Speakers
SHANE KIM
As the corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, Shane Kim oversees a team of more than 1,100 programmers, designers, artists and producers developing a broad range of first-party Xbox 360 and Microsoft Games for Windows titles from Microsoft Game Studios.
In this role, Kim oversees the production of the highly anticipated first-party Xbox 360 titles "Halo 3," "Fable 2," "Forza Motorsport 2," "Viva Piñata," "Gears of War," "Alan Wake," "Mass Effect," "Too Human," "Shadowrun" and "Crackdown." He also oversees the production of upcoming Games for Windows titles such as "Halo 2" for Windows Vista, "Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs," "Shadowrun" and "Flight Simulator X." Kim also manages the development of casual gaming content from the Microsoft Casual Games group, which spans MSN Games, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Mobile and Xbox Live Arcade. In 2005 he led the production of the award-winning "Age of Empires III," which has become the fastest-selling title in the franchise's history, as well as landmark Xbox 360 launch titles "Project Gotham Racing 3," "Perfect Dark Zero" and "Kameo: Elements of Power." Under his direction, Microsoft Game Studios has been ranked in the top three on the list of top 20 publishers in the industry by Game Developer magazine for 2004 and 2005.
Before joining Microsoft full time in 1990, Kim was an intern for Microsoft's Workgroup Applications team in 1989. He then continued as a product manager in Workgroup Applications for another three years. He went on to manage the international marketing group for the emerging Consumer Division for two years before making the move to Microsoft Game Studios in 1995. Kim joined Microsoft Game Studios as the director of business development and in 1999 became the studio manager credited with the development of "Zoo Tycoon," the breakthrough broad-appeal titles for Windows from Microsoft Game Studios. Before he took overall responsibility for Microsoft Game Studios in 2004, Kim was its general manager and chief operating officer, overseeing the management of several in-house groups and studios, including Bungie Studios.
JASON RUBIN
As the CEO and chief creative officer of Flektor, Jason Rubin helms the artistic and creative vision for the company, forms strategic alliances and makes key business decisions. Flektor is an online service powered by advanced technology but dedicated to ease of use that offers web-based tools and sophisticated community features to create streaming, live and interactive presentations for distribution by email, social networks, blogs, auction and other means. After 20 years as a professional game developer, it was Rubin's personal interest in social networking, video streaming, and auction sites, but frustration at using the poor content creation tools available, that gave him the impetus to co-found Flektor. Under his leadership, the new service empowers the participatory media generation to rule their media with a suite of full-featured video and audio editing tools.
Jason most recently served as co-president and sat on the board of directors of Naughty Dog, Inc., a video game development company he founded with partner Andy Gavin in 1985 when both were just 15 years old. After developing a string of successful games, Naughty Dog was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. (SCEA) in December of 2000. Post acquisition, Rubin stayed onboard managing the transition from independent developer to wholly owned subsidiary while continuing to create properties and developing games internally for SCEA. Under his direction, Naughty Dog celebrated the sale of more than 35 million copies of its games, representing more than $1 billion dollars in retail sales, with just over half of those units shipped domestically.
Creating and developing the Crash Bandicoot franchise established both Naughty Dog and its founders Rubin and Gavin as one of leading creative teams in the interactive entertainment industry. Naughty Dog developed four Crash titles from 1994 to 1999 for Universal Interactive Studios and which were published by SCEA: Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, and CTR: Crash Team Racing. All four titles are in the top 20 lifetime North American PlayStation sales charts, while two of them remain in the top five. Additionally, Crash Bandicoot: Warped is the best selling foreign video game in Japanese video game history, and the only foreign title to go platinum in that territory. After Crash, Naughty Dog went on to create the multi-million unit selling Jak and Daxter series. More recently, Rubin has continued to feed his need to create worlds by developing and writing a four book comic miniseries entitled "Iron and the Maiden" that was released by Aspen Comics in August of 2007.
BAILEY, BRENDA
BA, BSW, M.B.A.
Brenda is a management professional with ten years experience running businesses in the not-for-profit sector. Brenda's largest successes in that realm were in revenue development and team building, particularly in the realm of working with large corporate partners on cause marketing initiatives. Brenda was awarded the Canadian Cancer Society's National Employee Award in 2002 for outstanding Leadership and Teambuilding. Brenda tripled the Canadian Cancer Society's Revenue in her region over a two-year period. She did this through outstanding relationship management and a commitment to creating and managing high performance cross-functional teams, focusing on promoting from within, and ensuring employee growth plans. Brenda moved from the social profit world to the video game world in 2005 and has focused on transferring her people management and relationship building skills to the gaming industry.
BOYES, ADAM
Adam Boyes is a 12 year games industry veteran who is now helping build Capcom's Product Development team in the US. In addition, Adam has been tasked with finding Capcom cutting edge and skillful development teams from around the world to partner with and see those new associations through to fruition. With over 20 titles currently in development, Capcom is working with developers from a multitude of countries and releasing their products across the globe.
BROWN, ANTHONY
Managing Director, Seven Group
In 2001, Anthony co-founded Seven Group, to address the emerging market for performance storage solutions and data management. Seven Group quickly established itself as a market leader in this highly competitive field.
In 2003, Seven Group established credentials in Digital Media by designing a complete animated feature studio for Mainframe Entertainment. Anthony applied his enterprise and high performance computing (HPC) expertise to the unique challenges inherent in digital media studios.
Since then, Seven Group has become a leading integrator for building Special Effects, Games, and Animation Studios and has provided innovative solutions for Radical Entertainment (Vivendi), Relic THQ, Buena Vista Games (Disney), Rainmaker Animation, Starz Animation and Spin VFX to name a few.
Seven Group prides itself on it's close and successful client relationships.
EDOARDO DE MARTIN
Studio General Manager, Next Level Games Inc.
In his role as Studio General Manager, Edoardo De Martin is responsible for people, culture and operational excellence at Vancouver-based, third party developer, Next Level Games. A 12-year veteran of the video game and technology industries he has developed, managed, and coached award winning teams. With a double major in Economics &Geography - and a focus on urban planning - Edoardo understands what it takes to build a community. This philosophy has been his guiding principle at NLG, where culture is based on forging authentic relationships with individuals and where personal development, learning and constructive conflict shape the work environment.
FRACCHIA, DAVE
Dave is Vice President of Technology at Radical Entertainment and Adjunct Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University.
Dave joined Radical in February 2007 and is responsible for leading the Advanced Technology Group (ATG) as well as representing Radical's technical interests within the Vivendi Games family. Prior to this Dave served as Senior Software Developer, then Vice President of Technology at Mainframe Entertainment (now Rainmaker Animation) from 1997-2007.
In his educational roles, Dave was a professor and co-director of the Graphics and Multimedia Research Lab at Simon Fraser University from 1992 to 2000, and a postdoctoral associate and lecturer at Yale University from 1991 to 1992. He has authored over 45 journal and conference papers in the areas of computer graphics and scientific visualization and is a member of ACM SIGGRAPH.
GOLDBERG, ATHOMAS
As Director of Animation &Simulation Technologies for EATech, Electronic Arts' central technology provider, Athomas drives the research, design and development of animation &simulation tools and technologies for Electronic Arts' world-wide studios, supporting numerous next-gen game titles including: Madden, NCAA Football, NFL Street, FIFA, FIFA Street, NHL, NBA Live, NBA Street, Def Jam, Fight Night, and others.
Prior to joining EA, spent several years as a research scientist at NYU's Media Research Laboratory, where he led the Improv Animation project and helped pioneer a number of foundational game technologies including animation layering and motion blending. In 1999, Athomas left NYU to start Improv Technologies, an animation tools and middleware company, where he developed Orchestrate 3D, winner of a Year 2000 Innovation award from Computer Graphics World.
GREIG, SCOTT
Although Scott Greig has officially been in the games industry for 13 years, he has been making games since the commodore 64 days. Scott is currently the Senior Architect at BioWare and was the lead programmer for BioWare's Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Despite dabbling in both art and production, Scott's current role is to add some order to the ever increasing chaos of technology planning and sharing.
HAOXIA, MING
Mr. Ming Haoxia, Shanghai Multimedia Industry Association As the CEO of Shanghai Multimedia Industry Association (SMIA) since 2003, by conducting different activities, Ming has attracted most of the game companies to be members in Shanghai--the economic centre and the biggest city of China, therefore SMIA has become one of the most active organization in the game industry of China. As the Chief Editor, Ming has proposed and issued many researches, such as Shanghai Game Industry Report 2004, Outsourcing Annual report of Shanghai Game Industry 2006 &2007, Shanghai Digital Media Industry Annual Report 2002-2007. In order to promote the local industry, Ming also raised the idea of setting up public platform and applied for approximately 3m euro fund from government to purchase hardware and software to lower the cost to local companies.
HOLMES, JOSH
Josh Holmes has been in the games industry since 1995, working on a variety of titles while at Electronic Arts Canada. During his time at EA, Josh was co-creator of the NBA STREET and DEF JAM franchises. He left EA in late 2004 and co-founded Revolution Interactive Entertainment which was later acquired and became Propaganda Games, a Disney Interactive Studio. In his role as VP, Studio General Manager, Josh has overseen Propaganda's growth from small start-up to a studio of over 150 people currently working on two titles. In February 2008, Propaganda released its first game titled TUROK, on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation® 3 consoles. Before games Josh was a struggling actor and sold Tilley adventure hats to old people.
IRISH, DAN
From a young age, Dan has been passionately involved in the video game industry. He's held various positions with leading edge software publishers and developers such as Spectrum HoloByte, Rocket Science Games, SegaSoft, Mattel Interactive, The Learning Company, UbiSoft Entertainment, and the award-winning Relic Entertainment.
He is also a published author and his most recent book is the Game Producer's Handbook published by Thomson Course Technology, which was rated "5 out of 5 stars". Gamasutra.com confirmed in their review: "If there were a Hitchhiker's Guide to game production, this would be it!"
Dan is committed to making Threewave the best multiplayer game developer for the next generation of gaming platforms.
JAMES, MARK
Mark James is Senior Technical Director at Radical Entertainment. Having joined in February 1996, he is a 12 year veteran and is responsible for leading the research and development of Radical's proprietary core engine technology, Titanium™. He is an active lecturer, spoke at the 2007 Vancouver International Game Summit, and has designed and taught an annual one-week intensive game development course at various academic institutions such as the University of Calgary and the University of British Columbia. Mark has both Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees from the University of Calgary.
KOVATS, GERALDINE
Geraldine Kovats, Panelist Geraldine's career as a commercial artist began in the early 1990?s in the game industry at Stormfront Studios where she worked as a lead animator, storyboard artist, concept artist, and digital painter. Geraldine later joined Disney Feature Animation as a background artist on Mulan, Tarzan, John Henry, Lilo &Stitch, and Brother Bear.
Geraldine now teaches foundational and advanced traditional art courses at DigiPen where her goal is to teach students to "see" without preconceived ideas, in a way, to surrender.
KRAWCZYK, MARIANNE
Marianne Krawczyk, Writer Taking the knowledge and experience from her career in traditional storytelling, Marianne has become an award-winning video game writer, understanding the delicate relationship between story and gameplay.
Marianne has experienced writing and designing on a number of AAA game titles, including the critically and commercially acclaimed franchise, GOD OF WAR (1,2,3, PSP, Mobile), AREA 51, THE SOPRANOS: Road to Respect, as well as a number of soon-to-be-announced titles for the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360. She is currently working on other non-disclosed video game projects.
Marianne also authored GAME DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS: GAME STORY AND CHARACTER, a book for Thomson Delmar Learning that combines her Hollywood and games experience, creating a cohesive look into making the most of story and character for games.
LABORIE, TONY
Tony is currently Producer and acting Lead Designer at Threewave Software, focusing on making great Multiplayer content. He has over 13+ years in the industry working on numerous console and PC titles, including developing the AI system for the critically acclaimed Bully. Tony previously worked at Rockstar Vancouver, Z-Axis, Totally Games, and Infogrames.
LLOYD, IAN
Ian is a graduate of Sheridan College's Classical Animation program and a 15 year veteran of the video game industry with over a decade of experience at Electronic Arts Canada. Ian worked on the first 3 iterations of the acclaimed SSX snowboarding games in the capacity of Animation and Character Modeling Supervisor and Character Designer. He is currently Art Directing in EAC's industry leading character department - The Body Shop.
LUCAS, VICTOR
Creator, executive producer and co-host of "The Electric Playground," and Reviews on the Run, Victor Lucas is a videogame television pioneer.His first original TV series, "The Electric Playground," hit the airwaves in 1997. Victor is also the creator and executive producer of one of the worlds first High Definition videogame TV series, The Art of Play for Gameplay HD and the creator, executive producer and host of the Emmy-winning, GameTap News, for Turners GameTap network. Additionally, Victor, through his Vancouver-based company, Greedy Productions Ltd., is the executive producer of two technology-based programs produced for G4TechTV Canada: The Lab with Leo Laporte and Torrent.
LUM, RODNEY
Rodney has worked in multimedia for well over 15 years, progressing from Graphic Designer in the print industry to Lead art roles in the games industry. Most recently, Rodney arrived from Ubisoft as Art Director and is the current Art Outsource Manager at Propaganda Games. During his time in the games industry, he has worked on over eight titles, most recently Turok for the Xbox360 and the PS3. Through his experience, Rodney is focused on instilling a strong company focus on improving the effectiveness of outsourcing.
MANUEL, MATT
Matt has been building games for 15 years, his entire professional life. Recently moved from EA, where he lead development on FIFA 08, to Propaganda where he now leads development on two unannounced titles. The industry has changed and will continue to evolve. We all must work together to shape our futures in the right directions.
MCKAY, GARY
Gary has worked in the gaming industry for 10 years and has worked on over 15 titles during that time. He has lead the development on titles such as Triple Play Baseball, FIFA, World Cup, Def Jam, SSX and most recently Turok. He currently oversees the operations at Propaganda Games and plays a key role in shaping its strategic direction.
MISCHEL, RICK
Rick Mischel currently serves as President of REACH GAMES, a company specializing in the creation of digital assets for the gaming and animation industry. Mischel most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Mainframe Entertainment, a publicly-traded CGI animation studio specializing in television series, direct-to-video features, and gaming animation.
Prior to his position as Mainframe CEO, Mischel served as President and COO of The Harvey Entertainment Company in Los Angeles. At Harvey, Mischel was in charge of managing the business and creative affairs for some of the most lucrative intellectual properties in the family entertainment world, including "Casper The Friendly Ghost" and "Richie Rich". Mischel began his career as an entertainment attorney with O'Melveny & Myers in 1987.
MITCHELL, JON
Jon Mitchell has worked in the games industry for 11 years, starting as an intern when I was a student in 1997. He was originally employed as a software rendering and effects specialist due to his background in the European demo-scene. He quickly moved away from software rendering and effects to become a junior generalist programmer, and then an audio software specialist. From 1997 - 2005 he worked at a range of companies in the UK, before moving to Vancouver in mid 2005 and joining Radical Entertainment. Curently Jon Mitchelle is working on 2 unannounced 360/PS3 Projects with the Scarface team as the lead audio coder.
MOEHRLE, PETER
Peter Moehrle, Panelist In 1980, Peter began making his living as a background painter at Nelvana Studios, eventually becoming supervisor of the background and layout departments Peter joined Disney Feature Animation in Florida in 1995 as a senior Background Artist and worked on feature films like Mulan, Tarzan, and Lilo &Stitch. He later became involved with doing development work for studios like Sony, Starz , IDT, Core (Canada), Hibbert Ralph (UK), Miramax (UK). Peter is now at DigiPen teaching young future animation artists his craft as well as maintaining his skills by doing freelance for the occasional studio in his spare time.
MOSQUEIRA, JOSHUA
Joshua Mosqueira is the Design Director for Relic Entertainment, a division of THQ Inc. His credits include the critically acclaimed real-time strategy games, Company of Heroes, Homeworld 2 and Dawn of War. Prior to joining Relic, Joshua worked at Vicarious Visions in New York as a console game designer. A 12-year industry veteran, Joshua begun his career writing pen-and-paper RPGs for publishers such as White Wolf. Born in Mexico, Joshua moved to Montreal where he completed degrees in Cinema Studies and Literature before venturing out into the field of game design.
MURCH, SEAN
Sean has worked in the entertainment business for over 15 years, producing his first film project in 1992 and his first video game in 1994. His list of notable collaborators includes Francis Ford Coppola, Electronic Arts, Nelvana and Radical Entertainment.
The son of a filmmaker, Sean grew up "on set", where he developed a strong appreciation for the creative process. This, combined with his entrepreneurial spirit, gave rise to Sean's successful work as a writer, producer, development executive and studio head.
As CEO of console games publisher, Playful Entertainment, Sean is committed to changing the current landscape by offering a more equitable business model to creators and developers alike.
OUIMETTE, STEVE
Steve Ouimette: Composer/Artist/Producer, Steve Ouimette Studios Though best known for his recent work on "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock", Steve is a 17-year veteran of the games technology industry where he has served in both creative and technical roles. He holds a B.A. in Classical Performance and Composition and has carved a niche for himself in the re-record side of rhythm-based games. An avid enthusiast of vintage recording and music equipment, Steve spends the majority of his time searching out new and interesting toys to create unique sounds. You can visit him at www.steveouimette.com and www.myspace.com/steveouimette
OVENELL, CHRISTA
Director of Student Services, Great Northern Way Campus
Christa Ovenell became one of the founding employees at the Great Northern Way Campus in 2004. Since her arrival, she has been involved in the creation of the Masters of Digital Media Program. In her current role as Director of Student Services, she has been instrumental in creating a new student-focused registration system and a collaboratively delivered suite of services for the pioneering student cohort.
RUSKAY, PAUL
Paul Ruskay has been involved in large-scale interactive, film and new media projects for the past 14 years. Paul worked from 1994 - 1998 at Radical Entertainment as composer/sound designer. He founded the postproduction facility Studio X Labs February 1st, 1999, which has just begun its ninth year of operation. Paul won Best Soundtrack of 1999 in the magazines PCGamer and EuroGamer for his music on the PC videogame Homeworld for Serria. In 2002, he won a Leo Award for Best Sound Editing on the 35 mm film Mon Amour, Mon Parapluie. In 2003, he produced the musical score for Homeworld2 (Vivendi/Universal), where he composed for and recorded the Vancouver Symphony at the Armory Studios as part of the soundtrack. In 2005, Paul was awarded a Leo Award for Best Music on the Dramatic Short: The Road that Binds Us. He just completed the music for Disney's new Vancouver based videogame company, Propaganda Studios on TUROK for XBOX360 and PS3. He also produced the 2007 and 2008 Front-end HD Logo in Dolby 5.1 for Electronic Arts sports titles: FIFA, NHL and NBA.
SEAMSTER, TRACY
Tracy Seamster began writing for online games in 1996 as a designer with Simutronics. In 2004, she joined Sony Online Entertainment, designing and implementing quests for EverQuest® II and its expansions, as well as writing lore and stories for the game's website. Now on The Agency™ team at SOE Seattle, Tracy is an active member of SOE's Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) task force which encourages women to consider games as a career. Her G.I.R.L. blog for SOE is at http://gamersinreallife.wordpress.com/ Tracy is a member of Women in Games International and IGDA.
SIGMAN, TYLER
Tyler Sigman is the consulting Design Director for Big Sandwich Games, a Vancouver developer hard at work on an original IP game for Nintendo DS as well as high-quality next generation art assets for companies like Bioware and Slant Six Games. Tyler has prototyped more games of various sorts than can possibly be healthy, and each time it reminds him why playtesting is a critical part of game development. A reformed aerospace engineering analyst, Tyler was the Lead Designer of the award-winning Age of Empires: the Age of Kings for Nintendo DS. He enjoys designing and writing games in any media.
STRINGFELLOW, RICK
Art Director/ CG Supervisor - Bio.
Credits and graphic accomplishments include:
Feature Film TD - Contact, Starship Troopers, Escape from LA, Mortal Kombat, and The Santa Claus.
Game Art Direction - EA NBA 2005, NFS Underground 2004, NHL2001/2002/2003, Fox Hockey 2000, Fox Basketball 2000, MTV Snowboarding, and Jackie Chan Stuntmaster. ESPN Digital Games (not released).
BBC TV News Designer - Panorama, NewsNight, NewsRound, Breakfast News, BBC World News titles, The Money Program, Election and Budget graphics.
Software Functional Design - Vertigo Versions 9.4 to 9.6, PhotoShop Dizzy Version 1.0.
Work Experience (1983 - Present Day):
Sr. Art Director - Electronic Arts Canada
Sr. CG Supervisor - Mainframe Entertainment, Vancouver, Canada.
Sr. Technical Director - Aardman Animation
Global Art Director - Radical Entertainment, Vancouver, Canada
Sr. Technical Director - Sony ImageWorks, Los Angeles, USA
Manager of Technology Inc, Head of Animation - Vertigo Technology Inc, Vancouver, Canada.
3D Graphic Designer, News Animation - BBC TV News, London, England.
3D Consultant, Freelance Animator - Techex, London, England.
3D Animator Provideo, London, England.
2D and 3D Artist, Set design and Lighting assistant (with real lights not CG) - Sika Productions, Cirencester, England
Education:
UWE, BA Hons Graphic Design (1979 - 1982).
Principle areas of study: Animation, Photography and TV production.
TRONSGARD, DOUGLAS
CEO, Next Level Games Inc.
Hailing from the financial sector, Douglas Tronsgard joined the gaming ranks as a Producer for Black Box Games in 1999. Three years later he left the company and founded Vancouver-based, independent game developer, Next Level Games. In 2006, the company opened a second studio in Beijing, China, bringing NLG's unique perspective on work and life to the city. Douglas holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia and a Specialized Honors degree in Economics from York University.
WALSHAW-VAUGHAN, JULIAN
Julian Walshaw-Vaughan is Group Technical Director for the FIFA franchise at the EAC studio in Burnaby. In his current role, he supervises and leads all the technical aspects of multiple FIFA products across several platforms. He joined EA in 2005 and has been a technical director on the FIFA and MVP Baseball teams. Prior to coming to Canada and EA, Julian spent eight years at Eurocom and worked in AI, FE, and animation programming across multiple titles. He worked in Eurocom's central tech team on pipelines, was the lead Xbox programmer, and worked on eight different games for Eurocom during his time with the company.
WARREN, CATHERINE
Catherine Warren, Founder and President, FanTrust Entertainment Strategies Catherine is a media strategist, specializing in digital financing, distribution and fans. Her work has influenced Fortune 500 clients, game corporations, major media networks, world-class tourist attractions and advertising agencies, providing them with new ways to captivate audiences and capitalize on innovation. Catherine's client work includes strategic initiatives for game and animation studios, including Radical, Studio B and Decode Entertainment, as well as computer corporations such as Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. A board member of the Bell Broadcast &New Media Fund, Canada's largest private fund for multiplatform broadcasting, Catherine's leadership includes identifying the winning concepts for interactive entertainment and awarding significant financing. In 2007, Catherine was appointed to the international jury of the Emmy Awards with a focus on interactive excellence. For best practices in digital entertainment, check out the FanTrust website and blog: www.FanTrust.com
WRINCH STEVE
Steven has six years experience working in the video game industry after receiving a Bachelors of Engineering from University of Victoria. The majority of that time he has been responsible for designing Artist friendly workflows, animation tools and animation systems. He also has a worked on artificial intelligence systems, physics systems and many gameplay features.
YAN, RAYMOND
Raymond Yan is Sr. Vice President at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond. DigiPen is well-recognized in the U.S. as one of the premiere colleges for those in pursuit of a serious career in the field of digital interactive entertainment. Prior to joining DigiPen four years ago, Raymond served as Vice President of Art Production for Nintendo Software Technology, a first-party development team in Redmond.
ZMAK, KELLY
Kelly Zmak is President of Radical Entertainment responsible for overseeing the studio's operations and product development initiatives. Radical is a video game developer located in Vancouver creating and developing multiple games for all current and next generation platforms. Kelly joined Radical in July 2005 as Chief Operating Officer and was then promoted to President in July 2006. He brings with him over 20 years experience in the video game industry spanning across multiple roles ranging from production to operations and strategic management.
