sharing, and discussing user generated content.  In this talk Dan will present some of the common roadblocks players hit regarding user generated content and how the team tried to address them while developing Spore.  Included will be some fun analysis of our database of over 25 million assets, as well as a quick presentation of some of Dan's favorite assets recently created by the community.

11.15 am: Coffee Break

11.45 am: Olli Sotamaa: Democratizing the Console Environment? Console Games and Player-generated Content
In his presentation Sotamaa contemplates how the emergence of hard drives and proprietary network services has paved the way for player-generated content in the traditionally closed console environment. As console games have for years constituted the largest segment of global game sales, this development should be of interest to anyone eager to understand the future of gaming. Concrete cases from game modifications to browser-based games optimized for consoles are examined.

12.30 pm: Lunch in the Atrium

01.30 pm: Gorm Lai: User Generated Content in The Ark
Gorm Lai talks about how User Generated Content is a vital part of the business model for The Ark and how it strengthens the longevity and the potential of the final product.

02:15: Lars Bo Jeppesen: User as Co-developers: The Emergence of Modding as a Business Models in the Computer Games Industry
In modding, as in many other contexts, users have shown capable of creating high impact products. How are games companies that make moddable games able to make mods into commercially successful products? The presentation focuses on the cultural phenomenon of modding and the emergence of business models in the gaming industry.

03.00 pm: Coffee and Cake

03.30 pm: Chris Pasley: Garage Game Design: How User-Created Web Games Drive Innovation
As the console wars continue unabated, the budgets and teams required to make competitive games grow bigger every year just to support the demands of new hardware.  Where is the pioneering spirit that once catapulted video games into pop culture overnight, where are the risky ideas, the bold new gameplay?  Both inspired by and frustrated with what they see in the 'professional' game industry, users alone or in small teams have embraced a simple, new technology to write the games they themselves want to play - many of which have found a new home at Kongregate.

04.15 pm: Closing Remarks

04.30 pm: Refreshments in the Atrium

05.30 pm: The seminar ends.

Note: Smaller changes to the programme might occur.

About the Speakers

Lars Bo Jeppesen (Denmark)

Lars Bo Jeppesen is associate professor at Copenhagen Business School. He has studied how firms establish and maintain fruitful relations with innovative users located in Internet based user communities and how firms can adjust their business models to deal effectively with users as a source of innovation. He has carried out a range of studies of the modding movement in computer games.

Gorm Lai (Denmark)

Gorm has a broad background within the game industry. He has made casual games at Craftwork for Sky GameStar, has worked as on next-generation engine technology for PC and Xbox 360 at Deadline Games, and is a Nordic Game Jam coordinator. In the autumn of 2007 he co-founded 3 Lives left which specializes in multi-player games and User Generated Content.
The Ark is a futuristic turn-based tactical online game. It is a sandbox game in the sense that all the tools for creating game levels, gear and enemies are freely available to the players. The players that chose to use the tools can seriously influence the game experience. The user generated content serves three purposes: to satisfy the amount of content needed for a successful online game, to mine the limitless creativity of the users, and to support the emergence of a hardcore fan base.

Dan Moskowitz (USA)

Dan Moskowitz has been programming and designing PC, console, and theme park games for over 10 years.  His main focus is creating fun, tactile, and approachable user interfaces that appeal to broad audiences, regardless of gaming experience.  He is currently employed at Maxis where he was the lead engineer on the in-game content creation and browsing tools for Spore - the Creators and the Sporepedia.  Dan previously worked at Sony Computer Entertainment America making console games, and at Walt Disney Imagineering where he created attractions for DisneyQuest and Epcot Center.  Before he formally joined the games industry, Dan worked and studied under professor Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University as a research programmer on the Alice project. Dan lives in San Francisco with his wife Sarah and Great Dane, Ella

Chris Pasley (USA)

Chris Pasley is the Director of Games for Kongregate.com, a user-generated web games site - the youtube for gamers. Previously, he worked as a writer and game producer for AdultSwim.com, the internet arm of the popular US adult animation block on Cartoon Network.  In that position he helped create such web classics as 'Bible Fight' and 'Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself).'  Currently, Chris is in charge of directing Kongregate's Premium games, a program designed to fund indie development of free-to-play, microtransaction-driven games.

Olli Sotamaa (Finland)


Olli Sotamaa is a Senior Assistant in the Hypermedia Lab, University of Tampere, Finland. He is currently completing his PhD on player production among computer game cultures. With a background in cultural studies, Sotamaa has published articles on computer game modding, player-centred game design, and mobile games.

Inga von Staden (Germany)

Inga von Staden is based in Berlin, Germany. She studied Agricultural Science in Jerusalem and Film in New York and has since worked in the media industries holding a wide range of jobs as author, conceptor, creative producer, consultant and lecturer. In 2004 she joined the regional media council, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg for three years to coordinate their activities for the new media industries. Today, she works as an innovation consultant and directs the studies programme 'Interactive Media' at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her special interest is the role of media in and for sustainability.
Inga von Staden has written, published and lectured on themes as 'The Story That Writes Itself – On Artificial Intelligence', 'Games - Where Media and Technology Meet', 'Games - Designing an Experience' or 'Limitless – Animation Meets the WWW' among other. She is an assessor for new media projects with the PROfit-funding programme of the Investionsbank in Berlin.
Inga has run a Media Training programme called 'Academy of Converging Media' from 2002-2003 in Berlin. Furthermore, she has taught at a Media Training Programme for script writing students and graduates at LaFemis, HFF Babelsberg and dffb Berlin.