Digital distribution, marketing, and in-game advertising are the themes of MIT Sloan School of Management's inaugural Business in Gaming Conference being held on Friday, May 8, 2009 on the business school's campus. The conference will bring together industry leaders, game developers, academics, and students from leading MBA schools to discuss the newest business trends and the future of the gaming industry.

Ken Levine, president of 2K Boston, who led the creation of the multi-million selling, multiple game-of-the year award winning title, BioShock, will serve as the conference's inaugural key note speaker.

Other speakers will include:

Susan Bonds, 42 Entertainment's president and CEO. Bonds, the brains behind creative publicity campaigns for games such as Halo, guided the creative team behind this year's most successful ARG 'WhySoSerious' to promote the award-winning blockbuster film The Dark Knight;

John Rizzo, CEO of Zeebo, who spearheaded the creation of the first fully managed digital distribution console,

Scot Osterweil, MIT research director and designer of Zoombinis Island Odyssey and the games Switchback and Yoiks!; and

Curt Schilling (Boston Red Sox's three-time World Series champion) is slated to speak on a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Business Model panel.

Panelists from Turbine, creator of The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, and Mythic, creator of Warhammer Online, will talk about the future of this segment's business model. Representatives from such companies as Google, Massive, GamerDNA, and Mana Potions will address in-game advertising.

"Few gaming industry conferences focus exclusively on the business side of the gaming industry," says MIT Sloan MBA Dennis Fu, one of the conference organizers. "MIT, which is the birthplace of companies such as Harmonix, is in the unique position to lead in this area."

For more information and to register for the conference, please visit: http://www.mitbig.com/

For questions or comments, please e-mail: bigteam@mit.edu