GDC Vault Adds Acclaimed Lectures From Amy Jo Kim, Bob Bates
GDC
GDC Austin/Online
GDC Europe
GDC China
GDC Canada
Free Content
| Speakers: |
Iain Gilfeather |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
How do you stop racing game AI seeming unfair, but heighten competition?
This session will present the techniques we used in Pure to tackle this problem. We will explain what we did to try to have the player challenged and surrounded at all times while avoiding the unfair sensation that rubber band methods leave the player with. We will go over different approaches we took to try to solve the problem and we will focus on the final solution we found that worked for us. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Andre Beccu |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This lecture, aimed at game and level designers, will explore why we need game balance and what might cause it to fail. Many successful games will be analyzed in detail regarding how they achieved preserving the balance using several specific mechanics and dynamics, resulting in lots of practical examples. |
| Download: |
ABeccu_Design_BalanceOfPower_Essay.pdf
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| Download: |
ABeccu_Design_BalanceOfPower.pptx
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| Speakers: |
Matthias Hellmund |
| Track / Format: |
Mobile Games / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Most of the industry heavyweights are dealing with the mobile Java world with its diversity of handsets, distribution channels and special requirements in separate lead studios, porting studios and distribution/marketing departments. Meanwhile, many smaller developers are dropping mobile Java and focusing completely on other (and more friendly) platforms such as Apple iPhone.
This lecture gives insights on a smart tool chain and processes created and used by a small interdisciplinary team. Topics include development steps, handset profiling, asset management and adaptation as well as working with partners to build competitive mobile products while keeping in-house creative and technical lead. |
| Download: |
M_Hellmund_Mobile_Mob.pdf
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| Download: |
M_Hellmund_Mobile_Mob.pptx
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| Speakers: |
Tibor Klajnscek |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session presents a practical look into the inner workings of deferred renderer used for three years in production of PS3, Xbox 360 and PC games. Through examples, a breakdown of each step of the rendering pipeline is presented. Backed up by real world statistics both performance and production benefits are discussed, along with the issues that were encountered. Working solutions as well as failed attempts are presented and tradeoffs that were taken are discussed. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Jim Buck |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Jim Buck describes the methods used to implement the 3D physics for a PSP vertical slice racing demo and an unannounced upcoming PC downloadable game. He avoids using physics middleware and instead rolls his own, indie style,
to give the game a dynamic not seen in other racing games. The techniques are simple enough that they can easily be used on handheld platforms such as the PSP and iPhone, so this makes unique physics accessible to lone-wolf developers. A demonstration of the physics methods will be shown with a PSP demo. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Joost van Dongen |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Fitting a modern game with lots of content into as small a file-size as possible is a difficult task, but necessary when working on downloadable platforms. Especially on WiiWare, where the maximum file size is only 40MB. This session presents various techniques and best practices to decrease the size of textures, animations, XML-files, audio and the game's executable itself. Examples of these
techniques are given by analysing the production of Swords & Soldiers for WiiWare, which fits in only 20mb, but has at least eight hours of gameplay and around 800 textures and sound files. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Kees van Kooten |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This lecture revisits standard PCF shadow mapping, with a focus on minimizing texture bandwidth usage. The technique treated in this lecture will be thoroughly explained from the ground up, and shown to work for a range of possible PCF filter kernels, including bicubic and other higher order kernels. A large advantage of the presented technique is its compatibility with a wide range of graphics architectures with shader support, making it suitable for low-end graphics devices as well as high-end solutions. |
|
Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Christian Schuler |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
The game Velvet Assassin makes heavy use of dynamic lighting and shadowing;
even a core gameplay element is conntected to dynamic lighting. This session
explains how these demands were solved in the game engine, then how it was
ported to the Xbox 360 console. |
|
Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Michal Drobot |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session presents an overview and comparison of current surface rendering techniques and introduces novel approach, outperforming existing solutions in terms of performance, memory usage and multilayer blending. Algorithms and ideas researched during Two Worlds 2 development are shared, proposing strategies to tackling problems of realistic terrain, surface and decal visualization considering limited memory and computational power on current generation consoles. Moreover problems of functionality, performance and aesthetics are discussed, providing solution for valid technique choice, content creation and authoring pipeline. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Dorian Kieken |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
The production planning process has long been the tool of producers and project managers, difficult to decipher for the non-initiated and used primarily to direct the team?s efforts. However, game development production is a rapidly evolving beast, and within one game cycle it?s common to find what worked at the start of the project be dramatically changed by the end of it.
As such, a static production plan quickly becomes irrelevant. Instead we must look towards an equally evolving plan that constantly reflects reality and can actually prove a useful tool, offering guidance to autonomous teams. Through cultural changes, agile practices and technology improvements, this talk will provide techniques and advice on how to build such a living plan. |
| Download: |
D_Kieken_A_Living_Plan.pptx
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| Download: |
D_Kieken_A_Living_Plan.pptx
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| Speakers: |
Erik Simon |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Do you think it's a good idea trying to build a skyscraper into a swamp?
This session debunks the subtle mistakes that are often made in the relationship minefield between publishers and developers and how they can derail a project with even the best of project management processes in place. Anno 1701 will serve as an example for the important steps that must PRECEDE a successful project cycle and how to keep up the conditions under which project management methods have the chance to work. This talk is not about theories, but about proven practices. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Sebastien Motte,
Chris Charla,
Zack Karlsson,
Adam Boyes,
Martin Alltimes,
Careen Yapp,
Jeff Hilbert,
Matthias Braun |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
Publishers will sometimes receive in excess of 100 game submissions a month. During this show alone many acquisition people will meet with one Developer every half hour for 5 days (80 meetings) plus dinner and breakfast meetings! For every meeting a Publisher has they turn down many more!
Navigating the Publisher and funding labyrinth can be a daunting process to the most seasoned developer and virtually impenetrable to those new to the business side of games. The panel of Publisher Executives, a Fund Manager, and a Production Company President will provide a brief overview on how they feel is the best way to stand out from the crowd to get a meeting and then how to prepare for the meeting. We will then open to the floor to an extended question and answer session to address questions related to the entire process of game acquisition.
Based on our presentations from previous years the audience should expect candid and sometimes controversial responses. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Dino Dini |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
A major question that does not seem answered with general agreement is What is design? The speaker's view is that design is ultimately the management of constraints. Many people, when faced with this view, may not agree. They may search for something more or may view this definition as too restrictive. However, the speaker believes that there is no more useful definition available, and that focusing on this aspect of design enables better understanding on the process of design and improved communication between designers. The usefulness of the proposed definition is perhaps not surprising when one considers that the starting point of all designs is a set of constraints. The talk describes two classes of constraint: negotiable and non-negotiable, tying the concepts of non-negotiable constraints and integrity together to demonstrate how integrity is central to creating successful designs. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Julien Koenen |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
In this session we will give an overview on our strategies to manage code and assets for multiple cross platform titles simultaneously. The talk will include details on common problems found in cross platform game development and present our solutions to them.
In the first part of the presentation we will introduce some of the solutions we found to optimize the conversion process of source assets into their final binary format optimized for a specific platform. This part will include details on how to specify per-platform parameters for the conversion pipeline and how we manage multiple SKUs of the same product while keeping the management overhead within reasonable boundaries.
The second part of the talk will show how we created an infrastructure that encourages reuse of code in multiple projects. We had to develop some unique solutions to support our modularized development architecture and we will be glad to share those with you. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Malte Behrmann,
Pasi Pirttiaho,
Mike Song,
Andreas Stock,
Ulrich von Zadow |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
The Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS have shown that the human machine interface has a very big impact on the gaming experience. This new frontier of gaming however is much bigger. Especially in Europe and elsewhere there are a number of interesting new concepts and products for innovative human machine interfaces in the games space. The session will introduce new platforms to the game developer community and inform them of what the opportunities in developing content for them are. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Gino van den Bergen |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Dual numbers are similar to complex numbers in that they extend the real numbers by adjoining a new element. Dual numbers can be used to solve a number of common problems in graphics and physics. First of all, dual numbers can be used for automatic differentiation. Derivatives of functions are needed, for instance, for computing tangents to a spline or gradients of a scalar field. Dual numbers allow you to compute analytic derivatives of arbitrary functions in C++ without the need to derive the derivatives by hand (Maple, Mathematica) and code them separately or to resort to numerical approximations.
Secondly, dual numbers can be used to transform 3-d vectors into Plucker coordinates or Featherstone's spatial vectors. Plucker coordinates can be used to answer queries on lines. Spatial vectors are used for simplifying the math on dynamic simulation of articulated bodies. Similarly, dual quaternions are useful for representing screw motions and have been shown to improve skinning.(*)
(*) Dual Quaternions for Rigid Transformation Blending by Ladislav Kavan, e.a |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Stefan Baier,
Renier Banninga |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Understanding the underlying production strategy is key to any AAA production. As teams continue to rise, the amount of content necessary to produce does as well. However, very few teams devise content strategies that take into consideration new production methods that can help reduce the amount of content greatly while also delivering upon developer, publisher and consumer expectations. This session focuses on best practices to specing out a AAA game by showcasing tricks of the trade and proven techniques. Attendees will learn firsthand the best way to break down content requirements into easy to manage processes that lead to greater production success. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Bob Bates,
Harald Riegler,
Hetal Bhuva,
Hannes Seifert |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session offers a postmortem on a distributed development project. Meet Bob, Hetal, Harald, and Hannes, who represent 4 of the 12 companies that collaborated to create the highly-anticipated Cursed Mountain. Each of them will discuss what they contributed, how they worked together, and what bumps in the road they hit while trying to see if the Hollywood Model can really work in the games business. |
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Play Session
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| Speakers: |
Nils-Holger Henning |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Gaming has become a powerful platform for building businesses, establishing relationships and generating revenue. From the creation of entirely new business models and economies to the use of gaming technology as a way to engage with customers and employees to the use of games as an avenue for brand development and marketing - gaming isn't just for kids. Games are the asset to overcome the advertising income dependency of media groups to establish new stable revenue streams while entertaining their audience. |
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Play Session
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Members-only Content
| Speakers: |
Hilmar Veigar Petursson |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Keynote |
| Overview: |
'Niche' is not a dirty word. CCP grew from relative obscurity in the middle of the Atlantic to a major MMO company. CEO Hilmar Petursson will show what brought them here and share exclusive views into the future, including an announcement on its latest project, suggesting that the opportunity for the game industry to reinvent itself is now.
The story will serve several purposes: inspire other development studios; illustrate to investors the strong ROI in business models other than retail sales; and share his views on an industry that is still flourishing despite the economic turmoil. |
| Screenshot: |
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| Speakers: |
Sebastien Motte,
Chris Charla,
Zack Karlsson,
Adam Boyes,
Martin Alltimes,
Careen Yapp,
Jeff Hilbert,
Matthias Braun |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
Publishers will sometimes receive in excess of 100 game submissions a month. During this show alone many acquisition people will meet with one Developer every half hour for 5 days (80 meetings) plus dinner and breakfast meetings! For every meeting a Publisher has they turn down many more!
Navigating the Publisher and funding labyrinth can be a daunting process to the most seasoned developer and virtually impenetrable to those new to the business side of games. The panel of Publisher Executives, a Fund Manager, and a Production Company President will provide a brief overview on how they feel is the best way to stand out from the crowd to get a meeting and then how to prepare for the meeting. We will then open to the floor to an extended question and answer session to address questions related to the entire process of game acquisition.
Based on our presentations from previous years the audience should expect candid and sometimes controversial responses. |
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| Speakers: |
Matias Myllyrinne |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Keynote |
| Overview: |
Creating intellectual properties that speak to the gamer but translate over multiple entertainment forums doesn?t happen overnight. Finnish-based independent developer Remedy, the original creator of the acclaimed Max Payne series and maker of the soon to be released Alan Wake, knows this from experience, and the firm strives to give the Remedy-authored properties a unique feel.
In his keynote address, Remedy managing director Matias Myllyrinne will outline the key principles that have guided the company over the years in developing its games. He'll touch on the company?s explicit goal -- to remain small, independent, and passionate about creating new IP, and try to answer a very important question -- how can boutique European studios build large games, compete and succeed in a quickly changing and ever-growing games industry? |
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| Speakers: |
Don Daglow |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
If you're trying to create games that will reach new audiences, you have to start from a different mindset. Consoles like the Wii, PC titles like The Sims and casual online games like Bejeweled all broke through as major hits that appealed to people who had not previously considered themselves to be game players. How do we approach designing for these different audiences?
Pioneering game designer Don Daglow has a long history of creating new game genres and styles. In this presentation he will de-construct recent industry breakthrough titles, their historical context, and the games industry patterns that create opportunities and traps for game developers. From this process will emerge ways in which designers can approach the game design process to enhance their process of designing for new audiences. |
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| Speakers: |
Cevat Yerli |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Keynote |
| Overview: |
Known as a visionary for creating lush, immersive, graphical games with Far Cry and Crysis, Yerli will speak about the opportunities for immersion as graphical realism reaches new levels and technology continues to deliver faster processors capable of greater rendering. The technology available today is light years ahead of what was generally available just five years ago. Add those advancements to increasing technical expertise as we learn more about graphically creating immersive worlds, and the conditions are right to have graphics play a major role in telling the story of a game. |
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| Speakers: |
Peter Molyneux |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Giving players the power to make decisions which impact on the game world is a common and continual theme in every game which Peter Molyneux has worked on. As technology has become more sophisticated, the effects of player exercising their power of choice have become both more subtle and far ranging. Using in?game and work in progress examples Peter will show how choice can be a compelling game mechanic so long as player decisions have tangible effects on the game world and that empowering players to make their own game play decisions ultimately leads to a more personal and satisfying gaming experience. |
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| Speakers: |
David Cage |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Keynote |
| Overview: |
Many major actors in the industry expressed recently their interest for creating more mature games. Although there is no commonly agreed definition of mature games, they become a very attractive option to expand the traditional market of interactivity and maintain the excitement of creators who become themselves older and more eager to explore new grounds. In making video games for a mature audience, pretty much everything has to be invented, from a decent narrative language including interactivity and new themes, to new paradigms regarding game play, interfaces and mechanics.
Currently working on a PS3 exclusive title called HEAVY RAIN, David Cage is one of the few fortunate game designers who were given all freedom to do what they wanted through the past 12 years. He invites you to share his thoughts about mature games, why they are necessary to our industry, why interactive storytelling for adults is a valid answer, what difficulties are on the way and what solutions can be found. He will share his vision and expose some of his techniques to write interactive storytelling. |
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| Speakers: |
Iain Gilfeather |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
How do you stop racing game AI seeming unfair, but heighten competition?
This session will present the techniques we used in Pure to tackle this problem. We will explain what we did to try to have the player challenged and surrounded at all times while avoiding the unfair sensation that rubber band methods leave the player with. We will go over different approaches we took to try to solve the problem and we will focus on the final solution we found that worked for us. |
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| Speakers: |
Bostjan Troha |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Projects get canceled every day. Many times developers will fold as a result, especially independent studios with one-project teams.
The lecture will focus on sharing hard-learned lessons from a near-fatal cancellation of a three-platform $5-million project, and the subsequent fate of its less-than-stellar publisher that went from $400 million investment to-out-of business in a year and a half.
It will show what went wrong and what went right when the developer struggled to secure funding, fend off defeatism, keep the team together, went through legal battles and pitch the project based on a fading license to publishers worldwide in an effort to save both the game and the studio. The lecture will also try to suggest recommendations and strategies developers should consider to better prepare for a possible cancellation and mitigate internal and external threats. |
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| Speakers: |
Andre Beccu |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This lecture, aimed at game and level designers, will explore why we need game balance and what might cause it to fail. Many successful games will be analyzed in detail regarding how they achieved preserving the balance using several specific mechanics and dynamics, resulting in lots of practical examples. |
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| Speakers: |
Matthias Hellmund |
| Track / Format: |
Mobile Games / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Most of the industry heavyweights are dealing with the mobile Java world with its diversity of handsets, distribution channels and special requirements in separate lead studios, porting studios and distribution/marketing departments. Meanwhile, many smaller developers are dropping mobile Java and focusing completely on other (and more friendly) platforms such as Apple iPhone.
This lecture gives insights on a smart tool chain and processes created and used by a small interdisciplinary team. Topics include development steps, handset profiling, asset management and adaptation as well as working with partners to build competitive mobile products while keeping in-house creative and technical lead. |
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| Speakers: |
Kellee Santiago |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Flower is known for it's simplicity, stemming from an idea to evoke the feeling of breathing nature and the sensation of love giving.... so what took us two years? While evoking the feeling of nature and love have known solutions in traditional passive media, designing an interactive gameplay experience that goes well with, or even amplifies that feeling is almost unheard of.
It took the team 12 different gameplay prototypes and almost an entire year to figure out a viable solution. A countless number of times traditional game design conventions we tried out went against our desired experience. Familiar elements
like realism, challenge, clear goal and compulsive loops slowly turned out to be anything but helpful. We learned that innovating on a completely new gaming experience often requires game makers to abandon more than what they are
comfortable with. In this talk, Kellee will walk through the team's design process and playable prototypes that led to the final product. |
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| Speakers: |
David S Rosenbaum,
Vincent Scheurer,
Konstantin Ewald |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
The video game industry today faces unprecedented challenges: sales of packaged retail products are declining significantly, while digital distribution is growing; major publishers are canceling projects and independent developers are competing for fewer and fewer projects. And yet, rising popularity of social networking sites and the continued strong performance of digital distribution channels have opened new opportunities for development and distribution.
Meeting these challenges requires experienced professional advice. Whether you are a developer, publisher, licensor, investor, lawyer or otherwise involved in negotiating or evaluating game development projects, develop a broader understanding of significant legal and contractual issues in the gaming business today by attending the panel on ?The Current State of Game Development Contracts.?
The panel will cover top legal and contractual issues encountered in negotiating development agreements and examine current trends in development agreements. These issues have both world-wide as well as regional impact, and the panelist will discuss how the regional perspectives affect development and publishing contracts. Audience questions are encouraged!
The panel features David S. Rosenbaum, a leading US attorney with a wide-ranging global law practice concentrated in game and entertainment industry matters; Vincent Scheurer, founder of Sarassin LLP, a London-based business affairs consultancy for the interactive entertainment industry; and Konstantin Ewald, who heads the German Interactive Entertainment practice group of pan-European law firm Osborne Clarke. |
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| Speakers: |
Tibor Klajnscek |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session presents a practical look into the inner workings of deferred renderer used for three years in production of PS3, Xbox 360 and PC games. Through examples, a breakdown of each step of the rendering pipeline is presented. Backed up by real world statistics both performance and production benefits are discussed, along with the issues that were encountered. Working solutions as well as failed attempts are presented and tradeoffs that were taken are discussed. |
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| Speakers: |
Jim Buck |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Jim Buck describes the methods used to implement the 3D physics for a PSP vertical slice racing demo and an unannounced upcoming PC downloadable game. He avoids using physics middleware and instead rolls his own, indie style,
to give the game a dynamic not seen in other racing games. The techniques are simple enough that they can easily be used on handheld platforms such as the PSP and iPhone, so this makes unique physics accessible to lone-wolf developers. A demonstration of the physics methods will be shown with a PSP demo. |
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| Speakers: |
Brian Blau |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session will review design and implementation aspects of dynamic in-game advertising placements, showing which are effective and well integrated (the Good), which are not effective or poorly implemented (the Bad), and which have failed (the Ugly). Design best practices and integration techniques will be reviewed and the attendee will come away with practical knowledge and examples of how to create effective advertising inside their games. |
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| Speakers: |
Joost van Dongen |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Fitting a modern game with lots of content into as small a file-size as possible is a difficult task, but necessary when working on downloadable platforms. Especially on WiiWare, where the maximum file size is only 40MB. This session presents various techniques and best practices to decrease the size of textures, animations, XML-files, audio and the game's executable itself. Examples of these
techniques are given by analysing the production of Swords & Soldiers for WiiWare, which fits in only 20mb, but has at least eight hours of gameplay and around 800 textures and sound files. |
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| Speakers: |
Edoardo De Martin |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Next Level Games was one of the first companies to challenge industry-accepted practices around working long hours to get games finished. While everyone said it couldn?t be done, they did it. Two teams, three titles, no death march. Six years later, the studio is thriving. Edoardo will deliver his common sense approach to production, including the importance of face-to-face communication, empowered management, personal development and constructive conflict. Using these principles, and a lot of common sense, NLG bypasses pitfalls and eliminates distractions that derail work. Be clear, stay on track and get back lost hours. |
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| Speakers: |
Kees van Kooten |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This lecture revisits standard PCF shadow mapping, with a focus on minimizing texture bandwidth usage. The technique treated in this lecture will be thoroughly explained from the ground up, and shown to work for a range of possible PCF filter kernels, including bicubic and other higher order kernels. A large advantage of the presented technique is its compatibility with a wide range of graphics architectures with shader support, making it suitable for low-end graphics devices as well as high-end solutions. |
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| Speakers: |
Hugh de Loayza |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
To succeed in the social networking industry, entrepreneurs and developers alike need to commit to a deep passion, gain broad business knowledge and learn from the veterans. Many entrepreneurs attempt and fail while others become wildly successful. Is there a formula for success? There are certainly many aspects to consider when starting a social networking business, from measuring success, to virality and knowing when to go all in. Listen to a veteran in the social networking space speak about his lessons learned and how he turned his failures into a winning hand. |
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| Speakers: |
Alla Khramtsova,
Ariella Lehrer,
Kate Pietrelli,
Wade Tinney,
Margaret Wallace |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
What are the latest trends in the casual games industry? Join our panel of experts, as we discuss new models for monetization and game services, latest research on price points and retail sales strategies, global markets and resulting cultural strains, and much more. Our panelists' combined know-how in casual game development, marketing, and sales adds up to 50+ years of hard-won experience, which they will be sharing with the audience. |
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| Speakers: |
Denis Dyack |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
One hundred years from now, the announcement of the first cloud computing model for video games at GDC 09 (OnLive) could be seen as the end of the classic video game era, ushering in a model of business for the industry where the console wars are a long forgotten antiquity of the past.
This session will give an in-depth perspective on how cloud technology will affect and shape game development, for better or for worse. It will answer such questions as:
?Why was cloud technology an inevitable conclusion in game development? How did it evolve in this market?
?How will cloud technology change game development?
?Is cloud technology good or bad for game makers? How is it good or bad?
?How will cloud technology change the current publisher/developer partnership? Will publishers be obsolete?
?Is the game industry?s future brighter due to cloud technology? |
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| Speakers: |
Christian Schuler |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
The game Velvet Assassin makes heavy use of dynamic lighting and shadowing;
even a core gameplay element is conntected to dynamic lighting. This session
explains how these demands were solved in the game engine, then how it was
ported to the Xbox 360 console. |
|
|
| Speakers: |
Michal Drobot |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session presents an overview and comparison of current surface rendering techniques and introduces novel approach, outperforming existing solutions in terms of performance, memory usage and multilayer blending. Algorithms and ideas researched during Two Worlds 2 development are shared, proposing strategies to tackling problems of realistic terrain, surface and decal visualization considering limited memory and computational power on current generation consoles. Moreover problems of functionality, performance and aesthetics are discussed, providing solution for valid technique choice, content creation and authoring pipeline. |
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| Speakers: |
Andrew Oliver,
Aaron Allport |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
The first wave of the new generation 3D movies has proven to be a huge hit with audiences in Europe and North America, films like Coraline. Games and game developers have an even bigger opportunity - perhaps even a responsibility - to use this technology to greater effect than movies. 3DTV?s are available in the market now and the 3D gives an extra level of immersion. Using proprietary technology, Andrew and Aaron will show a game running in Stereoscopic 3D on a console. Their company has been working on this technology since the summer of 2008 and will share the lessons, the pain, the headaches and the triumph experienced by the team in building Invincible Tiger: Legend of Han Tao in true 3D. Showing how & why developers should embrace this new TV technology. |
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| Speakers: |
Dorian Kieken |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
The production planning process has long been the tool of producers and project managers, difficult to decipher for the non-initiated and used primarily to direct the team?s efforts. However, game development production is a rapidly evolving beast, and within one game cycle it?s common to find what worked at the start of the project be dramatically changed by the end of it.
As such, a static production plan quickly becomes irrelevant. Instead we must look towards an equally evolving plan that constantly reflects reality and can actually prove a useful tool, offering guidance to autonomous teams. Through cultural changes, agile practices and technology improvements, this talk will provide techniques and advice on how to build such a living plan. |
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| Speakers: |
Margaret Wallace,
Cynthia Woll,
Sheri Graner Ray,
Tracy Fullerton,
Kellee Santiago |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Panel |
| Overview: |
Four female industry veterans discuss game design and the interplay of gender, brand, narrative and genre. The panelists will discuss their own work and writing in the area of game design best practices and debate whether they design for gender inclusivity. What examples of practices and assumptions go into their design processes for addressing issues of audience and gender? How relevant is it to distinguish gender and audience for good game design? |
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| Speakers: |
Francesco Carucci |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Software construction is an exercise in managing complexity, more so with the spiralling complexity required by modern games. Automated resting is an industry proven methodology to deliver more reliable complex software, with a fighting chance to do it on time and on budget. And having fun doing so. Crytek is spearheading this idea in the game industry with its flagship title, and now sharing the experience with you: best practices, potential pitfalls, To-Dos and No-Nos will be shown with real examples of Unit Testing game code using its proprietary Testing Framework and Tools. Functional testing and acceptance testing will also be touched as a viable way of describing and check game design requirements. And take automated testing to the next level. |
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| Speakers: |
Yongchan Jee |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
MMORPG is a game genre that provides a first level of entertainment based on the intention of the developers and a second level of entertainment based on user interaction. It is also characterized by its extremely long play-time compared to package games. In accordance to this distinct conditions, the design of MMORPGs differ clearly from that of package games. This session provides elements that must be taken in to consideration when designing a MMORPG utilizing AION as an example. Especially, it will focus on the elements that appealed to the customers and how those elements were designed in a market that was thirsty for a successful MMORPG since World of Warcraft. |
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| Speakers: |
Paul Wedgwood |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
In 2008 Splash Damage announced a new partnership with Bethesda Softworks, built new facilities, doubled its team size, transitioned from purely PC to multiplatform AAA development, attracted industry talent that made worldwide news and built a brand-new IP with its latest title BRINK. In this session, Paul Wedgwood presents a counter-intuitive guide for studios that wish to make that same transition to AAA game development. |
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| Speakers: |
Erik Simon |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Do you think it's a good idea trying to build a skyscraper into a swamp?
This session debunks the subtle mistakes that are often made in the relationship minefield between publishers and developers and how they can derail a project with even the best of project management processes in place. Anno 1701 will serve as an example for the important steps that must PRECEDE a successful project cycle and how to keep up the conditions under which project management methods have the chance to work. This talk is not about theories, but about proven practices. |
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| Speakers: |
Hilmar Veigar Petursson |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Keynote |
| Overview: |
'Niche' is not a dirty word. CCP grew from relative obscurity in the middle of the Atlantic to a major MMO company. CEO Hilmar Petursson will show what brought them here and share exclusive views into the future, including an announcement on its latest project, suggesting that the opportunity for the game industry to reinvent itself is now.
The story will serve several purposes: inspire other development studios; illustrate to investors the strong ROI in business models other than retail sales; and share his views on an industry that is still flourishing despite the economic turmoil. |
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| Speakers: |
Kai Bodensiek,
Nick Button-Brown,
Risa Cohen,
Sean Kauppinen,
Peter Kirsch |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
In today?s backdrop of growing development complexity and rapidly changing delivery options, game development companies actually have the opportunity to move up the value chain, gain more control of the creative process, and produce more innovative games.
This panel is designed to examine business models and provide a framework for implementing techniques allowing developers to reposition their business-to-business relationships in ways that truly leverage their core competencies. The panelists will discuss ways to re-construct the value chain ? including alternative financing, co-publishing, shared creative/IP control, long- term output arrangements ? and will use real examples to illustrate the strengths of this proposition. The era is dawning when gamemakers can thrive in production companies partnered on a equal footing with publishing and distribution specialists, rather than struggle in lop-sided, medieval work-for-hire relationships which dampen creative expression and innovation. |
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| Speakers: |
Sebastien Motte,
Chris Charla,
Zack Karlsson,
Adam Boyes,
Martin Alltimes,
Careen Yapp,
Jeff Hilbert,
Matthias Braun |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
Publishers will sometimes receive in excess of 100 game submissions a month. During this show alone many acquisition people will meet with one Developer every half hour for 5 days (80 meetings) plus dinner and breakfast meetings! For every meeting a Publisher has they turn down many more!
Navigating the Publisher and funding labyrinth can be a daunting process to the most seasoned developer and virtually impenetrable to those new to the business side of games. The panel of Publisher Executives, a Fund Manager, and a Production Company President will provide a brief overview on how they feel is the best way to stand out from the crowd to get a meeting and then how to prepare for the meeting. We will then open to the floor to an extended question and answer session to address questions related to the entire process of game acquisition.
Based on our presentations from previous years the audience should expect candid and sometimes controversial responses. |
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| Speakers: |
Dino Dini |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
A major question that does not seem answered with general agreement is What is design? The speaker's view is that design is ultimately the management of constraints. Many people, when faced with this view, may not agree. They may search for something more or may view this definition as too restrictive. However, the speaker believes that there is no more useful definition available, and that focusing on this aspect of design enables better understanding on the process of design and improved communication between designers. The usefulness of the proposed definition is perhaps not surprising when one considers that the starting point of all designs is a set of constraints. The talk describes two classes of constraint: negotiable and non-negotiable, tying the concepts of non-negotiable constraints and integrity together to demonstrate how integrity is central to creating successful designs. |
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| Speakers: |
Julien Koenen |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
In this session we will give an overview on our strategies to manage code and assets for multiple cross platform titles simultaneously. The talk will include details on common problems found in cross platform game development and present our solutions to them.
In the first part of the presentation we will introduce some of the solutions we found to optimize the conversion process of source assets into their final binary format optimized for a specific platform. This part will include details on how to specify per-platform parameters for the conversion pipeline and how we manage multiple SKUs of the same product while keeping the management overhead within reasonable boundaries.
The second part of the talk will show how we created an infrastructure that encourages reuse of code in multiple projects. We had to develop some unique solutions to support our modularized development architecture and we will be glad to share those with you. |
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| Speakers: |
Courtney Simmons,
Jared Nieuwenhuis,
Chris Kramer,
Sean Kauppinen,
Dieter Marchsreiter,
James Beaven |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
This panel gives a look at the current landscape for promoting and driving sales of your game. It?s ideal for independent developers, producers, and anyone else that needs to know how the system works, has changed, and what you can do to maximize your chances for success in getting your message across using the most effective and inexpensive ways possible. Where the old world of marketing and PR focused on mainly ad buys, press releases and media tours, the new world says anyone can become a marketing force using social networking, Twitter, forum outreach, PR and more. This is the session that will give you the tools. |
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| Speakers: |
Martijn Reuvers,
Paul Bettner,
Jamie Gotch |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
Learn about the iPhone development experience from developers who have created successful products. Find out what is different about developing for the iPhone and ask panelists the hard questions you need to have answered about developing for this exciting platform. |
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| Speakers: |
Bob Wallace,
Michael Schade,
Alan Yu,
Sergei Gourski,
Joe Wee |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
The issues of self-publishing vs. signing with a publisher for iPhone will be debated. The attractive royalty model for iPhone is complicated by many issues which publishers can help resolve. Answer the question: Does my studio need an iPhone publisher to be successful on this platform? |
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| Speakers: |
Harald Riegler,
Don Daglow,
Jan Lechner,
Adrian Hawkins,
Christopher Schmitz |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Panel |
| Overview: |
AAA game productions have become bigger and bigger in terms of scope and budget within the last couple of years, which are requiring larger and larger development teams. In order to fulfill the promise and to deliver the best possible game, it?s now required to produce games using complex international multi-site development approaches, which is risky and challenging to manage. This panel will discuss these challenges, offer effective methods and approaches to overcome them, and share best practices on how to handle large scale game productions using multi-site development teams. |
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| Speakers: |
Matias Myllyrinne |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Keynote |
| Overview: |
Creating intellectual properties that speak to the gamer but translate over multiple entertainment forums doesn?t happen overnight. Finnish-based independent developer Remedy, the original creator of the acclaimed Max Payne series and maker of the soon to be released Alan Wake, knows this from experience, and the firm strives to give the Remedy-authored properties a unique feel.
In his keynote address, Remedy managing director Matias Myllyrinne will outline the key principles that have guided the company over the years in developing its games. He'll touch on the company?s explicit goal -- to remain small, independent, and passionate about creating new IP, and try to answer a very important question -- how can boutique European studios build large games, compete and succeed in a quickly changing and ever-growing games industry? |
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| Speakers: |
Malte Behrmann,
Pasi Pirttiaho,
Mike Song,
Andreas Stock,
Ulrich von Zadow |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Panel |
| Overview: |
The Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS have shown that the human machine interface has a very big impact on the gaming experience. This new frontier of gaming however is much bigger. Especially in Europe and elsewhere there are a number of interesting new concepts and products for innovative human machine interfaces in the games space. The session will introduce new platforms to the game developer community and inform them of what the opportunities in developing content for them are. |
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| Speakers: |
Gino van den Bergen |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Dual numbers are similar to complex numbers in that they extend the real numbers by adjoining a new element. Dual numbers can be used to solve a number of common problems in graphics and physics. First of all, dual numbers can be used for automatic differentiation. Derivatives of functions are needed, for instance, for computing tangents to a spline or gradients of a scalar field. Dual numbers allow you to compute analytic derivatives of arbitrary functions in C++ without the need to derive the derivatives by hand (Maple, Mathematica) and code them separately or to resort to numerical approximations.
Secondly, dual numbers can be used to transform 3-d vectors into Plucker coordinates or Featherstone's spatial vectors. Plucker coordinates can be used to answer queries on lines. Spatial vectors are used for simplifying the math on dynamic simulation of articulated bodies. Similarly, dual quaternions are useful for representing screw motions and have been shown to improve skinning.(*)
(*) Dual Quaternions for Rigid Transformation Blending by Ladislav Kavan, e.a |
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| Speakers: |
Calle Lejdfors |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session will give an overview of Glacier 2, a new engine currently being developed at IO Interactive that offers complete WYSIWYG editing. The focus will be on the render pipeline and, in particular, the tools provided to the artist's to help them tune level set-up. |
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| Speakers: |
Steve Meretzky |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Designing games for social networks like Facebook and MySpace shares many elements with designing any online game, but there are critical additional issues to consider. In this session, Meretzky examines these unique design considerations.
Topics include: Theme (and the surprising differences between what works on social nets compared to other platforms); Virality (using the power of the social net to turn your players into your best marketers); Monetization (gameplay elements that get players to dig into their pockets while playing a free-to-play game); Re-engagement (how to keep players coming back often, in an increasingly noisy environment); and of course Socialness (since the connected player is the most committed player). |
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| Speakers: |
Christoph Quas |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Everybody who loves computer games and is able to think creatively can be a game designer, right? Well, not quite. Being game designer is indeed a most enjoyable and satisfying but also still rather undefined field within the game development process.
Being aimed directly at students and newbie designers, this lecture is a basic introduction on the practical game design process, breaking down every step from the imagination of the idea to game shipment. Furthermore the lecture emphasizes on explaining what is needed to get into the game industry and what is expected from a designer, but also what a designer can expect from the job. |
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| Speakers: |
Olya Nikitova,
Jason Manley,
Rajesh Rao,
Alexander Fernandez,
Charles Speyer |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Panel |
| Overview: |
Outsourcing has become a standard process in the development of video games, with nearly every publisher and developer utilizing this form of distributed development. With the financial crisis in full effect, the industry is again asking itself what it can do in order to remain competitive and is looking toward this sector for fresh ideas.
This panel will discuss the future of outsourcing and what the industry can learn from the sector?s initial growth as a ?one-off? to strategic ?must have.? Moderated by Alexander Fernandez, this veteran panel will highlight the future growth of distributed development, content services and co-productions, and will share information which could save your projects millions and increase your production capabilities industry wide. |
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| Speakers: |
Viktor Antonov |
| Track / Format: |
Visual Arts / Lecture |
| Overview: |
In this lecture, Viktor will take you through the different phases of concept design ? from the first creative ?kick off? meeting trough the prototype and production phases. He?ll share his experiences in different media, ranging from games to feature film. Viktor will analyse the elements and tools that designers use to enhance storytelling and gameplay: space, architecture, light, color and stylisation.
The session will address the crucial issues that every new project faces ? the creation of strong visual identity, defining the style of a new IP. |
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| Speakers: |
Don Daglow |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
If you're trying to create games that will reach new audiences, you have to start from a different mindset. Consoles like the Wii, PC titles like The Sims and casual online games like Bejeweled all broke through as major hits that appealed to people who had not previously considered themselves to be game players. How do we approach designing for these different audiences?
Pioneering game designer Don Daglow has a long history of creating new game genres and styles. In this presentation he will de-construct recent industry breakthrough titles, their historical context, and the games industry patterns that create opportunities and traps for game developers. From this process will emerge ways in which designers can approach the game design process to enhance their process of designing for new audiences. |
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| Speakers: |
Stefan Baier,
Renier Banninga |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Understanding the underlying production strategy is key to any AAA production. As teams continue to rise, the amount of content necessary to produce does as well. However, very few teams devise content strategies that take into consideration new production methods that can help reduce the amount of content greatly while also delivering upon developer, publisher and consumer expectations. This session focuses on best practices to specing out a AAA game by showcasing tricks of the trade and proven techniques. Attendees will learn firsthand the best way to break down content requirements into easy to manage processes that lead to greater production success. |
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| Speakers: |
Cevat Yerli |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Keynote |
| Overview: |
Known as a visionary for creating lush, immersive, graphical games with Far Cry and Crysis, Yerli will speak about the opportunities for immersion as graphical realism reaches new levels and technology continues to deliver faster processors capable of greater rendering. The technology available today is light years ahead of what was generally available just five years ago. Add those advancements to increasing technical expertise as we learn more about graphically creating immersive worlds, and the conditions are right to have graphics play a major role in telling the story of a game. |
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| Speakers: |
Klaas Kersting |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Keynote |
| Overview: |
In his keynote, Kersting will talk about the history of Gameforge, the advantages of different payment models, and the differences between Europe and Asia in terms of attitudes toward gaming and cultural backgrounds. He will share his thoughts on the success of the revolutionary free-to-play model that is employed by Gameforge. The free-to-play model allows gamers worldwide to play games for free, while premium items within the game or specific services are charged that enhance the play experience. |
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| Speakers: |
Dierk Ohlerich |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
In the demoscene, many individuals and groups create very small executables, that create rich worlds and amazing presentations when started. They are often only 64kbytes or even 4kbytes in size, complete with all code and data required. Compared to that, the size limits for the various console download platforms seem luxurious. But maybe it is worth investigating what one can learn from these extreme approaches. This talk focuses mostly on the efforts of the group Farbrausch. It explains their techniques for procedurally generating almost every kind of data, using only a single tool for every aspect of the production, their famous werkkzeug. It also addresses what one can do differently in a game development environment. |
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| Speakers: |
Stephane de Buttet,
Holger Diener,
Carsten Fichtelmann,
Ruth Lemmen,
Christian Kirk Muff |
| Track / Format: |
Serious Games / Panel |
| Overview: |
The panelist of this session will offer a general overview of the serious games space and the evolving opportunities for the traditional games industry in particular. They will also take a close look at the potential markets, offer examples of projects, and discuss the differences between ?traditional game development and publishing.? The panelists represent different perspectives on the topic, ranging from a scientific to industrial points of view. The aim of the panel is to raise the awareness of the serious games space as a business area with potential. |
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| Speakers: |
Peter Molyneux |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Giving players the power to make decisions which impact on the game world is a common and continual theme in every game which Peter Molyneux has worked on. As technology has become more sophisticated, the effects of player exercising their power of choice have become both more subtle and far ranging. Using in?game and work in progress examples Peter will show how choice can be a compelling game mechanic so long as player decisions have tangible effects on the game world and that empowering players to make their own game play decisions ultimately leads to a more personal and satisfying gaming experience. |
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| Speakers: |
Fabio Minazzi,
Loreto Sanz Fueyo,
Peter Croonen,
Philippe Juton,
Rolf Klischewski |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Panel |
| Overview: |
The financial crisis is setting an important challenge to the games industry: produce more diversified contents, for more markets, in a more cost-efficient way. The overall games sales will grow over the coming years, but localization professionals may not be able to support such increase just by scaling up their existing operations. How will the international games production and localization look like as a result? A panel of experienced professionals from the publishing, localization and translation side of the business will confront on practical approaches to support the global future of gaming. |
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| Speakers: |
Mario Wynands |
| Track / Format: |
Student Education Track / Lecture |
| Overview: |
The games business is exactly that, a business. As the industry matures, it is becoming even more important to understand basic business principles to run or even work at a top studio. More importantly, to be successful and create great games, you need to have a strategy, a plan and a great team.
This lecture is a basic introduction to what it's like to run a successful studio, how the business planning process works, what studio heads are looking for in new hires, and how studios manage all the parts of a company and still make fun games. |
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| Speakers: |
Kevin Beardslee,
Rob Hill |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
How does a seasoned team of online developers work with a well established television group to deliver the next generation media experience? Trion?s Sr. Producer Rob Hill and Sr. Development Director Kevin Beardslee reveal some of the secrets to Trion?s approach to working with the SyFy channel to create the industry?s first collaborative TV show and online game. |
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| Speakers: |
David Cage |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Keynote |
| Overview: |
Many major actors in the industry expressed recently their interest for creating more mature games. Although there is no commonly agreed definition of mature games, they become a very attractive option to expand the traditional market of interactivity and maintain the excitement of creators who become themselves older and more eager to explore new grounds. In making video games for a mature audience, pretty much everything has to be invented, from a decent narrative language including interactivity and new themes, to new paradigms regarding game play, interfaces and mechanics.
Currently working on a PS3 exclusive title called HEAVY RAIN, David Cage is one of the few fortunate game designers who were given all freedom to do what they wanted through the past 12 years. He invites you to share his thoughts about mature games, why they are necessary to our industry, why interactive storytelling for adults is a valid answer, what difficulties are on the way and what solutions can be found. He will share his vision and expose some of his techniques to write interactive storytelling. |
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| Speakers: |
Bob Bates,
Harald Riegler,
Hetal Bhuva,
Hannes Seifert |
| Track / Format: |
Production / Lecture |
| Overview: |
This session offers a postmortem on a distributed development project. Meet Bob, Hetal, Harald, and Hannes, who represent 4 of the 12 companies that collaborated to create the highly-anticipated Cursed Mountain. Each of them will discuss what they contributed, how they worked together, and what bumps in the road they hit while trying to see if the Hollywood Model can really work in the games business. |
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| Speakers: |
Nils-Holger Henning |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Gaming has become a powerful platform for building businesses, establishing relationships and generating revenue. From the creation of entirely new business models and economies to the use of gaming technology as a way to engage with customers and employees to the use of games as an avenue for brand development and marketing - gaming isn't just for kids. Games are the asset to overcome the advertising income dependency of media groups to establish new stable revenue streams while entertaining their audience. |
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| Speakers: |
Jonas Antonsson |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Lecture |
| Overview: |
A brief look at upcoming platforms and disruptions within the game industry, with a special focus on Facebook, the App Store and thinking about games as services, rather than products. |
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| Speakers: |
Dan Connors |
| Track / Format: |
Business & Management / Sponsored Session |
| Overview: |
In this session, Telltale CEO Dan Connors shares his experiences in establishing a new perspective on gaming and entertainment: episodic games delivered digitally with regularly scheduled monthly releases. He will discuss the following:
?Ways that Telltale has defined and executed on episodic ? monthly releases, full season sets
?Development efficiencies and challenges
?Keeping episodic content fresh
?Content considerations ? full season saga vs self contained episodes
?Beyond the game -- customer community, feedback, involvement, audience development programs
?Distribution ? reaching new audiences through different platforms, channels, ?syndication? |
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| Speakers: |
Nicholas Francis |
| Track / Format: |
Programming / Lecture |
| Overview: |
Unity Co-founder Nicholas Francis will take you through the building of Unity's cross-platform UI framework, UnityGUI . Immediate-Mode GUI toolkits are easy to code and extremely modifiable - but have so far mainly been used to do quick internal tools. Nicholas has implemented a fully-featured reusable generic IM toolkit currently in use by 100+ games - while still being powerful enough to be the main UI system powering the Unity Editor. This talk will focus on the design considerations and lessons learnt while developing UnityGUI - from API Design, encapsulation model to performance optimizations. |
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| Speakers: |
Don Daglow,
Mary Beth Haggerty |
| Track / Format: |
Game Design / Panel |
| Overview: |
Attend a candid discussion between Don Daglow, an award-winning games industry veteran with four decades of experience in game design and development, and Mary Beth Haggerty, senior industry manager for Games at Autodesk. The conversation will explore storytelling, believable characters and the games business. |
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