Edinburgh Interactive 2010

Monday 17th May/... Edinburgh Interactive Festival today announced that Michael Acton Smith, CEO and founder of Mind Candy, will deliver a session at this year’s conference.

Acton Smith is hosting a session on the growth of Moshi Monsters, its social online game for kids, entitled “How To Make A Monster – Lessons Learned In Creating A Social Gaming Phenomenon”. Launched in April 2008, Moshi Monsters is an unusual mix of Tamagotchi, Brain Training and Facebook, aimed at 6-12 year-olds. Players adopt a unique, animated Monster from the world of Monstro City, and then nurture it by interacting with other Monsters and solving the daily puzzle games. The game reached its tipping point in 2009 when nine million players signed up, and with over 20 million registered users to date, Moshi Monsters is one of the fastest growing and profitable children’s websites in the world.

The session will detail about what Mind Candy learnt during Moshi Monsters’ intense period of growth. In what should be a highly illuminating and entertaining session for anyone interested in social games, Acton Smith also discusses how traffic was acquired and which acquisition channels have been most effective.

Michael Acton Smith, CEO and founder of Mind Candy, said:

“Attendees will hear the warts and all story of how we built Moshi Monsters from scratch into a highly profitable online game with 20 million users in a little over two years.

“We'll share the many mistakes we made along the way, as well as the elements we got right. The lessons will be valuable for anyone building social games, whether in the kids or adult space.”

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival Conference delivers a lively schedule from a wide range of industry sectors including games, social networking, mobile entertainment, education, music, film and television. It also plays host to a range of free events including a games showcase and the Games Screening programme.

Call For Content

The 2010 programme is still open for screening submissions from developers, publishers and game creators, who would like to showcase their content as part of this year’s Festival. Edinburgh Interactive offers 30 to 60 minute screening sessions in dedicated auditoriums seating up to 100 people. The Festival is also open to feature any game-related short films, machinima and animations, which will be featured between the screenings line up. For press enquiries and anyone wishing to submit content to this year’s Interactive Festival, please contact stuart.taylor@bhpr.co.uk and laura.west@bhpr.co.uk

For more details about partnership opportunities please contact amy.fairchild@bhpr.co.uk

Please submit proposal papers for the Edinburgh Interactive Festival conference to Wendy Rosenthal at wendy@hyperentertainment.com

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About Edinburgh Interactive 2010

Now celebrating its eighth successful year, Edinburgh Interactive is powered up to showcase the continued popularity, growth and influence of video games. And this year, the Interactive Festival is more synchronised with the world famous Edinburgh Festival than ever, appealing to the press, public and professionals from film, television and interactive media backgrounds alike, offering a bigger event for delegates, more consumer focusing – an overall spectacle for all.

As ever, Edinburgh Interactive wouldn’t be complete without the cornerstones of conferences, keynotes, panel sessions, debates, games screenings and even more people than ever jostling to get through the doors. www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com

Edinburgh Interactive is managed by an Executive committee and a board drawn from all areas of the games industry, including publishers, developers and the two industry trade bodies: The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA) http://www.tiga.org and the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) http://www.elspa.com. EIGF Ltd is the non-profit company behind the festival.