Ben Menoza

SXSW 2009 is approaching fast, and around this time, potential presenters collect their thoughts and come up with panels that would make for interesting discussion during the day. In true democratic fashion, the (registered) public votes on submitted panel ideas through the Interactive Panel Picker. Each panel idea falls under one category. The focus for this post will be Video Games.

Let me preface this post by saying that I’m far from a gamer. I have a Wii, which I hardly play, and a broken PS2 as my console gaming systems. I don’t participate in MMORPGs or other online games, now that Scrabulous on Facebook is no more. I tried to find a guest blogger, or at least a guest researcher to help me out with this post, but to no avail. So, as the reader, I would take whatever is posted here with a grain of salt.

That said, there are trends to watch out for in the gaming world. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with alternate gaming controllers (like guitars and drum sets for Guitar Hero and Rock Band) now that console makers Xbox and PS3 have stepped in to ensure customers that those devices will be compatible across future versions of the popular games that use them. In addition, because MMORPGs are increasingly popular, there are a number of panel submissions on the social aspect of gaming.

What do I know? Here are my four:

• Who is Playing What? Current Gameplay Trends with GamerDNA’s Jon Radoff
• Funologists Live & In Person: Guerilla Game Research with Big Fish Games‘ Julie Ratner, Ph.D. (who I believe is a former colleague of mine)
• Social Gamers: Away From the Keyboard with Socialbomb’s Adam Simon
• Online Casual Games and the Integrated Brand Experience with Smashing Ideas‘ Steve Jackson