Wednesday, March 27, 2013, 2:00PM - 3:00PM
ENGLISH
JETRO Event

JETRO will host a seminar welcoming Japanese game developers as panel speakers at the Game Developers Conference 2013 (GDC). Our panel speakers will reveal their insights on Japanese games. Find out the answers to five questions below, and how that information will impact your business:

• What kind of approach do Japanese game companies take to win in the game markets in Japan and overseas?
• What is your advice for those who want to publish games in Japan?
• Which types of Japanese games will be big hits in western markets?
• What key strengths make Japanese gaming companies competitive?
• How can you source successful Japanese games or developers for your market?

Join in our panel discussion to speak with Japanese game developers and learn how to successfully partner with Japanese gaming companies.

More opportunity! Meet more Japanese developers at Game Connection (San Francisco, March 25-27) and discover great Japanese games. Meeting arrangement now in progress. Click here to learn about the event.

PANEL SPEAKERS

	Masaki Sato CEO A&G / Winlight Winlight, founded in 2003, is a mobile online game developer located in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. The mobile 3D MMORPG, Elemental Knights Online (EKO), published for Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English-speaking players, topped T-Store and the Korean android market and received the Taiwanese national game award. Masaki is in charge of business development and global marketing of Winlight as a managing executive and also is the CEO of its subsidiary, A&G. He was an equity analyst before entering the game industry.
	Atsushi Ishii CTO dango Inc. With an engineer career background at IBM, Lycos Japan, Infoseek and Rakuten, he is an author of a technical book about an open source image toolkit "ImageMagick". In December 2006 he founded Couger Inc, and currently serves as dango Inc's CTO.
	Alexander Aniel Assistant Supervisor of Business Development Land Ho Alexander is currently the Assistant Supervisor of BizDev at Land Ho, where he oversees Japanese-English localization and assists in overseas business operation. His industry experience includes freelance journalism for IGN, 1Up, Siliconera, AndriaSang, Kotaku, and Koopa Soundworks, and an internship at 8-4, Ltd. He holds an MA in International Relations from Waseda University, Tokyo.
	Tomonori Sugiyama President & CEO Vanguard In 1993 completed a masters program in Computer Science at the Keio Graduate School. Later, established Vanguard during the first year of a doctorate course, and completed all course requirements in 1996. Developed for various famous systems, and developed mobile and online games from 2001 and 2002 respectively. Work: Gundam Network Online (2002, Bandai), Knights of the Crystals (2010, Square Enix)

MODERATOR

Jon Kimmich Games Industry Specialist and Entrepreneur Software Illuminati As a seasoned veteran of 15-years in the digital entertainment industry with companies such as Microsoft, Jon has established a reputation for thoughtful insight into successful product franchises as Halo, and identifying outstanding creative talent such as Bungie Studios, FASA Interactive, Big Huge Games and Gas-Powered Games. Jon established Software Illuminati in 2009 to provide strategic consulting and business development services to digital entertainment, game and internet companies. He is an advisor to startups in the mobile apps, and games sectors, as well as a founder of Venspark, a provider of incubation and acceleration services to both the public and private sector. Recently, Jon assisted JETRO with Casual Connect Seattle 2012, providing advice to participating Japanese game companies and facilitating introductions at the event. He was also a speaker at JETRO San Francisco's periodic Game Study Session in November, 2012, to share the game market trends and insights with Japanese game company affiliates.

Find our seminar information and profiles of speakers at the GDC Session Scheduler site here.

Registration for the JETRO seminar is not required. A valid pass is, however, required to attend the GDC event and seminars. Find out about the GDC passes here.

For more information, please contact Hiroko Ogawa at JETRO San Francisco: Hiroko_Ogawa@jetro.go.jp

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