Speakers

SUDA51

Grasshopper Manufacture Inc.
CEO / Game designer

Joined the videogame industry as a “planner” at Human Entertainment in 1993. After his work on Super Fire Pro Wresting and Moonlight Syndrome, he went independent and found Grasshopper Manufacture Inc. in 1998. He has worked on many titles as the director, scenario writer and game designer. Some of his major work includes Silver Case, killer7, No More Heroes series, Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer is Dead. His newest big project is No More Heroes 3 which was just announced recently.

Aleissia Laidacker

Magic Leap
Director of Developer Experience

Aleissia is a Technology and Design Director with 20 years experience in product design, AI, systems and game development. She is a leader in the Augmented Reality / Mixed Reality space, where she leads as Director of Developer Experience at Magic Leap. Her team works closely with the Developer community to drive the product design for tools, platforms and engine development at Magic Leap. Previous to Magic Leap, she was in game development, working at Ubisoft for 11 years, where she was AI Lead on the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

Aaryn Flynn

Improbable
General Manager North America

Aaryn Flynn is a games industry veteran with 20 years experience in the industry. Beginning his career at BioWare on titles such as Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Flynn became General Manager and shipped Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. He later oversaw production of Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Flynn is currently heading Improbable’s Canadian studio in Edmonton, Alberta, developing an online RPG using Improbable’s SpatialOS cloud platform. He also has MBAs from Queen’s University and Cornell University.

Chris Jurney

Oculus
AR/VR Head of Developer Strategy

Chris started in the game industry as a programmer, doing tours at Relic Entertainment, Kaos Studios, Double Fine, and Supergiant before joining Oculus. Now he leads the AV/VR Developer Strategy team at Facebook, covering developer relations and partnerships. In his free time, Chris does metalworking and has very strong opinions on how a grilled cheese is made.

Guðmundur Hallgrímsson (Mundi)

Klang Games
CEO

From fashion design and production, graphic design, and directing short films, to painting and performance art, Mundi has been running his own creative business since he was 19. In 2013, he co-founded Berlin-based game development studio, Klang Games, which is currently developing the MMO Simulation, Seed. Klang’s mission is to produce deep and meaningful massively multiplayer experiences that bring people closer together from all across the world.

Mike Wilson

Devolver Digital / Good Shepherd
Founding Partner

From his start at id Software to co-founding Ion Storm, Gathering of Developers, Gamecock Media, Devolver Digital and Good Shepherd, Mike has consistently done one thing: worked to tilt the scales in favor of independent developers. He and his longtime partners have done it like no others, on their own terms, without compromise, thusly enabling a great many independent artists to do the same and to become financially independent. As Mike reflects on his 25th year of active duty, he has a few choice things to say about where the industry has come from, is now, and where it needs to change.

Chris Remo

Valve
Game Designer, Composer, Writer

Chris Remo is a game designer, composer, and writer at Valve. He was a key creative contributor as game designer, composer, and audio director on Firewatch at Campo Santo. Previously, he worked in multidisciplinary roles on games including Battlefront II: X-Wing VR, The Cave, Gone Home, Thirty Flights of Loving, BioShock Infinite and more, independently and with Criterion Games, Double Fine Productions, and Irrational Games. Chris also co-founded the podcast network Idle Thumbs, where he has hosted and produced several popular podcasts.

Matt Turner

Electronic Arts
Narrative Creative Director

Matt Turner is a writer and director with over twelve years’ experience in the games industry. From shooters (Army of Two, Splinter Cell, Battlefield), to open world adventures (Assassin’s Creed Series), to sports narratives (FIFA), he’s sought to tell the best stories that only games are capable of, striving for ludo-narrative harmony and deep characters that compliment mechanics and draw players in. Matt moved from Quebec to Vancouver with his family in 2014 where he continues to ply his trade as a Narrative Creative Director for Electronic Arts. Matt’s been nominated for the Writer’s Guild of America and Writer’s Guild of Great Britain awards twice respectively, and won the Writer’s Guild of America’s Award for Excellence in Video game Writing. He’s also been nominated for a BAFTA and Game Critic’s Choice awards.

Poria Torkan

Bungie
Executive Producer Publishing

Poria started his career in 2006 as a tester at Publishing house Playlogic Entertainment in Amsterdam. Within a year, he transitioned into production and eventually moved to development at Guerrilla Games where he contributed to Horizon: Zero Dawn and the Killzone titles. Five years ago, he crossed the Atlantic to work at Bungie, his childhood dream studio. His current efforts are production, marketing and most recently, helping establish international self-publishing for the Destiny franchise.

Denis Dyack

Apocalypse
Founder & CEO

Denis Dyack, a video game industry veteran of more than 25 years, is the Founder and CEO of Apocalypse. Currently working on Deadhaus Sonata, an Online Free to Play, Action RPG where you play the undead fighting the living. Previously, Denis founded Silicon Knights, one of the world’s most successful independent developers. He created and led an unprecedented string of video game hits such as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Metal Gear: Solid Twin Snakes, and Too Human.

Emma Farrow

Kongregate
Senior Business Development Manager

Emma leads Business Development for Kongregate Publishing, well known as the birthplace of Idle and as the pub team behind such mobile hits as AdVenture Capitalist, Animation Throwdown, and Bit Heroes. Over the last 5 years, she has led developer relations, portfolio strategy, and expansion into new territories and platforms at Kongregate.

Raphael van Lierop

Hinterland
Founder/CEO & Creative Director

Raphael is the Founder, CEO, and Creative Director at Hinterland, and creator of the THE LONG DARK. Over the past 18 years, Raphael has written, directed, produced, & designed for several award-winning titles including Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, Space Marine, and Far Cry 3. In 2012, he founded Vancouver-based Hinterland, an independent studio described by Wired Magazine as “absolutely riddled with triple-A veterans”. It’s first title, THE LONG DARK, has become a worldwide phenomenon, selling over 3M copies in over 190 countries and earning 90%+ positive player reviews on all platforms.

Chet Faliszek

Stray Bombay Company
CEO / Co-Founder

CEO and Co-founder of Stray Bombay Company, a Seattle based studio working on an unannounced co-operative game. Previously Chet worked at Valve for 12 years where he was project lead on the Left 4 Dead series and writer on various franchises including Half-Life, Portal, and TeamFortress. He also helped relaunch the Counter-Strike series with CS:GO. He spent his final years at Valve visiting and helping studios around the world launch the HTC Vive.

Dr. Patrick Finn

University of Calgary
Head of Computational Media Design

Dr. Patrick Finn studies everything but focuses on one thing: techne. He has more education than is advisable, yet won’t stop studying, so some sort of intervention seems inevitable. Finn has worked as a professional programmer, musician, writer, designer, actor, corporate leader, and built and sold a media company. He has lectured, taught, and led workshops throughout North America, The United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, and China. He works with artists, athletes, business leaders, governments, private and public companies, and individuals to improve performance (aka techne).

Daichi Saito

Why So Serious?
CEO

Daichi joined Dwango in 2011 in order to help indie creators achieve their dreams. He quickly became affiliated with the web magazine DenFamiNico Gamer and became its deputy chief editor. In 2015, he led the creation of the Game Magazine, a web platform to select, co-create and publish indie games. As a game editor, he helped solo creator Makoto Sanada build Angel of Death, an RPG Maker Story game, into a hit cross media franchise (books, anime, events). In 2018, he founded Vaka, Inc. and produced with Team LadyBug the critically acclaimed metroidvania Touhou Luna Nights. His latest project, Gensokyo Night Festival was released in early access as the first title of his new company, “Why So Serious?”.

Zak Parrish

Epic Games
Technical BizDev

Zak has spent the last seven years at Epic Games focused on helping developers ship their games with Unreal Engine. From developing in-depth tutorials, helping with Epic’s games and special projects, all the way to hands-on work with game studios, Zak works to make sure Unreal projects are shipping at maximum potential. As a part of Epic’s Unreal Engine business development team, he gets to work directly with a wide variety of studios to help get their Unreal projects from initial proposal to on players’ screens.

Mary Moran

Calgary Economic Development
President & CEO

Mary became President and CEO of Calgary Economic Development in 2015. Under her leadership there has been greater focus on Calgary’s competitiveness in the new economy; including the areas of talent development, innovation, placemaking, and the business environment. At Calgary Economic Development, Mary led teams that created the city’s promotional brand Calgary. Be Part of the Energy, the award-winning 2013 flood recovery campaign YYC is OPEN, and oversaw development of two iterations of the city’s economic strategy, Calgary Building on our Energy and Calgary in the New Economy. Mary is the CEO of the $100 million Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund and recently led Calgary’s effort to bid on the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games as the CEO of Calgary 2026 Bid Corporation.

Ante Vrdelja

Croteam
Chief Marketing Officer

Ante is developing marketing strategies and leading the execution of marketing programs at Croteam, Croatia’s powerhouse studio behind Serious Sam and The Talos Principle. As a co-founder and Secretary General of CGDA – Croatian Game Developers Association, he established a network of regional game dev studios and is working towards global recognition and local support for the growing industry. Una persona famosa. Muy importante.

Lesley Phord-Toy

Ubisoft
Corporate Affairs Director

With a foundation in engineering from the University of Waterloo, Lesley Phord-Toy’s 20-year career has ranged from software development for visual effects at Sony Electronics in Los Angeles, to video game development and production in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. A founding member of Ubisoft Toronto, Lesley helped to grow the studio from 5 to 800 people and has led projects and teams on some of Ubisoft’s biggest blockbuster franchises including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, and Watch Dogs. In her current role as Corporate Affairs Director, Lesley is responsible for overseeing Ubisoft’s strategic corporate initiatives related to government, institutions, and industry partners in Central and Western Canada.

Andy Moore

absurd:joy
CTO

You may know Andy from Radial Games, theMOR, SteamBirds, or Fantastic Contraption. He’s a programmer, designer and founder/CEO for the last 20 years. He made more than 100 games, hired and managed some big teams, been through some exciting acquisitions, and won some big awards! Since 2014, he’s been working at the bleeding edge of XR, helping the industry re-invent everything from UX to tech in the medium. He’s also active in the broader community (teaching, mentoring, conferences) — the only thing he loves more than creating is helping others create (Andy: “OK, that’s partly a lie… I do love me some airplanes.”)

Chelsea Hallick

Calgary Economic Development
Business Development Manager Interactive Digital Media

Chelsea is an award-winning digital media professional, who is leading both the Digital Media and Video Game & Immersive Technology strategies for Calgary. Over the last decade, she has worked in a variety of industries with a focus on digital-first experiences. As a career marketer and business development manager she is currently engaged in building economic success and a strong community for the interactive digital media sector in Calgary.

Nikolai Petrov

Saber Interactive
Senior Rendering Programmer

Nikolai Petrov is a Senior Rendering Programmer at Saber Interactive, based in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. You can find him pushing the visual quality and improving the performance of Saber’s own game engine. His main professional interests include various shading/material technologies and CPU/GPU optimization techniques. He has worked in the game industry for almost 8 years.

Dave Chan

Quantum Integrity Software
Sound Designer

Dave Chan ended up working at BioWare in the IT department after getting his Microsoft certification in 1999. The owners offered him a chance to make placeholder sounds for MDK2.
They liked the sounds so much they wanted him to do the whole game. The rest, as they say, is history.
In 2004 he struck out on his own to form Giant Sandbox. He worked on AAA titles like Prey, Splinter Cell and Mass Effect as well as smaller indie projects and casual games. He was asked by Aaron Marks to contribute to the second edition of The Complete Guide to Game Audio and contributed a section describing his experiences and process. Recently he was the Audio Director of Hinterland Games working on their first title “The Long Dark” and is currently working on the upcoming game Dead Matter.

Martin Middleton

Funomena
Co-Founder / CTO

Martin Middleton is the Co-Founder and CTO of Funomena, an independent game studio based in San Francisco. Prior to Funomena, he was an engineer at thatgamecompany, where he contributed to the games Flow, Flower, and Journey. Martin is interested in the influence of technology on communities, both online and in-person.

Matt Conte

Oculus
Head of Developer Relations Engineering

With nearly 20 years in the game industry under his belt as a programmer, Matt and his team help developers ship their titles on all Oculus platforms at the highest quality. Prior to Oculus, he was engine programmer at Activision’s Vicarious Visions, maintaining a proprietary cross-platform game engine and toolset that powered the Skylanders franchise, and the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon HD remasters.

Ste Curran

Game designer, writer, broadcaster

Ste Curran is a game designer, writer and broadcaster. He’s perpetually working on games he can’t talk about, just like you, so instead of breaking NDAs he writes lengthy monologues about love, death and videogames, and Kills The Games Industry over and over again exclusively at Reboot. His radio show, One Life Left, is the longest-running videogame radio show in the world and he hosts Maraoke, the amazing modded karaoke night. Taylor Swift replied to him 13/3/2013.

Julie Heyde

VRUnicorns
Co-Founder / Game Designer

Julie Heyde is part of @VRUnicorns/@FlatPonies and is stuck somewhere in-between VR & flat games dependent on her mood. You can find Julie in the surf, pool or around her horse Shayla + kitty Dia von Dragonslayer when she’s not busy making quirky games in her unicorn onesie. The kitty that is. She makes games too.

David Lightbown

Ubisoft
User Experience Director (Technology Group)

David has been working professionally in the games industry for almost 20 years. He has spent the majority of his career focused on tools development and pipeline productivity. David speaks at conferences around the world on the topic of applying user experience techniques in the games industry. He is an Autodesk Master Award recipient, and is the author of: “Designing the User Experience of Game Development Tools“. David currently holds the position of User Experience Director for the Technology Group at Ubisoft Montréal.

Hannah Gamiel

Cyan
Development Director

Hannah Gamiel is the Development Director at Cyan, Inc., creators of award-winning games Myst, Riven, and Obduction. She’s spent the last six years of her career as a software engineer working on titles by Cyan, Thekla, and Funomena, and now leads the development of Cyan’s next 2D & VR title Firmament.

Jack Attridge

Flavourworks
Creative Director / Co-Founder

After a history in audio design, filmmaking, and games design across studios such as EA, Rebellion, Mind Candy, and 22cans, Jack co-founded Flavourworks with the goal of merging the worlds of film and games like never before. The studio’s first title ERICA was published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PS4 in August 2019. The studio’s in-house, multi-platform Touch Video technology enables Flavourworks to make tactile environments in a seamless, cinematic, Live Action world. The studio has built a unique approach to marrying story and design, as well as a production workflow that merges game development with high-end filmmaking.

Cy Wise

absurd:joy
Founder

Cy is Founder and Live Raccoon at absurd:joy, a collection of curious humans focused on the intersection of XR and play. With 15+ years of games industry tenure, Cy has most recently helped to run and grow VR game studio Owlchemy Labs, creators of award winning Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: VR. Her expertise spans VR design, human-centric play, and building / maintaining culture within organizations and communities. When left unattended, she also writes tons of jokes and dialog for all of her projects.
Before VR rocked her world, she survived AAA MMO game development cycles mostly unscathed. Emerging somehow with her unfettered positivity intact, she still fervently believes in joy and play and can be seen in the wild gesturing enthusiastically about the future.

Christopher Bain

BioWare
Senior Director of Business Operations

In over 10 years with BioWare, Chris has contributed to the product roadmap, brand strategy and digital economy planning for almost a half dozen award winning games including Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. He also oversees a team that drives consumer products, entertainment, and long term player engagement for BioWare’s premier gaming IPs, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Anthem. Prior to joining BioWare, Chris worked in Product Management, Corporate Development, received his Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from the University of Alberta and his MBA from Queen’s University.

Richard Rouse III

Creative Director, Designer, Writer & Consultant

Richard Rouse III is a creative director, designer, writer and consultant whose most recent title is the action-infiltration/narrative game The Church in the Darkness. Past projects include The Suffering, State of Decay, Quantum Break, Drakan: The Ancients’ Gates, Damage Incorporated and Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis, and he has consulted on numerous other titles. Previously he was a Design Director/Lead at Microsoft Studios, Ubisoft Montreal, Midway and Surreal Software. Rouse wrote the popular book Game Design: Theory & Practice and is a frequent speaker on game design and interactive storytelling at conferences and universities.

Tom Ohle

Evolve PR / Terminals.io
Director

Founder and co-owner of leading video game marketing agency, Evolve PR, Tom has been promoting video games for nearly 20 years, working with industry stalwarts like CD PROJEKT RED, Epic Games, Funcom, Paradox, SEGA/ATLUS, and many more. Tom and his team have always tried to stay one step ahead in a rapidly-changing industry, but amid unprecedented competition, declining influence of traditional media, and streamers and YouTubers focusing on an ever-smaller number of releases, the future of game promotion is entirely unclear. Bad news for someone who’s made a living in PR?

Austin Wintory

Composer

Grammy-nominated and two-time British Academy Award-winning composer Austin Wintory diverse career has straddled the worlds of games, films and concert music. Austin’s soundtrack for the hit PS3 game Journey became the first-ever Grammy-nominated videogame score, also winning two British Academy Awards and many others! Austin’s score for the earlier game flOw made him the youngest composer ever to receive a British Academy Award nomination and also won him a wide variety of other game industry accolades, Since Journey’s release Austin’s subsequent scores to The Banner Saga, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and ABZU have each earned BAFTA nominations. He collaborates regularly with orchestras and chamber ensembles around the world.

Jordan Logan

AMD
Sr. DevTech Engineer

Jordan Logan is a Sr. Developer Technology Engineer on the AMD Game Engineering team working directly with game developers ensuring their games have kick-ass performance and look great on AMD GPUs. Jordan graduated from DigiPen with a focus on graphics and mathematics, he then got his start in the industry at CONFETTI Interactive before joining AMD. He is based in the AMD Bellevue office located in the greater Seattle area.

Carla Rylance

The Coalition (Xbox Game Studios)
External Development Manager

Carla has been focused on External Development for Video Games since 2009 at studios such as nDreams, Imaginati Studios, and Lionhead (Microsoft Studios). In 2017, Carla acquired an External Development Manager role in Vancouver at The Coalition (XBOX Game Studios) managing due diligence, on-boarding, and maintenance of external teams across the world. Carla’s passion for process, team management, and KPIs has led her to host various talks at XDS conferences, and she has been a member of the XDS Advisory Committee since September 2018.

SWERY / Hidetaka Suehiro

White Owls Inc.
CEO

Swery is one of Japans representative indie developers. He’s been working in the game industry for 24 years, and continues to create unique, spirited work based on the slogan: From Osaka to all of YOU around the world. His representative works include Deadly Premonition, D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die, Spy Fiction, among others. His newest game MISSING: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories has received high praise for its anthropological value, such as being nominated for the Games for Impact category in the Game Awards 2018. In 2019, it won 2 NAVGTR Awards, one award at Japan’s biggest indie game show, BitSummit, and an Etna Comics Award at the biggest award ceremony in southern Italy. His next game, The Good Life is scheduled for release in 2019 and he has just announced that he is working intensively on Deadly Premonition 2 as game director!

Harry Krueger

Housemarque
Game Director

Starting his career as a coder with an undying passion for game design, Harry’s appreciation of classic gameplay values made him a perfect fit for Housemarque, where he has played his part in keeping the Arcade spirit alive for the past 10+ years. In recent years, he acted as Lead Programmer for the award-winning PS4 launch title Resogun, and later went on to direct its two expansions: Heroes and Defenders. He made his debut as Game Director with the explosive shooter Nex Machina in 2017, which became the studio’s most critically acclaimed title to date. Currently Harry is at the helm of Housemarque’s first foray into the AAA space, acting as Game Director for their biggest and most ambitious project yet.

Tramell Ray Isaac

illfonic
Studio Art Director

With 25 years of experience Tramell has had the pleasure of working on a number of notable titles; Fallout, Fallout 2, Ice Wind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 2, PlanetSide, PlanetSide 2, Duke Nukem Forever, and Lawbreakers. Traemell is also widely known as designer behind creation of Fallout’s original Vault Boy. He is now working with illfonic as the Studio Art Director to bring to market their upcoming title, Predator: Hunting Grounds.

Patrice Désilets

Panache Digital
Co-Founder / Creative Director

Patrice is at the head of Panache Digital games, an independent Montreal-based studio he co-founded in 2014. With close to 22 years of game design under the belt, he his mostly known for his work on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and as the creative director behind the global success franchise Assassin’s Creed from his years at Ubisoft Montreal. His first independent and highly expected title Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey on the evolution of humankind is nearing its completion and it will be released in August of 2019.

Rand Miller

Cyan
CEO / Co-Founder

Rand Miller comes from the trailblazer end of the video game industry – meaning he has gray hair. Rand and his brother Robyn founded Cyan about 30 years ago with the release of The Manhole – an award winning world for kids. Cyan has created everything from small mobile games to MMOs, including the blockbusters Myst and Riven. Even though Myst is now officially a museum-piece, he optimistically feels that his best years are ahead. Please humor him.

Kevin Flynn

Mobile Game Partners
CEO / Co-Founder

Kevin has over 10 years of mobile gaming experience and has worked in publishing and M&A for companies such as Crowdstar (acquired by Glu), Kabam (acquired by Netmarble), and Z2Live (acquired by King). Kevin has also helped dozens of mobile games successfully launch by working with Apple and Google to receive over 150 front page features driving hundreds of millions of installs. He has worked on over a dozen Top 10 grossing games so far in his mobile gaming career. Kevin also created one of the biggest viral videos of all time called “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” – last estimated by Time Magazine to have been viewed over 1 billion times.

Keith Warner

New World Interactive / TAG
President / Co-Founder

Keith has been in the gaming industry for the past 8 years serving initially as a consultant to the founder of New World Interactive, Jeremy Blum, then as the company’s CFO and now in the combined role of President and CFO. Keith is known as the ‘iceberg spotter’ on the team because of his ability to help New World successfully navigate the delicate balance between creativity and financial considerations. He was instrumental in bringing New World to Canada, and specifically Calgary and is one of the founders of the recently launched gaming incubator, Thin Air Games (TAG). Working with the other founders, Keith plans to grow TAG into a venture studio with a vision to incubate as many as 50 game teams / projects over the coming 3-4 years.

Dino Patti

Coherence / JUMPSHIP
CEO / Executive Producer

With 15 years of experience in the games industry Dino Patti, has made a name for himself. Most notably he is known for his role in co-founding, scaling and running Playdead for almost 10 years while they developed and published the multi award winning titles LIMBO and INSIDE. Dino has had an advising role in several game and game related companies. In 2017 Dino founded JUMPSHIP with Chris Olsen, where the promising title Somerville is brought to life. Also recently he has Co-Founded Coherence, which he is a CEO of, a company that aims to democratize online game development.

Thomas van den Berg

noio
Developer and Designer

Thomas van den Berg started to explore game development in the early 2010’s. His first goal was to animate a horse. From this spawned new goals, such as putting somebody on top of the horse, and giving them things to do and interact with. The person became a monarch. The land became populated with people, one thing kept leading to another, and soon the minimalistic strategy game Kingdom was born. The Kingdom series has since soared and exceeded 4 million units. Being a creative individual, Thomas has continued to explore the medium and lately been working on a project called Garbage Country.

Kate Edwards

Global Game Jam / Geogrify
Executive Director / CEO

Kate Edwards is the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which pioneered content culturalization, and is the former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). In addition to being an outspoken advocate who serves in several advisory/board roles, she is a geographer, writer, and corporate strategist. Following 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted on many game and non-game projects for BioWare, Google, Amazon, and many other companies. Fortune magazine named her as one of the “10 most powerful women” in the game industry in 2013 and in 2014 was named by GamesIndustry.biz as one of their six People of the Year. In 2018, she was honored with Reboot Develop Blue’s annual Hero Award and also presented with IndieCade’s annual Game Changer Award. She is also profiled in the December 2018 publication Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play.

Victor Malineau

Consultant

Victor joined the industry as part of the Might & Magic creative direction team at Ubisoft in 2013. He helped shape up the fantasy universe of the various titles from the RPG Might & Magic X, to the critically acclaimed card game Duel of Champions. From 2015, he kept following the new Might & Magic projects as Content Manager and brand expert which led to the successful releases of Might & Magic Era of Chaos and Heroes Dynasty, hit Chinese mobile games. Currently based in Japan, he launched his independent creative services consultancy and business development in 2018. He is currently providing exciting new projects with both story writing and art direction and promoting Japanese indie games around the world.

Brenda Bailey

DigiBC
Executive Director

Brenda Bailey (Nee Gershkovitch) is the Executive Director of DigiBC, the Video Game Industry Association in Vancouver Canada. Bailey is the past C.O.O. of Deep Fried Entertainment and the past CEO of Silicon Sisters interactive, a women-owned, female-focused studio building top quality games for women and girls. Launched in May 2010 the studio successfully introduced a tween series called School26 to iOS, Android, PC and Mac. She is a Founder of Women in Games Vancouver, a past board member of the Canadian Video Game Awards and Past Advisory Board member of GDC Canada. Bailey has spoken at many conferences around the world including the Montreal International Games Summit and the Nordic Games Summit.

Stephane Cotichini

81monkeys
CEO

Stephane Cotichini is the founder and CEO of Vancouver-based indie game studio 81monkeys, and Senior Associate at Gender Intelligence Group (GIG). He has spoken at numerous events including the California Women’s Conference. For the past 10 years, Stephane has worked with Fortune 500 companies to bring gender diversity and inclusion into the workplace. Stephane is passionate about the important role Gender Intelligence plays in transforming workplace cultures into ones that are inclusive. A video game designer by trade, Stephane has worked specifically with technology giants such as Zappos and Twitter to bring this transformation to the traditional “Boys’ Club” culture of the technology industry. Along with his role at GIG, Stephane has founded 5 companies. Stephane is also a father of four boys, and believes that the best contribution he can make to the world is to raise gender intelligent young men.

Elliot Christian

Serious Labs
Director of Art

Elliot is a 15 year veteran of the Canadian Game industry, starting out at Pseudo Interactive in Ontario, and then moving to Bioware in Alberta, and recently Serious Labs. Over that time he has modeled vehicles and characters, created VFX, and lead teams across franchises including Star Wars, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. He draws on this experience to guide the Serious Labs Art Department to create an immersive experience in our VR simulation and training products.

Damir Slogar

Big Blue Bubble
CEO

Damir has spent over 30 years in the game industry and been credited for over 100 games across 20 different platforms going back to the early days of the ZX Spectrum & Commodore 64. In the 90’s he produced and hosted a live TV show devoted to video games and shortly thereafter started a successful video game magazine. At the turn of the century, he joined DICE where he worked on the Battlefield series. In 2004 Damir founded Big Blue Bubble, a Canadian studio that has produced numerous mobile hits like Burn The Rope and My Singing Monsters.

Chris Wren

Electronic Arts
Senior Manager

Chris is a 16-year veteran of Electronic Arts, beginning his tenure as a Development Director for Sports and Action titles. Chris is a member of EA’s XDI team, supporting the external development needs of the organization. Chris acts as Chair for the XDS Advisory Committee, which ensures excellence in the delivery of the internationally acclaimed XDS event. Chris has held a board positions with Vancouver Centre for Entertainment Arts, ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver, and Vancouver Film School. He has delivered sessions at games industry events in the UK, UAE, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia and Russia.

Jose Luis Palacios Vives

Oculus
Developer Strategy

Jose studied International Relations, with a specialty in hyper-connected systems. And then never used any of it. Designed PM software until bored, decided games were life (games were love) joined a budding Kerbal team as Lead Producer and Designer. Later founding Seven Headed Studios, which Valve quickly devoured, he led a game team and found his other true love, helping indies. One day Oculus beckoned and Jose saw the future in the Quest’s cameras.There Jose leads sourcing and funding for third party, where’s he’s found a happy life full of game development, cat herding and general mischief.

Matthew Handrahan

GamesIndustry.biz
Editor-in-Chief

Matthew has been writing about the games business for 12 years, for a variety of publications aimed at both consumers and developers. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of GamesIndustry.biz, an essential website covering both the art and business of video games. A true lover of open-worlds and RPGs, Matthew has patiently waited seven long years for the arrival of Red Dead Redemption 2, a wait that finally ended in the late 2018. Regardless of his patience, hopefully the next long-awaited title will come in his hands a bit sooner.

Lyndsey Gallant

Sonderlust Studio
Art Director / Co-Founder

Lyndsey is the Art Director, UI/UX Designer, & Co-Founder of Sonderlust Studios, a new independent game studio creating an unconventional systems-driven narrative title. Lyndsey spent the previous years of her career visually designing and art directing a variety of mobile games that were enjoyed by over 50 million players.

Justin Berenbaum

Xsolla
Vice President of Strategy

Justin Berenbaum has more than 25 years of strategic development experience in the video game industry, with an emphasis on emerging markets. His career spans through publishing, international business development, sales, customer support, game development, strategy, and licensing for game developers and publishers, and related technology companies. Currently Vice President of Strategy at Xsolla, Berenbaum holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is currently a member of the Global Game Jam Board of Directors, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the IGDA (International Game Developers Association). Justin is also a former Music Director and Radio DJ.

Thierry Boulanger

Sabotage
CEO / Creative Director

Thierry is mostly known as the designer and writer of The Messenger, Sabotage’s first title released in August 2018. After gathering experience on the production floor as a lead gameplay programmer for 8 years, he felt ready to dive into the indie life and co-founded Sabotage in 2016, where he would bring to life the games he first imagined as a kid. An advocate for personal growth, he strongly believes that embracing one’s vulnerability is the best way to fuel the creative process.

Alex Schwartz

absurd:joy
Founder + Janitor

Previously, Alex founded, built, and ran the Google-acquired VR game studio Owlchemy Labs. Alex led the creation of award winning titles such as Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: VR. His passion for design, art, and engineering led him to a role where he did just about everything until he could hire someone better than him to take it off his plate, hence ‘janitor’. As an advisor to GDC, DICE, and BAFTA Alex plays an active role in the community but when he’s finally back home in Boston, he can be found juggling or smoking various exotic meats.

Jeff Hilbert

Starting Point Games
Advisor / Games Industry Entrepreneur

Jeff Hilbert is internationally recognized as one the top business executives in the game industry and was recognized in Bloomberg Business Week Bloomberg Businessweek Interview for his work in the gaming space. He has been involved in securing over USD $1,150,000,000 for game project based game funding, studio funding, distribution partnerships and tools development. He is credited with founding DDM which he and his Partners built into the world’s largest Agency focused in the Video Gaming space. In late 2015 Jeff sold DDM. Remaining as a Board Member and recently becoming an Advisor.

Gordon Van Dyke

Raw Fury
Co-founder and Director of Kingdom

Gordon Van Dyke has a background in production and design with more than 10 years of experience at Electronic Arts, DICE and Paradox Interactive, before joining Raw Fury In 2015. As a co-founder he helped shape Raw Fury into a burgeoning boutique indie games publisher. The first game published by Raw Fury was Kingdom, which Gordon in addition to his production duties also leaned into with design and balancing during the development. Besides leading the strategy of forging the Kingdom series into long lasting franchise, he also took the role as Game Director and Designer leading the entire development effort of Kingdom Two Crowns, the latest entry in the series

Bruce Wooden

Oculus
Content Launch Manager

An active VR industry evangelist since 2013, Bruce co-founded both AltspaceVR and Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR). His background is in UX, Product Management, Dev Community, and Game Design. He has played 1000s of VR experiences, administered 100s of VR demos and playtests, and currently does content and publishing review for the Oculus Store. Bruce is known in the industry as a passionate advocate for user experience and developer success.

Arseny Kapoulkine

Roblox
Technical Fellow

Arseny Kapoulkine has worked on game technology for the past decade. Having worked on rendering, physics simulation, language runtimes, multithreading and many other areas, he is still discovering exciting problems in game development that require low-level thinking. After helping ship many titles on PS3 including several FIFA games, he joined Roblox in 2012 and has been working on the in-house engine ever since, helping young game developers achieve their dreams.

Jon Goldman

Greycroft / Skybound
Venture Partner / Managing Partner

Based in Los Angeles, Jon is Managing is a Board Partner at Greycroft and General Partner at GC Tracker, a seed fund focused on interactive Entertainment. Jon is also a Partner at Skybound, an entertainment company best known for The Walking Dead and other top IPs. Previously, Jon served as board member and CEO for two portfolio companies at Jerusalem Venture Partners in videogames and online video. Jon was a founder, Chairman and CEO of Foundation 9 Entertainment, the largest independent videogame developer in the world at the time. Foundation 9’s studios created hundreds of videogames based on top tier global brands such as Star Wars, The Matrix, The Simpsons and Lord of the Rings. Jon started his career at a boutique investment bank focused on US-Asia strategic deals.

Graham McAllister

Games UX Strategist

Graham helps teams by bringing rigour to the definition and evaluation of the player experience. His process for systematizing how teams think about their game and the player aims to address perhaps the biggest issue in game development – namely that the process is broken. Previously he was founder of Player Research, a UX Research studio offering user research services worldwide and was acquired by Keywords Studios in 2016. Since leaving Player Research he has been working on a system which helps teams codify the player experience, and deliver it.

Justin Lassen

Nihil Studios
Composer / Sound Designer

Composer. Remixer. Sound Designer. Visionary. With over 20 years of experience in the music, film, tech, and video game industries, Justin is currently working as an award-winning spatial audio designer for VR/AR/XR projects. He has lent his production talents to iZotope, Cakewalk, Intel, DTS, Sony, Disney, Konami, Skybound, Hasbro, Lakeshore, Interplay, the United States Department of Defense, and many more.

Ivan Trancik

SuperScale
CEO

As a CEO of SuperScale, Ivan pioneered a white-label publishing approach to help talented game developers to get invested, improve, market and scale their games under their own brand. Together with his team he has worked to launch and scale over 100 games with over 2 billion downloads – growth partners of SuperScale include fast growing game studios like Fingersoft, Frogmind (in partnership with Supercell), BoomBit, DoDreams, Traplight, Paradox Interactive and others. Some of the more notable games are Hill Climb Racing 2 and recent launches of Badland Brawl, Tanks A Lot and Darts Club. Likes pineapples with pizzas on top.

Nels Anderson

Sonderlust Studios
Creative Director / Co-Founder

Nels is the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Sonderlust Studios, a new independent studio creating an unconventional systems-driven narrative game. Previously he was the lead designer on Mark of the Ninja at Klei Entertainment and then helped create Firewatch with Campo Santo. He is probably the only Canadian game developer who was born and raised in Wyoming.

Hendrik Lesser

remote control productions / EGDF
CEO / President

Serial entrepreneur Hendrik is well known as CEO of the international production house remote control productions and President of the European Game Developers Federation. After starting out in the industry as a Producer and Product Manager he has been building a family of independent development studios throughout Europe for over 13 years, which today consists of 13 teams in five countries with more than 270 passionate game makers. Hendrik is also a co-founder and Executive Producer of Chimera Entertainment, the 60 heads strong development studio behind the AAA mobile productions Angry Birds Evolution and Angry Birds Epic (100+ million downloads) and a yet to be announced title. Besides his roles as CEO and producer, Hendrik also is an avid lobbyist for the political and academic acceptance of video games as goods of cultural value.

Greg Hart

Thin Air Labs
Partner

Greg Hart is a partner in the innovation ecosystem firm, Thin Air Labs, that is launching Thin Air Games (TAG) to grow a gaming sector out of Calgary. He is also the co-founder of a fledgling unschool – Inception University and EvolveU – that are aimed at producing cross-sectoral design competence applied to gaming, machine learning, full stack development and more. Greg has a formal background in kinesiology, ergonomics and critical thinking and has presented papers and workshops around the world. The first game he played was Pong and he was really good. When he wants to get yelled at, he referees lacrosse.

Kassi O'Connor

Glu Mobile
Director of Outside Services

Kassi began her career in gaming over 10 years ago at Griptonite Games (F9E) as an Outsourcing Coordinator. Since then, she’s worked on over 75 titles, been a Producer, and expanded the outsourcing & localization department to 11 studios worldwide. As an Outside Services Director, she currently runs all outside services for Glu Mobile, including external development, localization, and independent contractors. She enjoys working with external teams and implementing them so they feel ownership of the game they are working on. She’s presented at numerous international and US conferences.

Dan Luffey

Dangen entertainment
Overlord of Localization

Dan has built up over 10 years of localization and translation experience in fields such as literature, manga, and of course, video games. Aside his love for awesome games, Dan is passionate and dedicated to giving localization (and localizers) the kind of environment and care that he’s always wanted to experience as a localizer himself. Dan believes that the quality of one’s work environment greatly affects the quality of one’s work, so he utilizes honest, direct communication between developers and localizers in order to allow everyone’s voice to be heard.

Jakub Dvorský

Amanita Design
CEO / Creative Director

Jakub is the founder, game designer and creative director in Amanita Design, Czech based independent studio best known for games like Machinarium, Botanicula, Samorost series, CHUCHEL or Pilgrims. The studio is currently working on three upcoming games.

Grayson Chalmers

Epic Games
Art Outsoutce Manager

Grayson has been in games for the last 14 years with a background as a 3d art generalist, a character animator, a producer, and then helping to build epic outsourcing pipelines. He has worked on titles ranging from DC Universe Online while at SOE, Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel at EA, to Overwatch and Starcraft: Remastered while at Blizzard Entertainment, and then at Riot Games working as the Art Outsource Director for the studio. He is now working at Epic Games managing the art outsourcing on Fortnite.

Masatoshi Tokuoka

Writer / Game Journalist

As a game reviewer and games media journalist Tokuoka-san contributed a lot to 4Gamer.net (one of the largest online PC games media in Japan) for almost 10 years. Also he has been a columns writer for Command Magazine Japanese Ed. (table top wargame magazine). Recently, as a game journalist, he edited a book named Games Now. 17 writers with special skills and knowledges (like Mr. Sho Sato) contributed articles, to make a “text book for beginners”. It covers range of topic from game-economics to VR technology. As a game story writer, he participated in designing a main scenario for Sen-no-Kaizoku (SEGA).

Rami Ismail

Vlambeer
CEO

Rami Ismail is the Business & Development Guy at Vlambeer, a Dutch independent game studio known best for Nuclear Throne, Wasteland Kings, Ridiculous Fishing, Super Crate Box, LUFTRAUSERS, GUN GODZ, Serious Sam: The Random Encounter & Radical Fishing. Believing sharing knowledge openly is the cornerstone of independent development, Rami has spoken on a variety of subjects at dozens of game events around the world. His current big project is organizing Gamedev.world, a truly unique online game developers conference as well as working on his latest game.

Nikola Cavic

GameBiz Consulting / SGA
CEO / Chairman

Nikola Čavić is CEO at the GameBiz Consulting, a boutique business consulting firm for the video games industry. Nikola sits on the board of directors in a few companies and is also a Chairman at the Serbian Games Association, which he founded in 2018. Previously, he served seven years as the Head of Business Development at Nordeus and he spent five years with the CCP Games where he was responsible for global distribution of EVE Online. During his career, Nikola was involved in a number of international projects with global leaders in the sports & games industry

Tobias Kopka

Ludicious / Reboot
Festival Director / Head of Community Relations

Tobias is experienced international networker and program director, with a long-term background in the demoscene from the 90s on. Nowadays he is Festival Director of Ludicious Zürich Game Festival and Head of Community Relations at Reboot Develop keeping relations to everybody in shape. Before joining the Reboot mission Tobias has been heading the Conference & Program Direction of Quo Vadis, Berlin for more than five years and was also a major force behind Respawn – Gathering of Game Developers in Cologne, also supporting the inception of devcom, to name only a few conferences and professional events he curated with his vast background in tech, art and science for more than 10 years.

Doug North Cook

Chatham University / Fallingwater Institute Reseacher / Professor

Doug is a designer, professor, and researcher focused on immersive technology, experience design, and accessibility. He is the founding faculty for the Immersive Media programs at Chatham University, lead instructor for the Immersive Design Residencies at Fallingwater, and is in production on new VR game focused on using embodied audio as a narrative tool. To better understand embodiment in games, human ability, and the nature of play, Doug is currently exploring a variety of architectural, furniture, and technology projects that play with the changing nature of what it means to be human.

Derek Czerkaski

New World Interactive
Head of Production

Derek entered the industry as a freelance writer when he was 18 years old, writing for numerous games media websites such as MMORPG.com. Over the past 6 years, Derek has worked with numerous AAA players in the industry, including Funcom, Epic Games, Sony Bend Studio, and Ubisoft, in various capacities. Most recently, he served Tencent as a Game Investment Analyst, where he evaluated hundreds of developers and studios across the globe. He recently joined New World Interactive to serve as their Head of Production, and will also be working with Thin Air Games as an advisor for their game incubation program.

Andrew Czarnietzki

Only By Midnight Ltd.
Co-Founder / Lead Developer

Andrew has worn many hats over his 15 years’ experience in the games industry, mostly those of Designer and Programmer. He’s a co-founder of Serious Labs and continues to Design VR Simulators by day (at least most days). By night, he’s the lead developer for the aptly named Only By Midnight – which is what happens when a side project becomes real! Only By Midnight’s upcoming game Curved Space is the culmination of Andrew’s first-hand experience of helping grow a company from a computer in his parent’s’ basement to a world-class development team. Try Curved Space in the Indie Expo Area!

Alexander Fernandez

Streamline Media Group
CEO and Co-Founder

Alexander is CEO and Co-Founder of Streamline Media Group, Inc., Southeast Asia’s leading independent video game developer and development services provider focused on the intersection of media, entertainment, and technology. A true entrepreneur, Alexander and his three co-founders bootstrapped Streamline for 18 years from its humble roots in an apartment in Amsterdam into a global games brand across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Its divisions, Streamline Studios, Streamframe, All Pixels, and Streamline Games, have contributed to critically acclaimed entertainment franchises including Street Fighter V, Final Fantasy XV, James Bond, and Avatar. The studios latest original IP, Bake ‘N Switch is highly anticipated and was nominated for Game of the Show at Gamescom.

Joe Rozek

Arm
Developer Relations Engineer

Joe Rozek has been working in the gaming and smart toy space for 7 years. Filling roles as a Technical Artist and a Developer, Joe has worked on optimization, tools, and graphics for a cornucopia of shipped titles. Having recently joined Arm, Joe is working to help deliver Arm technologies to developers. He believes that the future of mobile hardware will be determined by content creators and great content.

Andrej Levenski

Gamepires
Technical Director / Co-Founder

Andrej is an industry veteran of 16 years and the Technical Director at Gamepires. He has been a programmer for much longer, almost 22 years, starting out as an enthusiast with his friends. He co-founded Gamepires 8 years ago, working on the in-house PranaEngine used on the award-winning Gas Guzzlers Extreme racing combat game, and has spent the last 2 years working in UE4 on SCUM, a multiplayer survival game currently in Early Access. His interests and experience span all technical areas of the game development.

Tim Wilson

Atomhawk
Managing Director

With over 16 years’ experience working in creative agencies, Tim specialises in leading and managing external art teams. He heads up Atomhawk, a leading visual development partner with studios in the UK and Canada, currently celebrating its 10^th year anniversary. Notable projects include Mortal Kombat 11(WB Games / NetherRealm), Minecraft Earth (Microsoft) and 11:11 – Memories Retold (Aardman / Namco Bandai).

Nader Alikhani

Atomhawk
Creative Development Director

As Creative Development Director, Nader draws upon his 14 years worth of experience as an artist and designer in the games industry to aid Atomhawk’s current and prospective clients to identify their visual needs and deliver tailored creative solutions.

Alex Stickel, P.Eng.

Serious Labs
Compliance Engineer

Alex started his carrier in 2004 as an electrical engineer and chemist utilizing nanotechnology to implement genetic testing in hand held medical devices. With an affinity for the small and high tech, Alex joined Serious Labs in April 2018 to join the fast paces world of VR developers. Alex brings his skills in hardware design and understanding of global standard compliance to the Serious Labs team to explore and push the limits of the hardware – XR boundaries.

John Krajewski

Strange Loop Games
CEO / Founder

John Krajewski is founder and CEO of Strange Loop Games, a studio focused on evolving both entertainment and education by connecting them in shared virtual worlds. He is currently designing the US Department of Education funded game ‘Eco’, a virtual world where players must use science and engineering to build a civilization capable of stopping a meteor without destroying the ecosystem in the process. His background is the console games industry, having worked at EA and Midway prior to founding Strange Loop. After founding Strange Loop Games in 2009, he has led development on 6 titles including a suite of games for Amplify Education, and the Steam and Playstation Indie hit ‘Vessel’.

Cristiano Ferreira

Oculus
Developer Relations Engineer

Cristiano is a career developer relations engineer which is not typical. Starting out of school at Intel as a dev rel engineer and fueled by imposter syndrome, he quickly ramped implementing / optimizing all major game subsystems and rendering methods to provide studios of all sizes value. His specialty is squeezing that sweet sweet performance out of hardware at any wattage. After nearly 7 years at Intel, he took a job with Oculus doing the same exact job in VR where frame rates are higher with _eyeCount++. He enjoys dark wave music, beer, making your game look better and run faster.

Ryley Meville

Serious Labs
Software Designer

Ryley is a Designer at Serious Labs, designing training scenarios for heavy machinery simulators. Currently she is working on making Mobile Elevated Work Platform scenarios with airplanes and an unannounced project/product. In a past life, Ryley worked in Archaeology, messing up the archaeological record in the best way possible (with evidence). She has a passion for all things coffee.

Daniel Boutros

Soul Hardware + Soul Arcade (stealth mode)
Exec Producer / Mysticism Defluffer

Daniel Boutros started in the arcades at 14 winning and eventually organizing fighting game events. At 17, SCEE hired him on as their youngest assistant producer and he’s been in service to games ever since.
Working across mobile, console, PC, arcade and VR, he’s worked mega-franchises like Spider-Man and The Walking Dead, and worn hats in almost every non-artist or programming role, eventually specializing in game design and production.
25+ years later, he’s traveling the world learning ancient mystical practices. As a part time Exec Producer, he serves indie teams on one side. On the other, he demystifies the mystical to complete strangers.

Scott Langevin

Serious Labs
Executive Director, Product

In his 20+ years in the technology industry, Scott has earned experience in a variety of disciplines developing award winning AAA video games and educational technology products. Gifted with strong product design sensibilities and an in-depth knowledge of the technology development process, Scott is uniquely positioned to provide Serious Labs with the guidance necessary to create a world-class product development studio.

Aleksander Kauch

11 bit studios
Lead gameplay programmer

Aleksander is Lead gameplay programmer in 11 bit studios. Worked on almost every 11 bit’s game including Anomaly series, This War of Mine and Frostpunk. Lectured in programming at Warsaw University of Technology and Academy of Games and Post-Production. Experienced in programming, game architecture and overall game development.

Marek Ziemak

11 bit studios
Executive Producer

Marek began his career in 2006 working as a tester and designer for CD Projekt RED in the Witcher project. He switched to level design and level art in the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings to finally find his true vocation as a game producer during the production process of the Witcher 3. Marek joined 11 bit studios in early 2014 and right away focused on supporting the external teams while helping internal devs every now and then.
A graduate from the Faculty of Cybernetics at the Military University of Technology and an MBA program at Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego in Warsaw, Poland. Marek is also a lecturer at Warsaw Film School helping students prepare their bachelor projects.

Deborah Guzman Barrios

Oculus
Developer Relations

As part of the Developer Relations team at Oculus, Deborah works closely with developers and publishers during all phases of development. As a lifelong gamer, she is excited about VR and its potential to bring us into new uncharted worlds where we can experience anything.

Nuno Subtil

Nvidia
Sr. Devtech Engineer

Nuno Subtil is a Devtech Engineer at NVIDIA, where he helps game developers write high-performance graphics code, with a particular focus on the Vulkan API. His past work includes physically-based rendering techniques, engineering graphics drivers, research on bioinformatics algorithms for NVIDIA GPUs and building high-throughput DNA sequencers.

Anna-Carolin Weber

Dance Artist & Researcher / Lecturer

Anna-Carolin researches, teaches and stages on the intersection of (digital) media and performative arts. She has been regularly producing her own transdisciplinary work since 2008 besides working as a dramaturge and advising dance and performance projects in Germanys independent dance and theater scene. Currently she holds a position as an academic lecturer with RUB arts & culture international (inSTUDIES) and Virtual Reality Moves at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Anna-Carolin has developed a range of practice based workshop formats to share her expertise on artistic methods for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Benjamin Mitchell

Samsung
GameDev Engineer

Addicted to video games since around the same time he learned to read, Benjamin found a passion for graphics after discovering he could make pretty things with code. Fast forward to now, where he works as a GameDev Engineer at Samsung Electronics, Benjamin enjoys the novelty of working on a variety of the latest and greatest Android titles.

Daniel Pearson

Purewal Consulting
Business Development Manager

Dan is a business development manager at Purewal Consulting, focused on taking the hard work out of opening new revenue streams for indie clients of all sizes by facilitating a broad range of projects such as merchandising, IP iteration, PR planning and brand building. He is always in search of high-quality, low-hassle solutions which let our partners concentrate on their core business. Dan is an ex-games industry business journalist – beginning his games career at Eurogamer before spending seven years at the industry’s leading publication, GamesIndustry.biz, leaving as a veteran European Editor in 2016.

Damir Durovic

Reboot
CEO

As a veteran of games industry with 23 years of combined experience in running huge games industry events, media and being key part on marketing and PR side of things Damir has seen empires fall and rise. For last 8 years together with an incredible and small but super agile team has been running REBOOT brand that besides running one of the biggest consumer games shows in Europe, as well as the big European consumer games media is the company behind world famous Reboot Develop Blue and Red, two games industry conferences that have redefined the worldwide games industry event landscape. Damir is on advisory board of European Game Developers Federation and he was recently awarded the first ever Devcom Hero Award for his efforts in promoting, connecting and pushing along European games industry.

SPEAKER LINEUP coming soon!