While San Diego Comic Con has become somewhat of a Mecca for the pop culture scene’s population explosion in recent years, it’s more than just the SDCC exclusive merchandise that this four day film festival is offering the fans.
San Diego Comic Con is also quickly becoming a hot bed of innovation across industries – spanning tech, gaming, toys and collectables, and licensing, offering insight into the near and distant future for this unique socio-economic sphere through a growing number of educational panel sessions.
And may SDCC be no different, this time welcoming giants of the digital-physical gaming world, the Godfather of video games and founder of Atari himself, Nolan Bushnell, alongside a Hollywood visual artist leading man, Zai Ortiz, and Collabsco’s own Valerie Vacante.
In a panel session titled Gamifying Technology: The Future of Gaming, the formidable trio will come together to discuss how technology is influencing and informing the future of gaming.
Bushnell pioneered the video gaming industry when he founded Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theater and continued to gamify the world with the launch over 20 companies including Catalyst Technologies, the first Silicon Valley incubator and Etak, the first in-car navigation system.
Meanwhile, Ortiz bridged artistic storytelling with technical innovations when creating the J.A.R.V.I.S. system holograms in Marvel’s Iron Man as well as stunning visuals for films such as TRON: Legacy, Mission: Impossible, Thor, The Twilight Saga, and Sherlock Holmes.
In a panel session presented by Vacante, Nolan and Ortiz will discuss their experiences together to co-create their first table top game St. Noire, the world’s first murder mystery game powered by Amazon Alexa, featuring over a dozen Hollywood-level voice actors and 2,500+ lines of voice dialogue.
“We are proud of our team and what we’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time without compromising quality with St.Noire – we look forward to sharing our journey of two creatives that collided to make something fun and entertaining for people to connect in new ways,” said Ortiz, co-creator, St. Noire.
“We are at a unique moment in history where technology is finally catching up to our imagination and creative ambitions–voice, sound, touch, augmented reality, virtual reality, the Internet of Things and beyond.”
Valerie Vacante, founder of Collabsco, added: “With exponential growth across connected play, digital gaming and emerging technologies we will continue to see creators breaking boundaries to create the next generation of gaming.”
Collabsco’s Connected Play Landscape, showcases over 260 connected play and emerging technology experiences that’s a 150 per cent from 2018 with significant growth areas across emerging technologies and categories.
Vacante will share key insights and stats to know when it comes to gamifying technology and the future of play, expanding on points such as the 200 per cent estimated growth for Smart Toy revenue in the next four years, the predicted jump in revenue from $117bn to $160bn by 2022 for the digital gaming market, and the expectation that the AR gaming market will hit a value of more than $280bn by 2023.
“We are on the cusp of the next big revolution in gaming,” added Bushnell, “and St. Noire is a first step into this new uncharted territory. What’s next is going to change everything.”
Gamifying Technology: The Future of Gaming will take place Thursday, July 18, 2019 11:45am – 12:45pm in Room 6BCF
See the full article by Rob Hutchins featured on Licesing.Biz >> https://www.licensing.biz/2019/07/16/san-diego-comic-con-collabsco-joins-atari-founder-and-hollywood-elite-for-future-of-gaming-panel/