Game Career Seminar
September 17th, 2008
Austin Convention Center
Austin, TX
Game Career Seminar was a hit at Austin GDC! To check out the sessions click here.
Keynote:
Harvey Smith,
Game Director
(Arkane Studios)
Smith is a game designer and producer who has been making games
professionally since 1993. At Ion Storm, he was lead designer of the
award winning game Deus Ex, which received a BAFTA in 2000, and
project director of Deus Ex: Invisible War. He has also worked at
Midway Games (Austin) as studio creative director, Multitude as lead
designer of Fireteam, and Origin Systems. Smith has spoken at various
game conferences and won the Game Design Challenge at GDC 2006 with
his concept "Peace Bomb," a game aimed at winning the Nobel Peace
Prize. In his most recent venture with Raphael Colantonio at Arkane
Studios, Smith has moved back into independent development and is
working on an unannounced project.
Meet the Speakers:
Eduardo Baraf
Director of Product Management at Tabula Digita, Inc.
Eduardo Baraf is a producer and designer in the game industry. Some of his favorite projects were Crisis Wolverine: Insurrection Green (PC), Field Commander (PSP), Stomping Grounds (PC), DimensionM: Evolver (PC/Mac), and Universe at War (PC/Xbox360). Baraf is a huge advocate for academic discourse on games and student and independent development. His first foray into game development was starting up University of Michigan's game development organization, Wolverine
Soft, followed by a stint in quality assurance at Atari, Inc., most notably working on
Unreal 2K4 (PC),
Sid Meier's Pirates (PC), and
Dragonshard (PC).
Brenda Brathwaite
Game Designer, Savannah College of Art and Design
Brenda Brathwaite is a game designer, game consultant, professor of game design at Savannah College of Art and Design, and holds a seat on the IGDA board of directors. She has worked on 22 internationally known titles, including Def Jam: Icon, Playboy: The Mansion, and the award-winning Wizardry series. Brenda is the longest, continuously serving woman in video game development today according to an August 2007 Next Generation article. Brenda is the chair and founder of the IGDA’s Sex SIG and has extensively studied and consulted on sexually themed video games. She has also written a book on the subject, Sex in Video Games, published by Thomson Learning in 2006. She is a passionate anti-censorship advocate and a proponent of parental rating awareness. In 2006, Brenda was named one of the 100 most influential women in the game industry by Next Generation magazine and her peers, and Nerve magazine cited her as a “New Radical” -- one of “the 50 artists, actors, authors, activists and icons who are making the world a more stimulating place.” In the spring of 2007, she was awarded the Presidential Fellowship at Savannah College of Art and Design to develop an exhibit and presentation titled, “What You Don't Know About Video Games...”
Jennifer Bullard
Senior Producer, AspyrMedia
Jennifer Bullard is a 10-year game industry veteran with more than10 shipped titles across 5 platforms. She has worked as a designer and producer throughout her career and is currently heading up the Development for Hire Studio at Aspyr Media in Austin.
Jill Duffy
Editor of GameCareerGuide.com
Jill Duffy is editor of GameCareerGuide.com, a web site that helps aspiring game developers learn how to get into the highly competitive profession. She is also senior contributing editor of Game Developer magazine and an occasional news writer for Gamasutra.com.
Gordon Dutrisac
Student Services Director, DigiPen Institute of Technology
Gordon Dutrisac has been the director of student affairs at DigiPen Institute of Technology since 2001. During this time, he has managed DigiPen's Career Services Department offering career guidance and preparation to DigiPen students and alumni, and hosting career workshops for those interested in careers in the game industry.
Paula Fellbaum
Vice President of Human Resources, Nexon Publishing NA
Paula Fellbaum has been involved in the business of computer gaming for nearly six years,first on the executive team at the then independent game studio Relic Entertainment Inc. As director of HR, she was a partner in developing Relic to its now almost 200 national and international employees.When Relic was acquired by THQ, Paula’s function evolved to provide tactical, forward-thinking advice to the 14 global external THQ studios as well as head up the company’s global Mergers and Acquisitions team. Today Paula is leads the HR efforts at Nexon’s newest studio Humanature.
Darius Kazemi
President of Orbus Gameworks
Darius Kazemi runs Orbus Gameworks, a small company that builds game play data metrics tools to help developers keep track of what their players are doing in-game. Before Orbus, Darius analyzed gameplay metrics at Turbine, Inc., for MMORPGs, including Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. He is also a technology officer for the IGDA Education SIG and a coordinator for the Boston IGDA Chapter. He writes about networking and how to break into the game industry on his blog, Tiny Subversions.
James Portnow
Game Designer and CCO of Divide by Zero Games
James Portnow is a game designer, formerly of Activision, and now at Divide by Zero Games, where he is also the founder and CCO. He is also a frequent contributor to GameCareerGuide.com and Next-gen.biz. He received his master's degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University.
Ed Roman
CEO, Ghostfire Games
Ed Roman is the CEO of Ghostfire Games, an Austin TX startup company focused on making downloadable games for the Nintendo Wii platform. He is an accomplished speaker and author and has written two books and has produced several games. He has architected the hiring process in several startup companies and has a wealth of knowledge of the interviewing and hiring process.
Brandon Sheffield
Senior Editor of Game Developer and Gamasutra.com
Brandon Sheffield is senior editor of Game Developer magazine and senior contributing editor to Gamastura.com. He founded the web site Insertcredit.com, and is a strong supporter of independent game development. He believes the children are our future -- we should teach them well and let them lead the way.
Brandon Van Slyke
Game Designer at Vicarious Visions
Brandon Van Slyke is a professional video game designer with experience designing commercial console games, mobile games, and casual downloadable web games, including Snapshot Adventures: Secret of Bird Island, which was nominated for an Independent Games Festival award in 2008. He studied game art and design at the Art Institute of Vancouver-Burnaby and was a member of the first graduating class of game design students at Vancouver Film School. An active outspoken member of the IGDA and lifelong game enthusiast, Van Slyke currently works as a game designer at Vicarious Visions (an Activision studio) in New York.
