Michael Hooper

Marketing Services Director CCP Games

Michael has been publishing in the gaming industry for over a decade and has covered the gamut from Product Direction & Design to Brand Building & Marketing Process. Michael has worked on multiple forever billion dollar plus live-service games in addition to building new IPs. He has a strong data-informed approach that seeks to remove the mystery and guesswork out of games publishing industry, and applying best practices from across disciplines and fields.

Conference Day 1 – 8th September 2026

10:30 AM Presentation – Beyond the AAA Myth: AAA vs. Indie, Budget vs. Quality

During this engaging session with Michael Hooper, an industry veteran with experience as a Publishing and Creative Director, challenges the industry’s fixation on “AAA” labels and why they matter far more to developers than to players. He will explore how budget based classifications offer no meaningful signal of quality, ambition, or depth to audiences, and how this obsession can actively harm positioning. Using comparisons across games of vastly different budgets, Michael will show why players care about experience, not expense, and how focusing on what truly resonates leads to stronger live service outcomes. Get into:

Reframing game positioning around player centredvalue rather than budget driven labels.
Demonstrating how quality, ambition, and depth can be achieved at any scale.
Shifting focus from industry terminology to the elements that genuinely matter to players.

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Michael.

Download The Latest Agenda

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Address: IQPC Ltd, 129 Wilton Road,
London SW1V 1JZ
Telephone: 44 (0) 207 368 9300
Fax: 44 (0) 207 368 9301
Email: enquire@iqpc.co.uk