America's Video Game Expo 2008

****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****

Philadelphia, PA – (November 26, 2008) – Lunar Tide Communications, Inc. announced today that the debut East Coast Games Summit garnered an impressive turnout of nearly 400 game industry professionals and students over two days of keynote speeches, panels, demos and workshops.

East Coast Games Summit was the industry-focused programming track for the 2008 America’s Video Game Expo (VGXPO). VGXPO more then tripled its’ attendance versus 2007, with 24,674 people attending over a three day period. This large turnout helped drive a high attendance to the East Coast Games Summit, Saturday, November 22 and Sunday, November 23. Meeting rooms were filled to capacity for most of the conference.

East Coast Games Summit content included keynotes from recognized game industry representatives; an executive workshop on Agile project management in game development; a pitch session for aspiring game developers to present their original game ideas to game development experts, education and diversity panels, and a ‘state of the games industry’ roundtable with industry insiders.

“We were extremely pleased and even a bit overwhelmed by the attendance to our Agile methodologies workshop,” offered Marc Mencher, CEO of GameRecruiter. “We were going to be more than satisfied if 50-75 showed up for our 3-hour hands-on session with games industry technologists such as Matt Shaw, CTO from EA and Steve Reid, EVP with Red Storm. Instead, we had nearly 130 attendees, and received an enormous amount of positive feedback from our workshop guests. This is one of the best conference experiences we’ve ever seen.”

Susan Gold presented a “breaking in to the business” panel for a standing-room-only audience. “I was quite excited to see nearly 200 faces in our session. When asked how many were students, more than half raised their hands, most of them focused on game design and development programs. These were young people who made the earnest commitment to hear our session on getting a career in games. They represent the creative and technical talent of tomorrow’s games industry.” Susan’s panel included Brenda Brathwaite of Savannah College Art & Design, Paula Fellbaum, VP of HR for Nexon Publishing, Jim Rivers of Obsidian Entertainment and Rob Catto, Program Director for Game Development at Full Sail Real World Education.

Fiona Cherbak, Chairperson for IGDA Women in Games, noted “This is my third year speaking at VGXPO on key topics such as game careers and opportunities for women in games. It’s marvelous to see the convention take such huge exponential leaps in terms of both attendance and content, and particularly rewarding to see an authentic, grass-roots organization come into its own. For game professionals to have such a direct experience with our diverse gamer culture is truly beneficial, and has far more relevance than cookie-cutter trade shows that have been squeezed dry by corporate influence. With the East Coast Games Summit making such a impressive first showing, I’m convinced this event has now arrived as the dominant games show in this part of the U.S.”

Other features of the East Coast Games Summit included the presentation of a $10,000 scholarship from The Guildhall at SMU to the ESA Foundation. Dan Hewitt, Senior Communications Director for the Entertainment Software Association, was on hand to receive the scholarship on behalf of his organization’s program, which provides college tuition to minority and female students in game design, media and technology. “We are delighted to see such a high level of interest in games education at the East Coast Games Summit and VGXPO. We are grateful for The Guildhall’s donation, and appreciate the effort that was made by the VGXPO executive team to provide the right venue for this important announcement.”

VGXPO 2009 and the next East Coast Games Summit are currently scheduled to take place October 9-11, 2009 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. You can learn more about the East Coast Games Summit and VGXPO at www.vgxpo.com.

About VGXPO and the East Coast Games Summit

America's VideoGame Expo and VideoGame.Net are part of Lunar Tide Communications, Inc. a company that develops videogame related events and educational services. For press inquiries regarding America's VideoGame Expo, visit us on the web at www.VGXPO.com.

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Contact: Jennifer Johnson-Halpin

Director of VGXPO

(203) 345-6512

jennifer.halpin@nbcuni.com