London to host social gaming expo

London will play host to a social gaming exhibition, as the industry looks for new ways to capitalise on the lucrative market.

The Social Gaming Summit and Virtual Goods Summit, to be held on 11-12 November, 2010, will focus on helping developers build, monetize and grow social games.

The first day of the conference covers topics such as why social games work and what it takes to successfully develop and deploy a social game. The second day is the Virtual Goods Summit, focusing on the emerging market opportunity for virtual goods and economies.

Social gaming is a growing interest to academia and business, estimated to grow from $US1 billion in 2009 to $US1.6 billion in 2010.

The event will have presenters from some of the most significant social gaming developers and publishers: Playdom, RockYou, PopCap Games, Big Fish Games, Conduit Labs, IMVU and ThinkEquity. The event is being organised by Mediabistro.com. In a release, event director, Matthew Finlay, said “We’ve deliberately priced the Social Gaming Summit and Virtual Goods Summit to be accessible to anyone interested in the rapidly growing business. We also are confident that the London launch will be equally as successful as the US events.”