Peter Moore named head of game marketing group

As if being the corporate vice president of a Microsoft interactive entertainment division neck-deep in a console war with Sony and Nintendo wasn't enough to fill Peter Moore's days, the executive has accepted the position of chairman of the newly formed Association of Electronic Interactive Marketers.

"My roots are deep in marketing, and it's always been at the back of my mind that we need to organize ourselves better as a marketing group," Moore told a conference call of reporters when the news was announced today. "We're a very powerful industry that's driving billions of dollars in sales. As a marketing group, when I think of all the media, we now spend as a collective industry in the hundreds of millions of dollars."

Among the biggest issues facing game marketers today is the task of simply finding the consumers, Moore said. With fewer consumers watching television, the industry is looking for them in print, online, and through viral marketing campaigns, but Moore said that continuing to push game marketing forward will require "a tremendous amount of innovative marketing, as well as a lot of money."

The naming of Moore as the organization's chairman is coordinated with the inaugural MI6 conference (short for Marketing Interactive '06, but partly inspired by the British secret-service organization) that's set for next week in San Francisco. The two-day conference will feature speakers from the game world and marketing world sharing their insights with attendees in presentations and panel discussions, culminating in a joint session with Will Wright (Spore, The Sims) and Wes Craven (director of Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream). For more information on MI6, visit the Web site.