Game Developers Conference 2008 - (Page 123) Speaker Bios Tom Abernathy, Pandemic Studios Tom is a senior writer/designer at Pandemic Studios, and a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. His credits include Destroy All HumAns! 1 & 2, HeAvy GeAr, and the upcoming sAboteur, as well as numerous film, TV and theater projects as a writer, director, actor and musician. GD: Designs on Writing: Improving the Game Writing Process Rod is known worldwide for his cutting-edge approach to composition, placing him at the top of the interactive composer A-list. Rod’s credits include blAcksite AreA 51, stAr trek leGAcy, and tHe Hobbit. Rod has recorded in major studios for Warner Bros., MCA Records, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of G.A.N.G. AU: Realize Your Vision: Essential Music Production Techniques Leigh Alexander See Worlds in Motion Summit Advisor page 55. BM: (304) Worlds In Motion Summit PG: The Art and Technology Behind BioShock’s Special Effects E. Daniel Arey, VisionArey Entertainment Stephen Alexander, 2K Boston Kars Alfrink, Leapfrog Rod Abernethy, Rednote Audio Kars is a freelance interaction designer currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has considerable experience as a designer in the internet industry. He also teaches mobile game design at the Utrecht School of Arts comprehensive game design & development course. Kars holds a B.A. in interaction design and an M.A. in game design. Mobile: Designing a Casual Social Gaming Experience for Generation C Ed is driven by a passion for making games that appeal to everyone, not just traditional gamers. He comes to PopCap as part of its acquisition of Sprout Games where Ed was co-founder and creative director. At Sprout, Ed was responsible for the design and development of the hit title feeDinG frenzy, which has been played by millions worldwide. BM: (303) Casual Games Summit E. Daniel is principle creative at VisionArey Entertainment, a game design, writing, and directing consultancy firm. As a senior designer and creative director at Naughty Dog-Sony for 10 years, he helped develop, design, write, and direct seven platinum best selling game titles, totaling more than 35 million units sold and counting. GD: Master Metrics: The Science behind the Art of Game Design Ricardo started at Pendulum Studios in San Diego where he worked on videogame cinematics and commercials for soul cAliber 3, L.A. rusH, pArAworlD and kelloG’s, among others. Taking his film knowledge to next-gen consoles, Ricardo next worked on spiDermAn 3 at Treyarch and is currently a senior character artist at Naughty Dog, working on uncHArteD: DrAke’s fortune. VA: (205) Normal Mapping Industry Survey A 19-year veteran of the game business, Mike started his career at Acclaim Entertainment in 1988 and went on to produce over 200 PC and console games at companies like Sony, Activision, Fox, and Crave Entertainment. Mike is currently the CEO of Big Boat Interactive a Los Angeles based independent developer of console and casual games. BM: (203) Game Development Deals 2008 - Critical and Emerging Issues in Every Negotiation Richardo Ariza, Naughty Dog Speaker Bios Mike Acton, Insomniac Games Ed Allard, PopCap Games Mike is the engine director at Insomniac Games. He’s also the director and administrator of CellPerformance.com. Mike has also held lead programming, PlayStation 2 engine development and research roles with Yuke’s, VBlank and BlueSky/ Titus. He had also worked for Sony Interactive Studios in PSX development. He has spoken in many development conferences. PG: Insomniac’s SPU Programming Practices Mike Arkin, Big Boat Interactive Scott Ambler, IBM Ernest Adams Ernest is a freelance game designer, writer, and teacher, working with the International Hobo Design Group. He has been in the game industry since 1989, and is the author of three books, including the university-level textbook Fundamentals of Game Design. He has developed online, computer, and console games for the IBM 360 mainframe and the PS2. GD: What’s Next for God Games?; BM: (308) IGDA Education Summit Scott is the practice leader agile development in IBM’s Methods Group. He is the founder of the Agile Modeling (AM), Agile Data (AD), Agile Unified Process (AUP), and Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) methodologies. Scott is the co-author of 19 books, including Refactoring Databases and Agile Modeling. Scott is a senior contributing editor with Dr. Dobb’s Journal. PD: Jazzing Up Agile Software Development Sponsored by IBM Rémi Arnaud, Intel David Amor, Relentless Software Abhishek Agrawal, Intel BM: Your Shameful Secret Addiction to Crunch Rémi works in advanced visual computing (AVC) within Intel’s software systems group where he is leading the game engine technology team. He cofound Intrinsic Graphics where he co-designed the Alchemy engine as director of technology. He worked on the PlayStation 3 SDK as graphics architect at Sony Computer Entertainment. PD: COLLADA in the Game Sponsored by Intel Dave is an old timer in the game tool business. He worked on game development tools since the days of the Sega Saturn. Dave has a passion on helping developers get the most from the latest and greatest hardware. He worked at Microsoft for the last seven years creating HLSL, PIX for Windows, and Xbox performance tools. He’s currently a technical evangelist. PG: Beyond Printf: Debugging Graphics Through Tools Abhishek is a software engineer in Intel’s software solutions group working on consumer platforms and client solutions. He has published several conference and journal papers and have presented extensively in various IEEE/ACM sponsored international conferences. He earned his M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from University of Florida. PG: Speed Up Synchronization Locks: A Scaleform Case Study Sponsored by Intel Dante is VP of product development for Kuma Games, an online publisher of subscription based episodic content. Prior to Kuma, Dante worked for several game companies including GT Interactive Software, and Sega of America. BM: (305) Serious Games Summit Dante Anderson, Kuma Reality Games Dave Aronson, NVidia Corporation Muhammad Ahmed, Vicarious Visions Muhammad is a game designer currently at Vicarious Visions in Albany, New York. He has worked on numerous handheld games for the Nintendo DS such as spiDer-mAn 3 and trAnsformers. His latest title is tony HAwk’s provinG GrounD, also for the Nintendo DS. GD: Innovative Touch Screen Controls – Spider-man 3 DS Postmortem Allan was the co-founder of Atari, creator of ponG, and the home version of ponG and led the development of the Atari VCS. After Atari Allan was a Fellow at Apple Computer where he did early work that led to the MPEG standard and QuickTime. Al was also VP of Engineering at Digital FX. He is currently CTO of yet another startup, IMMI. GD: How to Create an Industry: The Making of the Brown Box and pong Jesse is a co-executive producer and writer on Heroes. Previously, Jesse was an executive producer on ABC’s Alias. His first professional job as a writer was creating a new opening sequence for Pamela Anderson’s Barb Wire at Dark Horse Entertainment. Jesse also was a co-executive producer on ABC’s Emmy award-winning drama Lost. GD: How Heroes are Made: A Collaborative Approach to Serialized Content in a Transmedia World Steve is a senior programmer on the strAnGleHolD team. Previously he built tools and libraries at Midway used in titles such as mortAl kombAt: DeADly AlliAnce, and blitz tHe leAGue. He has been in the game industry for eight years, and graduated with a B.S. in math/computer science from Carnegie Mellon. PG: Massive D: Stranglehold’s Breakable Object System Steve Anichini, Midway Amusement Games, LLC Thomas Arundel, Introversion Allan Alcorn, IMMI Graeme Ankers, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Thomas was one of the three students who founded Introversion Software in 2001 after studying electronic engineering at Imperial College in London and is responsible for Introversion’s commercial activities. Thomas has been Introversion’s ears and eyes as to what’s happening in the world of independent game development and publishing and is responsible for Introversion’s continued financial wellbeing. BM: (307) Independent Games Summit Introversion Software brought Vicky on board five years ago to work part-time. After graduating from Kings College University, London in the English language and literature, Vicky became a fulltime member of the team, managing Introversion’s PR and marketing projects. She’s currently heavily involved in the promotion of all of Introversion’s titles. BM: (307) Independent Games Summit Jesse Alexander Graeme is a game director of the Concept group, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Europe. He runs a concept and prototype team currently developing new IP and assists in focusing the creative direction of existing titles. His most notable achievement was running the development team which created F106 PSP, F106 PS2 and F1 Championship Edition on the PS3. GD: Defeating Designer’s Block, Tools to Boost Creative Output – Part 2: Putting the Ideas into Practice Vicky Arundel, Introversion Software Takashi Aoyama, Nintendo Dave Astle, AMD Takashi was the team leader of the development of Wii hardware’s internal programming. He joined Nintendo in 2000, and is currently the group manager for the Network Administration Group. GD: Planning the Wii Menu: From Pre-Launch to WiiWare Dave has worked in the game industry for several years, and is currently a staff engineer in the Handheld Content Group at AMD. He played a key role in developing early OpenGL ES implementations at Qualcomm. He’s the co-founder of GameDev.net, Visit www.gdconf.com for daily coverage of GDC 2008 http://www.gdconf.com/?cid=GDC08_showguide http://CellPerformance.com http://gamedev.net http://www.gdconf.com/?cid=GDC08_showguide
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