With a speaker list stretching over almost two full days, there were a lot of expectations on some great stories and interesting presentations. Unfortunately, with the results in hand, the bar might have been set to high.

An overall observation has been that most of the presentations were very short and therefore made it impossible to cover the whole subject they intended to address. This also influenced the Q&A after each presentation, with not to many questions from the floor. This together with the fact that especially the presentations from the legal track only were filled with a lot of old news and speculations, made you leave with a somewhat disappointing feeling.

On the bright side you could instead find the marketing track with very interesting content and good speakers, covering everything from how to build loyalty and increase your customer base to finding out how Web 2.0 will unleash the power of communities.

Another observation was that many presentations, and especially the ones from the legal track, focused on specific market such as Spain and France and their development regarding legalization and regulation. This will hopefully be followed up with some interesting presentations tomorrow that will be focusing on new emerging markets.

Todays poker tournament final turned out to be the success we anticipated. Starting off with quite a trembling beginning was the six finalists took it relatively easy and didn’t do too much, the game soon turned into an all-in madness.

The steep blind structure and the pressure of having basically everyone in the expo hall watching three players were eliminated within a 15 minutes period. And it didn’t take long until one more player had to see the chipstack go away, leaving two very happy players heads up. After an intense battle we could finally crown the winner, Martin Phillips, a business analyst for bwin, with an equally happy Stefan Mahlstein, CEO of PokerLoco, finishing second.

Final results:

1. Mattias Phillips - iPod Touch 32 GB
2. Stefan Mahlstein - Exclusive football tickets to A.C Milan vs F.C Napoli
3. Mary Blomkvist - PSP
4. Jay Schwartz - iPod Nano 8 GB
5. Camilo Vercesi - Moët Chandon
6. Kfir Chervinski - Samsonite Black Label computer bag

We congratulate the winners, and would like to once again point out that basically e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e in the expo hall was watching the final. Almost every other stand stood empty, while Ongame Network stole the show. A very proud moment, indeed.

Knowing that all important EU institutions in Brussel has been working with the gaming issue in Europe, Unibets CEO Petter Nylander stated that the European gaming market is about to open up during today’s legal and regulation discussion about the EU market. He also pushed for a common EU legal framework with pan-European directives to obtain order in Europe.

Legalization needs to be updated and modernized. With regulated markets there will be possible to protect the consumers and it is the governments’ responsibility to do that by regulating. Not operate like many of them do now.

He also stated that this regulation process will probably go from country to country, since it is (almost) impossible to regulate the whole European market at the same time. Therefore, we will probably see countries open up one by one, and after that the pan-European directions will follow.

Important to notice is also that this presentation wasn’t the only one addressing this certain subject. Many different speakers referred to similar opinions from many different angles so there are reasons to believe that these standpoints hold some kind of truth. Or at least we’ll have to hope so.

Last nights annual poker tournament, hosted by Ongame Network, turned out to be a success over at Casino de Barcelona. With more than 50 participants, a great dinner buffé and some action poker we sure had a good time enjoying the casino atmosphere and great company.

The tournament itself had a shootout structure, and every winner from each table moved on the big final today over at our stand in the expo hall. Turning everything upside down we actually had the “qualifiers” live, while the final will be played online on our new P5 game client. Not too often you see that concept. Maybe we just started a new trend?

Our six remaining players will soon gather at our stand as the final kicks off at 16:00 sharp. We expect a though battle between the finalists and lots of spectators, since the rumors about our tournament and the buzz created yesterday about P5 Game Engine have spread like a forrest fire.
Results and winners will be published later.

At 17:00 the EiG Expo Hall finally opened, and as promised our stand was ready. I have no clue how they managed it in such a short while, but the result was amazing. I can definitely say, from walking around in the expo hall both one and two times, that our stand stands out making us proud being a part of Ongame Network. Even though the expo hall only had been open for 3 hours there were a lot of visitors in our stand, keeping our prominent sales team busy and giving them a hint of what awaits them today.

Extreme booth makeover.

This is the head topic for the day. Listening to all speeches and the two industry leaders debates today, this was the thick red line impossible to miss.

Our own Martin Lerby was the first one out in the debate between the software suppliers, and of course one major bullet was to tell the world about P5 Poker Engine and Italy as our new emerging market to enter. The predicted buzz did not hit the sealing’s immediately though, but with bwin’s co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger following the directed path in his debate amongst the gaming operators we sure sent out a clear P5 message to the audience.

The main focus though, fell on the industry as a whole and especially what is actually happening. From both debates we could conclude that the market IS changing and that the future looks bright, as well as challenging, for all involved. The consumers and the already established markets is very much maturing at the same time as many new markets opening up due to gaming regulations etc. The industry therefore need to adapt and adjust to these changes by being innovative, simple, interactive and most of all, bring an entertainment value. There were also voices saying that suppliers and operators need new locally specialized products, such as P5 Poker Engine, to be able to penetrate these new markets along with more focus on local activities.

After a strengthening breakfast and a quick morning meeting we were ready to hit the registration booth for EiG. The process went smoothly and now it’s only a few hours until the official opening.

Important milestones for today is of course the very interesting panel debate between the major software suppliers including our very own Head of Games, Martin Lerby, and the industry leaders debate between the gaming operators where we will find the co-CEO of bwin, Norbert Teufelberger. You can expect a full report from these two debates later.

We also went for a short visit to our stand in the expo hall, and this is what we saw.

As you can see it’s far from ready, but we promise you that within a few hours we have ourselves an own extreme booth makeover.

The business cards has been printed, the ties ironed and the suits packed. Ongame Network is now officially ready to take on EiG Expo anno 2008 in Barcelona. We’re heading down south in full force and we have a full schedule ahead of us.

The weather reports haven’t promised us any sunny skies, but the expectations on ourselves and our brand new P5 Poker Engine remain unharmed. EiG will be the first official event where we will showcase this new product, and we couldn’t be more excited.

The planning has been in progress for the last months and with a great stand in the middle of the convention hall, a well-prepared staff ready to answer all questions and a hot new brochure directly delivered from the printers we feel very confident of a success.

Here at OngameZone you can in the next coming days expect to find everything from live updates from our exclusive poker tournament booked at Casino de Barcelona on Tuesday as well as interesting observations and notes from some of the many presentations that will be held during EiG.

We are certain EiG will be the highlight of the last part of 2008, and we hope to see as many of you as possible there, joined up to embrace the great P5 future ahead of us.