San Jose, CA - New York, NY - October 6, 2009 - Will Wright, Founder and Chief Executive of Stupid Fun Club, Creator of Spore and The Sims, will deliver the opening keynote at Engage! Expo® taking place February 16-17, 2010, at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Engage!®, operated by Engage Digital Media, runs concurrently with American International Toy Fair (February 14-17, 2010) and provides companies the critical information they need to engage and monetize kids and youth online. The two events will bring together more than 25,000 attendees and 1,000 members of the media.

Will's presentation, "The Evolution of Entertainment, A Toy's Place," will look at toys, play, and the product development process from a new perspective. "I'm really excited to be at Engage! Expo and Toy Fair this year. I mean come on, who doesn't love toys?" said Wright, who will be attending his first Toy Fair.

Through his SimCity, The Sims, and Spore game franchises created at Electronic Arts, Will Wright generated over $1 billion dollars of value. At Stupid Fun Club, a design studio Will maintained throughout his career as chief designer at Maxis Studios and Electronic Arts, advanced toy designs are among Will's primary focus.

In March 2009, Rolling Stone named Will Wright one of the "100 People Who Are Changing America." His new approach to toys could have as big an impact on the toy industry as his work did in computer games. "In some sense, what I'm really looking at is the evolution of the entertainment industry," he has said.

"Will Wright is an interpreter of social landscapes and human nature, toy enthusiast, promoter of play, and renowned creator of the world's top-selling computer game of all time," said Christopher Sherman, Founder and CEO of Engage Digital Media. "We are extremely pleased to have him kick off Engage! by sharing his wisdom and insight."

Kid, tween and teen entertainment play patterns are changing as they become more digital and move away from traditional toys and media. It's imperative that toy companies and youth entertainment companies learn how to integrate digital technologies into their product lines. Engage! offers both a full conference program and an exhibit hall, providing an environment that offers critical education on the evolution of this marketplace and networking opportunities between technology companies and owners of youth-oriented brands.

About the Engage! Conference

The Engage! conference of panels, presentations, and interviews provides unparalleled exposure to best practices, current trends, and effective strategies behind engaging kids and youth online. The program delivers key insight into new monetization strategies, proven ways to strengthen customer relationships, and essential marketing solutions to maximize reach. The conference includes three major tracks: Monetization and Revenue, Strategy and Implementation and Creative and Development and provides excellent peer networking opportunities.

About the Engage! Expo

The Engage! Expo exhibit hall places leading technology solution providers in front of the biggest names in the toy industry and children's entertainment business, who need to evolve and establish "digital play" and engaging development and product expertise. The Engage! Expo exhibit hall provides key demonstrations of the latest tools, technologies and services being used to build and monetize social games, virtual worlds, web-connected and wireless-connected toys, mobile applications, youth web sites, and interactive entertainment. Engage! allows companies to test drive new technologies in an efficient way -- rather than spending weeks and months on conference calls and meeting with vendors. Through a partnership between Engage! and Toy Fair, the full 25,000 attendees registered for either show will have full access to both show expo floors.

Registration Information

Super Early Registration at www.EngageExpo.com is now open. The conference registration price is only $595 until October 31st. After that time online registration is $695. Onsite registration at the event is $1,295. Expo-Only passes, good for both Engage! Expo and Toy Fair, are available for $100.

About Will Wright

Will Wright, widely acknowledged for creating the simulation video game realm, unveiled the highly anticipated Spore™ in September 2008. Spore is a “universe in a box” that allows players to create a species and guide it to sentience, helping it build a society, develop its culture, and explore an infinite cosmos of worlds created by other players. Fans eagerly embraced the creation tools in Spore and have created more than 90 million pieces of user-created content as of March 2009.

Spore, has been distinguished with such honors as Popular Science’s “ Best of What’s New Award”, Popular Mechanics’ “Breakthrough Award”, PC Magazine’s “Technical Excellence Award”, TIME Magazine’s “50 Best Inventions of 2008” and the Jim Henson Technology Honor.

A true gaming industry legend as a result of his pioneering contributions to video games, Wright has been the recipient of several prestigious awards and honors. Rolling Stone named Will Wright one of the “100 People Who Are Changing America” in March 2009, which placed him among artists, leaders, scientists and policymakers who are “fighting every day to show us what is possible.” In 2008, Will received the first ever Gamer God Award at the Spike Video Game Awards as a testament to his revolutionary work. In 2007, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized an individual in the video game industry for the first time when it named Wright a fellow. He also received the Producers Guild of America Vanguard Award that same year.

Wright first rose to prominence when he developed SimCity™, the acclaimed, nonviolent, open-ended sim game. Wright then followed up the success of SimCity with a string of popular simulation games throughout the 1990s. Titles such as SimEarth™: The Living Planet (1990), SimAnt™: The Electronic Ant Colony (1991), SimCity 2000™ (1993), SimCopter™(1996) and SimCity 3000™ (1999) introduced simulation games to hundreds of thousands of new fans, demonstrating the genre's true potential.

Wright’s next ground-breaking game came in the form of The Sims™ (2000), which has gone on to become the best-selling PC game franchise of all time, being available in 22 languages in 60 countries. Wright, who studied architecture in college, originally conceived of the game as an architectural design simulator. To "score" the quality of the design, he added tiny people who would inhabit the buildings. These simulated people quickly stole the spotlight, and Will realized that watching the lives of the Sims unfold was the real entertainment. The Sims franchise has now sold more than 100 million units sold around the world!

About Engage Digital Media

Engage! Expo is owned and operated by Engage Digital Media, a leading producer of trade events and media that focus on user engagement, virtual worlds and games. Events include Engage! Expo, Digital Law Conference, Virtual Goods Conference, and 3D Training Learning and Collaboration (3DTLC) Conference. The company also publishes timely market research and leading industry news blogs www.VirtualWorldsNews.com and www.VirtualGoodsNews.com. Engage! and Engage! Expo are trademarks of Engage Digital Media. More information can be found at www.EngageDigitalMedia.com.


Contact:

Tim Williams
Vice President, Sales and Marketing
tim @ engagedigital.com
512-289-8687

Contact:

Tim Williams
Sales and Marketing Director
tim @ engagedigital.com
512-289-8687