About Us
Casual Connect is produced by the Casual Games Association and is the premiere event for the casual games industry with over 3,500 professionals attending Casual Connect each year. Casual Connect brings together the most talented and knowledgeable experts in the casual gaming field to further the casual games industry with the best of networking and learning.
To learn more about the people behind the scenes, visit our website at: casualgamesassociation.org.
Contact Us
To inquire about advertising or sponsorship email us at info@casualconnect.org. To submit a session proposal or magazine article proposal use the online submission form if you have any additional questions about the submission process email us at submissions@casualconnect.org.
ADVISORS
Juan GRIL
Studio Director & Founder Joju Games
Director, Innovation Showcase
USA
Juan heads the production at Joju Games. Joju produces online, social and multiplayer games for clients such as Atari, Addicting Games, Mindjolt, MTV Networks, Comedy Central, and Mochimedia. Juan has more than 12 years of experience developing online games. Previously, and as one of the first members of the Yahoo! Games team, Juan was the lead producer for the downloadable games area and community manager of multi player games. In the last year of his tenure at Yahoo!, Juan was the head of Yahoo! Games Studios.
Juan is a frequent speaker at industry events, and holds a BFA in Electronic Media from the University of Illinois.
Alla KHRAMTSOVA
V.P. of Business Development INTENIUM GmbH
Germany
Alla has been in the casual games industry since 2003 working on the managerial positions in business development, sales and marketing in Absolutist, the biggest casual games company in Ukraine. In 2007 she left the company after a year of being its CEO and continued her career as VP of Business Development with Germany-based INTENIUM, the leading European casual games distributor, publisher and developer. In this position she is responsible for several strategic directions of the game holding, cooperation with developers and distributors, as well as game development/producing. She holds an MA in English and Literature, BA in Marketing.
Neal SINNO
V.P. Business Development Arkadium
USA
Neal Sinno is the VP of Business Development at Arkadium, bringing over ten years of experience in market opportunity assessment, product development and sales management. Prior to joining Arkadium, Neal was VP of Business Development at Game Trust. There he managed key relationships and partners to develop network channel, search and advertising opportunities, and was a member of the executive team responsible for the company's acquisition by RealNetworks. Prior to his role at Game Trust, Neal worked at Mellon Financial Corp, where he was the Director of E-Commerce Product Development. Within his role there, he led a global team of developers, designers and actuaries to create state of the art web based financial applications.
A seasoned sales and e-business specialist, Neal also held key roles at The New York Times and Lucent Technologies. Neal sits on the board of advisors for the Casual Games Association and frequently speaks at key industry events.
David NIXON
Program Advisor, Community & Social
USA
After ten years working on "hard core games", in 1999 David dedicated himself to developing "casual" game experiences and pioneering new ways for these games to reach new audiences. In 1999, with RealArcade, he was one of the first to see the potential of digital distribution and "try before you buy". In 2000 he was one of the first to attempt "2nd Party" casual game publishing. In 2001 he looked to Eastern Europe as a source of commercially viable PC games, inspiring game developers around the world to participate in the amazing opportunities this category offered. In 2004 he helped catapult Oberon Media onto the casual games world stage. 2005 found David evangelizing "console casual" games with his central role in the launch of Xbox LIVE Arcade. In 2007 he began to think deeply about how online games would change the nature of our business (though he admits, he didn't see Facebook coming). Now, in 2011 he works to extend the role of "web games" more and more deeply into the casual games arena, expanding the role of online communities and social features in the future of our industry. He recently left his position of President and Founding Partner of Creara USA, Inc. and now serves as the Content Director for the Casual Games Association.
View David's sessions in the archives.
email David
Jan WAGNER
Managing Director Cliffhanger Productions
Program Advisor, Browser MMO
Germany
Jan Wagner has been involved in the industry for almost 20 years with his experience spanning producing, PR and product management along with QA, localization and game design. He was Head of Product Management at Vivendi Universal Games and worked on over 100 titles during this time including Half Life, Warcraft, Empire Earth and Diablo. Trying to get back to the creative side of the industry, he co-founded a consulting agency whose customers included Blizzard Europe, Vivendi Universal, Massive Development, Tilted Mill and JoWooD and worked on titles like SpellForce, Gothic and Ground Control. He went on to found Cliffhanger Productions, a production studio, with his partner Michael Paeck in 2006 trying to support the creation of more original games. Cliffhanger now focuses on premium browser and trans-platform games like it’s upcoming Jagged Alliance Online and new project Shadowrun Online.
Jan is a co-founder of a local initiative called gamearea frankfurtrheinmain, organizes the German industry event browser games forum, teaches game studies at the University of Darmstadt and is jury member for the German Developer’s Award, the German Games Award and the European Innovative Games Award. He never won one of those though.
David ROHRL
Creative Director Playdom
Program Advisor, Social Mobile
USA
David Rohrl is a Creative Director at Playdom where he develops the creative vision and manages the design process for many current and upcoming Playdom games. Rohrl has over 15 years of game development experience and previously occupied senior production and game design roles at Zynga, PopCap, EA/Pogo and The Learning Company. He has produced more than two-dozen published titles—most notably, Word Whomp and Tumble Bees —and has served as managing producer on a dozen more. A respected industry thought leader, Rohrl was a long time organizer of the annual Casual Games Summit, he chairs the IGDA Casual Games SIG, and and speaks regularly at major industry events.
email Dave
Eric GOLDBERG
Managing Director Crossover Technologies
Program Advisor, General Industry
USA
Eric is a 30-year veteran of the game, consumer Internet, and wireless data industries, serving in capacities ranging from game designer to executive. Since 2002, Eric is or has been a board member of, advisor or consultant to AOL, AT&T Wireless, Centerscore, Digital Chocolate, Electronic Arts, Exponential, Gaia Online, HipLogic, In-Fusio, Juice Wireless, Kayak (dba Blaze), Lifetime, LimeLife, Meredith, Mforma (dba Hands-On Mobile), Moloon, Openwave, PaymentOne, PickTeams (fka GoCrossCampus), Playdom (fka YouPlus), PlaySpan, Reaxion, rmbr, RocketOn, Thumbplay, Unplugged, Vindigo, Warner Music, and three US venture capital firms. Eric was most recently the President and Co-Founder of Unplugged, for which he secured distribution with four of the five largest North American carriers. Previously, he served as President and Founder of Crossover Technologies, one of the first consumer online companies, for which he secured AOL, BMG, Discovery Channel,Intel, Microsoft, Prodigy (IBM/Sears/CBS joint venture), Random House, Sony, Time Warner, and Viacom as clients and distribution partners; and, prior to that, as President of West End Games, the adventure game company for which he published, among 40+ titles, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Star Trek, and Junta. His award-winning games include Paranoia, Tales of the Arabian Nights, The Tom Peters Business School in a Box, and MadMaze, the first online game to draw one million players. He is a three-time winner of the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game and a two-time winner of the Game Designers Guild Select Award. Eric is a regular speaker at the major North American games, wireless and online conferences, including CTIA, MECCA, Internet World, The Conference Board, DMW, GDC, GDC Mobile, MES, AGC, MGC, Casual Connect, LA Games Conference, and E3, and has served as a programs advisor or advisory board member for the latter seven conferences. He was previously a board member for the New York New Media Association and New York University`s Center for Advanced Digital Applications.
Oscar CLARK
Evangelist PapayaMobile
Program Advisor, Mobile
United Kingdom
Oscar Clark, Evangelist for Papaya Mobile, the leading mobile games social network, has been involved with putting social and games together since 1998. His career has been at the cutting edge of online, mobile and console social games and includes roles at British Telecom (Wireplay), Hutchinson Whampoa (3UK) and Sony's PlayStation Home.
Jill SCHNEIDERMAN
VP of Business Development MindJolt
Program Advisor, Social
USA
Jill Schneiderman is the Director of Business Development for MindJolt Games, focusing primarily on the licensing and production of games for MindJolt’s social properties. Previously, she headed up domestic business development and international sales for traditional board game company, Imagination Games.
Jussi LAAKKONEN
CEO Applifier
Finland
Jussi Laakkonen is the CEO and founder of Applifier (http://www.applifier.com), the largest cross-promotion network for social games and applications that now reaches over 55 million monthly active users on Facebook. He pivoted Everyplay (http://www.everyplay.com), a social gaming startup he had founded in 2008, into Applifier to help other developers and publishers grow their social applications through cross-promotion.
Previously Jussi was the business development director for Bugbear Entertainment (http://www.bugbeargames.com), a console racing game developer, where he closed several multimillion euro game deals and produced console and handheld games including Sega Rally for PSP and the FlatOut series. Jussi has been an entrepreneur since his teens and for nearly 20 years he has been one of the main organizers of Assembly (http://www.assembly.org), an annual 5000 person, around the clock, four day computer festival Finland.
Jussi blogs infrequently at http://jussilaakkonen.wordpress.com and tries to remember tweet more often at @jussil.
Robert BOEHM
Photon Evangelist Exit Games & Managing Director Playjoo
Germany
Robert is a senior entertainment software professional with over 10 years experience at the forefront of technology and games. He started his career in the mobile entertainment space and then moved on to build an international network of clients and partners for the online games technology provider Exit Games where he works on establishing the cross-platform network engine 'Photon' as the market's leading multiplayer tool.
Next to working for Exit Games, Robert is running his own gaming company Playjoo (www.playjoo.com), the studio behind "Giana Sisters Young Generation" (apps.facebook.com/gianasisters) an action-oriented branded social & browser multiplayer game which is in closed beta currently.
Lerika MALLAYEVA
Director of Flash GAMM Absolutist
Ukraine
Lerika is the director of the flash game developers and publishers conference "Flash GAMM", the co-manager of Ukrainian Adobe Flash Platform User Group and a Flash game artist and animator since 2003.
Program Advisor, Game Development & Production
Jouni SALONEN
CEO Tuokio
USA
Jouni Salonen is CEO of Tuokio, creators of great multiplayer games for social gatherings of friends and family. Prior to starting Tuokio in 2010 Jouni has tried to spearhead doing new and innovative things for people and businesses at Brightkite, Limbo, J2Play, Digital Chocolate, Sumea, Finpro and Fujitsu.
Program Advisor, Mobile, iPhone & Android
Jens BEGEMANN
Founder wooga
Germany
2009 Jens founded wooga (world of gaming). With 15 million Monthly Active Users wooga is the 7th largest developer of social games worldwide and the leading developer based in Europe. The 4 games wooga has lauched so far (Brain Buddies, Bubble Island, Monster World and Happy Hospital) are all hits on Facebook. Bubble Island was awarded the best European Social Game for 2010. wooga employs a team of 60 people from 18 nations in the heart of Berlin.
Program Advisor, Community & Social
Christopher NATSUUME
Co-Founder Boomzap Entertainment
Japan
Christopher Natsuume has been developing games for over 15 years. He has been working in the Southeast Asian region since 2004, including founding Singapore-based Boomzap Entertainment, one of the leading independent developers in the region. Boomzap has shipped 8 casual game titles, including the top ranked Jewels of Cleopatra series, using developers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan.
Content Advisor, Casual Connect Magazine