The night ended grandly with an awards ceremony honoring the best in video gaming marketing led by comedian and actress Amy Schumer, and we’d like to again congratulate those who took home the gold. Microsoft and its agency partners, AKQA, Midnight Oil/La Graphico and Origin LLC, won 13 gold awards total for Alan Wake, Halo: Reach and Kinect. Ubisoft also won big, taking home seven golds for Just Dance and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The biggest wins of the night went to Microsoft for Marketing Team of the Year, The Ant Farm for MI6 Agency of the Year and Spike/GT for MI6 Media Partner of the Year.

Make sure to check out the full list of winners! Congrats to all who won and we’ll see you at MI6 next year!

For the competition, MI6, Capcom and Microsoft offer college students the opportunity to produce their own versions of video game trailers and gain exposure for in the industry. Trailers were judged on quality and creativity. Kaniess, a sophomore who studies video production, leveraged his skills to combine Dead Rising 2 in-game clips with 16mm found footage to create the trailer with the look of a 60s-style throwback, an homage to the era when zombies emerged in pop culture.

Kaniess’s winning trailer will be highlighted on on Capcom’s website, and he received free registration to the 2011 MI6 Video Game Conference and Awards taking place today in San Francisco. His trailer will be shown tonight at the awards show where he will also be recognized with an award. Click the photo to watch the trailer now!

Leading up to the event, we’ve been running the top three session picks for MI6 Board members. Lee Rossini, director of US consumer and retail marketing for Xbox, finishes the series with a good point.

Very excited for this year’s conference. The content is tailored specifically for what product/brand marketers want to know. One of my team members mentioned his dilemma on this year’s MI6 conference: There’s too many good sessions and not enough time to see them all!

Lee Rossini

You can’t blame Rossini’s team. MI6 2011 attendees have an abundance of sessions to choose from, among them the keynote session by GM and creative director of Microsoft Game Studios, Kinect’s Kudo Tsunoda; an inside look at the future of interactive entertainment with the president of EA SPORTS, Peter Moore; a bold perspective on how video game skills and behavior impact game marketing by digital and branding queen, Cindy Gallop; the imminent humor and hijinks of president of Troma Entertainment Lloyd Kaufman’s interview by Definition 6’s expert-in-residence, Frank Radice, with the help of Def 6’s social media DJ, Jon Accarrino; plus, of course, the session everyone is talking about, Pecha Kucha, the lighting round of sessions where industry leaders like Tony Key, MI6 co-chair and Ubisoft’s SVP of sales and marketing, Geoff Keighley, executive in charge of publisher relations at Spike TV and the host and executive producer of GT.TV and Julie Shumaker, SVP and GM at RockYou Media, have 20 seconds to show 20 slides of material before they must exit stage right to make room for the next gaming guru. *Phew!*

By the way, if you were busy taking notes during a specific session and wish you could watch it again sans pen in hand (or visa versa), you’re in luck! Select MI6 2011 sessions will be available through our VOD service following the conference at no charge to attendees. So check back in after the conference for a refresher on your favorite talks cost free!

And if your MI6 2011 conference tickets still allude you, no problem! Just check in at the door of the San Francisco Grand Hyatt at 8:00 am this Thursday morning, April 7, to access a packed day of the best practices, insights and creativity the video game marketing community has to offer.

During these last few days before the conference, join the conversation, plan your session schedule and connect with other attendees, hop on to your MI6 2011 page now!

We look forward to seeing you at MI6 2011!

To be the first to see who takes home the gold in the MI6 2011 categories, including Outstanding TV or Theatrical Ad, Best Game Footage Trailer and the Thinking Outside Of The Box Award, get your tickets to the MI6 2011 Awards Show hosted by comedian and actress, Amy Schumer, following the MI6 Game Marketing Conference April 7 at San Francisco’s Grand Hyatt.

Tickets for the conference and awards show are available at 8:00 a.m. at the San Francisco Grand Hyatt.

Make sure you register for the 2011 MI6 Game Marketing Conference today to hear the newest sessions as they happen. Buy your ticket by THIS FRIDAY, APRIL 1, to avoid paying full price at the door!

Hear John Marcom get Electronic Arts Chief Creative Director Rich Hilleman’s thoughts on digital’s impact on gaming distribution.

Ed Ulbrich, commercials division president and executive producer at Digital Domain, discusses the process of creating content and concept prototypes for movies, video game trailers and ad campaigns.

Jessica Greenwood of Contagious examines case studies of brands managing the affair with style and introduce the technologies making it easier than ever to encourage a life-long relationship.

In this highly entertaining hour from the 2010 MI6 Conference, hear from the Best Video Game Ad Campaigns of 2009. Meet the creative minds behind the award-nominated work of the five finalist companies in this category as they take you through their concept, process, and experience in producing their noted campaigns.

In a state of the media union-type address, Haber gives a snapshot of how the entertainment industry has been utilizing media in the most strategic and creative of ways.

John Buchanan, VP of the EA Play Label presents a case study on the success of The Sims and how the franchise has gained momentum.

SCEA’s Peter Dille shares how the PlayStation Network has been evolving the digital home landscape and will showcase how providing rich, relevant content while bringing unique, exclusive experiences to consumers is the key to becoming the central vehicle for content delivery into consumers’ homes.

Watch how we celebrated the best of the best in game marketing with host, Ryan Stout, TV host and comedian, at the 2010 MI6 Awards Show.

You may know Schumer from her Comedy Central Presents special that premiered last April, one of the show’s highest rated specials in recent years. She made her network debut on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, recently performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show, just finished shooting a film opposite Parker Posey and has guest-starred on Curb Your Enthusiasm. So, if you’re not already familiar with this funny lady, you will be soon.

To connect with your fellow MI6 attendees or conference speakers, join the conversation at the MI6 Conference website! And, of course, make sure you register by THIS FRIDAY, APRIL 1, to avoid paying full price at the door!

I am very much looking forward to attending this year’s MI6 Conference. Special time and attention has been dedicated by the board to make this event not only educational but truly useful for all those who attend. Our goal is to make the attendees better marketers by attending. Three sessions I am particularly excited about include:

Brand Manager 2.0: The Evolution of Modern Branding
I really believe this session will arm marketers and brand managers with real-world ways to immediately improve their approach to marketing games to consumers. The session is designed to be completely relevant in today’s world and deliver strategic and action-oriented tactics that can be applied immediately. This session will have an immediate impact on brand managers – making them superstars at what they do.

Driving Your Career
I am a firm believer that when people continue to pay attention to managing their career, they are better employees and rejuvenated when it comes to their approach to their current role. Managing your career will inspire you to ask questions about how you are currently performing and managing at your current job, but also encourage you on how to get to the next level. What is your genius? What are you most talented at? And how can this be applied to your career so you can thrive and achieve ultimate success?

Pecha Kucha: Perspectives on the Future of Video Game Marketing
I am really excited about this session not only because of Pecha’s approach in getting key concepts across in a very short period of time, but I think it is critical that we all have our eye on the future and how things are evolving in our industry. No other industry is evolving as quickly as we are, and in order to stay relevant and competitive, we need to know what is right around the corner. The last five years have changed gaming more drastically than in all the years combined that have come before. I believe the next five will be just as dramatic and evolutionary. As brand managers and marketers, having insight into this vision and understanding future challenges will enable us to be better at what we do today and start thinking about how we can be the most relevant marketers tomorrow and beyond.

Kym Nelson, VP, Game Sales, IGN Entertainment

To connect with Kym and fellow MI6 attendees or conference speakers, join the conversation at the MI6 Conference website! Leading up to the big event April 7 at San Francisco’s Grand Hyatt, check back in to the MI6 Conference Blog to hear from more board members, your peers and leaders in the industry. In the meantime, make sure you register by THIS FRIDAY, APRIL 1, to avoid paying full price at the door!

Leading up to the big day — for you MI6 n00bs, that’s April 7 at San Francisco’s Grand Hyatt — we decided to poll members of the MI6 Board about their top three reasons to attend this year’s MI6. Is it the chance to hear from Peter Moore, president of EA SPORTS? Maybe the Pecha Kucha session? Or perhaps the keynote by Microsoft Kinect rock star Kudo Tsunoda?

To kick things off, we hear from MI6 Board member and SVP of marketing for 2K, Sarah Anderson. She only hits on only one of the aforementioned highlights — so make sure to check back in on our series through the next few weeks to see what else these industry leaders are excited for!

It’s hard to choose my top three reasons for attending MI6 this year because the conference is jammed with compelling content.  I’m a data geek so I always like to see research and am looking forward to insights from EEDAR and CBS Interactive. I’m also excited to see the Pecha Kucha session because it should be entertaining and informative. But aside from the inspiration and information, my primary reason for going is to spend time with my colleagues from this crazy, dynamic, innovative industry and to see and celebrate the work that we are all doing.

Sarah Anderson, SVP, Marketing, 2K

Check back in to the MI6 Blog to hear from more board members, your peers and leaders in the industry. In the meantime, register now before the price increases on April 1!

Tsunoda’s session, called “Working Together: Marketing’s Critical Role in the Development of Kinect,” will focus on how Microsoft reinvented its development process for Kinect and why marketing played, and continues to play, an integral role in the ongoing innovation for Kinect Xbox 360.

Visit the 2011 MI6 Game Marketing Conference website for more information and to see previously announced speakers and sessions!

And don’t forget to register for the 2011 MI6 Game Marketing Conference today – you have until March 17 to save $100 off of the registration price!

As part of their Women in Tech coverage, Fast Company compiled a list long-awaited in the media and technology worlds of the hottest startups by women. Their “25 Women-Run Startups to Watch” catalogs “25 women running kick-ass startups” and describes their innovative endeavors. Of them, Cindy Gallop, founder of IfWeRantheWorld and speaker at the upcoming MI6 Game Marketing Conference. Gallop’s startup is a crowdsourced, collective action-generating platform, that makes things happen in the real world and reports back on the results. “If Facebook is the social graph, and Twitter is the interest graph,” Gallop said, “then IfWeRanTheWorld is designed to be the action graph.”

To hear more from Cindy Gallop and other media influencers and groundbreaking speakers, register now for the MI6 Game Marketing Conference, April 7, 2011 at San Francisco’s Grand Hyatt.