Speakers at the Develop Conference are working in the development community from the largest companies to the smallest studio from across Europe.

A-D | E-G | H-L | M-R | S-Z

Ernest Adams
Hacking Through the Jungle: Interactive Storytelling Made Easy and Profitable
Track: Design · Lecture, 60 minutes

Ernest Adams is an independent 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 two books, "Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design," with Andrew Rollings; and "Break Into the Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games." Ernest was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions on the Dungeon Keeper series, and for several years before that he was the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL Football product line. He has developed on-line, computer, and console games for everything from the IBM 360 mainframe to the PlayStation 2. He was the founder of the International Game Developers' Association, and is a frequent lecturer at the Game Developers' Conference. His professional web site is at http://www.designersnotebook.com.

David Amor, Relentless Software
Session: Designing new kinds of games for the masses
Track: Design · Panel, 60 minutes

David Amor has been working in videogame development and publishing for sixteen years, starting at Mindscape Software in 1989 and moving to Electronic Arts as a producer three years later. He has worked on over 30 products including games in the Ultima, Wing Commander, Theme Park, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper and Harry Potter franchises. David set up Computer Artworks’ Brighton studio in 2001 and as studio manager created products for Sony, Atari and Bam.

In 2003, David founded Relentless Software with Andrew Eades and has successfully shipped two products for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in his role as creative director.
Janus Anderson is the creative director of NCsoft North America, a leading publisher of massively multiplayer games including Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and Lineage. Janus has accumulated over 10 years of experience working in the industry as a game designer and programmer, beginning with the first generation graphical MMP, The Realm, published by Sierra On-line in 1997. Before joining NCsoft in 2005, Janus has been involved in the development of a wide variety of MMP titles, including Middle-earth Online, Earth & Beyond, Puzzle Pirates, and Shadowbane.

Janus Anderson, Creative Director, NCsoft North America
Everything you know is wrong: four new developments that will turn the MMOG world upside down
Lecture, 60 minutes

Janus Anderson is the creative director of NCsoft North America, a leading publisher of massively multiplayer games including Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and Lineage. Janus has accumulated over 10 years of experience working in the industry as a game designer and programmer, beginning with the first generation graphical MMP, The Realm, published by Sierra On-line in 1997. Before joining NCsoft in 2005, Janus has been involved in the development of a wide variety of MMP titles, including Middle-earth Online, Earth & Beyond, Puzzle Pirates, and Shadowbane.

Thomas Arundel co-founded Introversion Software in late 2001, with two friends from Imperial College (University of London). With just $1000 a CD burner and inkjet printer between them, the trio set about releasing 'Uplink', the highly acclaimed 'Hacker Sim'. Responsible for bringing Uplink from the Underground to the public eye, Tom's main focus is in commercialising Introversion's highly innovative portfolio of games. In this pursuit, Introversion has used direct and indirect retail, developed a digital distribution system, and also used several 3rd party online distribution solutions. Dubbed 'the last of the bedroom programmers' and truly embracing independent game development for the last 4½ years, Introversion Software followed Uplink with Darwinia, and is now preparing for the imminent release of DEFCON. The blood, sweat and tears over Darwinia's 3 year development cycle were well worth it - with 80-90% reviews across the board, Darwinia has been nominated for 4 out of 6 Independent Game Awards, at this year's IGF. The team, still fully funded from their initial $1k are currently preparing to launch DEFCON (www.introversion.co.uk/defcon) in late spring, which simulates global thermonuclear war.

Cumron has worked in the games industry for nearly a decade. Starting as an artist/animator in 1997 and progressing on to work as a lead artist at Infogrames Interactive in 1999.

Since then he has worked as a lead artist and art director at Computer Artworks and Black Cactus games.

Cumron joined Kuju London in 2004 taking on the role of lead artist for the Kuju developed Nintendo 1st party title “Battalion Wars” for Game Cube. He continues to work at Kuju providing art direction and management on creative and stylized titles.

Dan is currently working on titles for PS2, PSP and PS3 as well as overseeing SCEE's Audio Prototypes Group.  Dan's background was in music composition for TV, short film and adverts.

Alison Beasley, Lincoln Beasley
Session: I’m with the brand: Developers as the stars
Track: Business · Panel, 60 minutes

Alison Bealsey, founder of Lincoln Beasley PR, specialises in corporate PR for game developers and associated companies including SN Systems (tools) and Geomerics (middleware). Beasley has a long history in the games industry beginning back in the dark age of 8-bit home computers. Today, she represents the best of British developers including Blitz Games, FreeStyleGames, Relentless, Kuju, Introversion, Geomerics, SN Systems, Frontier Developments & US agents ISM.

Owain Bennallack, Develop Magazine
Develop Debrief: Where we are and where we’re going
Keynote panel, 60 minutes
Owain Bennallack is currently executive editor of Develop, having edited the magazine from its launch in 2000 until February 2005.

Prior to that he held senior positions on MCV and Edge, and has written widely for publications as diverse as The Times, PC Gamer and the Mail on Sunday. He is well-known in Brighton as The World's Strongest Man, having proved his mettle on the relevant scientific equipment at the end of Brighton pier.

Thomas Bidaux, Director of Products, NCsoft Europe
Everything you know is wrong: four new developments that will turn the MMOG world upside down
Lecture, 60 minutes
Thomas Bidaux is Director of Product Development at NCsoft Europe. Prior to that, Bidaux was heavily involved in the development and execution of online games at Wanadoo, where he led the team that launched Dark Age of Camelot. Bidaux was one of the original four who set up NCsoft Europe in September 2004. As the company expands, Bidaux's role at NCsoft is to manage the product development teams, covering localisation and QA, as well as researching and acquiring new titles.

Jen discovered that there were Real People on the Internet in 1994 and has been passionate about online community-building ever since. As part of Stor Entertainment she managed moderation and chat events for Channel 4, project-managed StorTroopers [ http://www.stortroopers.com], blogged continuously and played tons of Quake 3... to see if there were any girls there. (Seriously!) She launched the UK's first portal for British blogs as a recreational project in 2000, which led to a seat on the judging panel for the Guardian's Best British Blog contest in 2002.

Jen lives in London and currently works as Community Supervisor for NCsoft Europe, Administrator for Heritage Link [http://www.heritagelink.org.uk] and Mommy to a feisty three-year-old. She also blogs at Wonderland [http://crystaltips.typepad.com].

Kevin Booth, Autodesk
Animating characters within Maya & showcasing the real-time workflow within MotionBuilder along with FBX
Track: Art · Sponsored Session, 60 minutes

Kevin Booth is one of Autodesk’s 3ds Max application specialists, based out of London, England. He began his 3D career working for Soho’s Voodoo Animation as a character animator and modeller, producing graphics for a wide variety of broadcast clients, such as UK’s Sky TV, Channel 4 and MTV Europe. Kevin joined Autodesk following a successful 2 year freelance career where he worked as an animator on console and PC titles for games clients, such as Mythos Games and Imaginary productions, as well as working with Russian-based middleware producer Lifemode Interactive as a consultant for their facial animation product. At Autodesk, Kevin’s area of focus is games development covering Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Steve Boxer, Freelance Journalist
Bridging the Uncanny Valley: Style versus Realism in future games
Track: Art · Panel, 60 minutes

Steve Boxer is a freelance videogames journalist who primarily writes for The Guardian, The Mirror, Touch Magazine, Arena and Nuts. With nearly a decade of experience writing about videogames, he has contributed in the past to The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Face, sleazenation, the Financial Times, Edge and countless specialist magazines. Based in Maida Vale, he enjoys DJing, cricket and supporting Tottenham Hotspur.

Paulina Bozek, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Designing new kinds of games for the masses
Track: Design · Panel, 60 minutes

Paulina Bozek, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Paulina Bozek is a senior producer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s (SCEE) London Studio. Her recent work has included producing the innovative and highly successful SingStar series. Paulina started her career in games at UbiSoft in Montreal, Canada, working in PR & Communications. She then moved into development in a project management role for UbiSoft’s online gaming portal: GameLoft.com. She joined SCEE London Studio in January 2003, working in the prototype departments and was appointed as producer for SingStar shortly afterwards. She holds a Bachelor's degree in cultural studies and an MSc in media & communications from the London School of Economics. Paulina was awarded the BAFTA Interactive New Talent Award in 2004. SingStar was awarded the BAFTA for Originality in 2005.

John Broomhall, Independent Audio Director & Consultant
Audio Programming, Tools & Techniques For NexGen AAA Games
Track: Audio · Theme: Profiting from Technology · Panel, 60 minutes

John Broomhall is an independent Audio Director & Consultant with twelve years' experience in videogames, a number of senior management roles with major videogame publishers under his belt ( MicroProse, Spectrum Holobyte, Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames ), and over fifty published titles to his credit. His career, which also includes working as a game producer, encompasses many global hit titles such as the hugely successful X-COM series; Sid Meier's Civilization/Colonization; MechWarrior 3; B17 Flying Fortress 1 & 2; Superman & American Idol/Pop Idol . Broomhall has chaired several BAFTA Interactive Audio Awards and regularly speaks on game audio at seminars and university lectures. He also sits on the European Developers Forum & Edinburgh International Games Festival steering committees, the MusicWorks advisory board, and writes a monthly column for well-known industry magazine, Develop.

Simon Byron, Barrington Harvey
Games design room 101: Four designers each consign a game design horror to the dustbin Track: Design · Lecture, 60 minutes

Simon Byron started work in the games industry in 1992. Joining as a staff writer at EMAP Images, he quickly worked his way through the ranks to become editor of Amiga games magazine The One within 18 months. He switched to PR in 1994 and helped build some of the industry’s most prestigious franchises, working in various capacities on the launches of Doom II, Resident Evil and Command & Conquer, to name but a few. He joined Barrington Harvey in March 2003, having helped establish his previous agency as a major player in the videogames market. A keen gamer, he continues to write for a variety of publications and has won four awards for his services to the videogames industry. His first videogames book was published by ILEX in 2005 and a second is scheduled to appear in October 2006, published by Headline. In his spare time, he contributes to www.thetriforce.com, a trouble-making blog which sometimes touches on games industry issues. He lists his biggest achievements as playing one Guitar Hero song on Expert and inventing fake sex cult, though not at the same time.

Jeremy Chatelaine
Software engineering: Games programming for large scale projects
Track: Coding · Lecture, 60 minutes

Jeremy Chatelaine comes from a very strong technical background and his ability to gain results in various senior programming roles throughout his career, along with a keen interest in cross-discipline production techniques and issues, has helped him to maintain a global view on game development.

Jeremy has worked on a number of projects of various sizes: from a small Playstation (PS1) team in France to medium sized projects at Lionhead (PC) and Argonaut Games (PS2, Xbox, PC) to large multi-platform projects at Electronic Arts UK (PS2, PS3, XBox, X360, GameCube, PSP and PC), making him a perfect fit to talk about large scale projects.

Passionate about his work, he enjoys challenging people as well as being challenged and love bringing innovative ideas to life.

Jonathan Chetwynd
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Jonathan Chetwynd represents Accessible Solutions (http://www.eas-i.co.uk). He has produced and adapted a broad range of games, is a founding member of gawds, and since 1998 has been a contributor to the WAI. Additionally, he conceived, created and managed the largest non-text online search engine from 1998-2004. Chetwynd has ten years experience motivating people with learning disabilities.

Jo Clay, Strange Agency
Genre: dirty word or developer's friend?
Track: Business · Lecture, 60 minutes

Jo Clay became the first full time employee of Strange Agency in 2004, after completing a Masters degree in Multimedia at the University of Teesside. Jo’s desirable role as games analyst soon turned to technical director in order to manage the development of the Strange Analyst software. With plenty gaming years under her belt, technical know-how and games analysis experience, Jo is ideally placed to work on software that supports development and developers.

Louise Copley, Lionhead Studios
Lost in translation: The coder’s guide to team communication
Track: Coding · Lecture, 60 minutes

Louise Copley’s background is planted firmly in the production arena and started with degree from UWE Bristol in Time based Media, specialising in Multimedia Project Management and Nonlinear Narrative (a specialisation which was to serve her well later on!) After graduating she worked for Xebec McGraw-Hill developing online training courses where she specialised in video production running multiple crews and budgets on an international basis (More useful skills learnt for later on). Louise then switched to the games industry, initially working as an associate producer at Criterion Studios. She then moved to Lionhead head as an associate producer. Her experience and skills from her previous working life were quickly recognised with Louise working on Fable as a Senior Producer and then being promoted to Head of Studio for Fable TLC. She is currently Head of Fable Studios.

Some-time game designer, part-time producer, always a writer and often asleep, Ste Curran is many things to many people. Many of those things are pleasant! Currently freelance, he has written two books and is working on a third. In his spare time he writes at industry whine-blog www.thetriforce.com, where he concerns himself with videogames, attractive girls and Swedish music.

Bruce Dawson is a software design engineer in Microsoft’s Game Technology Group. His specialties include CPU optimization and multithreading. Bruce is based in Redmond but is spending a year in the UK to support European game developers on Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.

Jason Della Rocca is the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a professional society committed to advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers. Jason and the IGDA focus on connecting developers with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community -- such as quality of life, creative freedoms, workforce diversity and credit standards. As the spokesperson for the IGDA, Jason has appeared in countless news outlets (e.g., Wired, Nightline, LA Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, G4, etc) and has spoken at conferences around the world (e.g., GDC, E3, TGS, SIGGRAPH, ChinaJoy, DiGRA, etc). Jason has been a member of the game development community for over a decade, and has spent time at Matrox Graphics, Quazal and Silicon Graphics. Jason can be reached via jason -at- igda -dot- org.

Chris Deering is now semi retired but in his spare time he currently is on the Board for Codemasters, Greengrass.tv, In Game Advertising, Handheld Learning Ltd and FilmServe. Formerly Chris was president of Sony Europe as well as chairman and CEO for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE). He graduated from Boston College with a Degree in Computer Science before moving on to gain an MBA in Marketing from Harvard Business School. From his early days at Gillette, Chris’ first experience in gaming was as vice president of international marketing (hardware and software) at Atari from 1982-1984. He then moved on to Spinnaker Software in Boston where he was vice president international. In 1985 he took his expertise to the video industry as senior vice president of sales and marketing at Columbia Pictures International Video Division in New York City for five years, followed by a four-year period as executive vice president and COO of Columbia Tristar International Video. It was during this time that Columbia became Sony Pictures. He became President of SCEE in 1995, and managed the introduction of PlayStation into Europe and its subsequent sales growth to reach the number one market position. Effective April 2004, he assumed the role of Chairman and CEO for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. In addition to this he was promoted to President of Sony Europe, bringing his knowledge and experience to Sony's European electronics businesses. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts honoured Chris with a Special Lifetime Award at the inaugural BAFTA Games Awards in 2004.

Sébastien Dominé is the Director of Developer Technology Tools at NVIDIA. He manages various projects dedicated to make the 3D application developer’s life easier and to enable more 3D applications with next-gen content. Prior to NVIDIA, he worked on PC games at GameFX/THQ and 3D digital content creation tools at Katrix and Nichimen Graphics. He received his Engineering Degree in Computer Science from EPITA, Paris, France.

Chris Doran is Founder and CEO of Geomerics, a technology-led company specialising in innovative technologies primarily focussed on the computer games industry. Prior to joining Geomerics Chris spent 15 years as research scientist in applied mathematics and theoretical physics. His the author of a major book on geometry and physics and of over 50 papers on subjects including quantum theory, gravitation, and computational geometry. Chris was an EPSRC Advanced Fellow from 1999 to 2004 and was made a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow in 2004.

Andrew then joined DMA Design in Dundee to work on the Lemmings franchise and R&D software development for Nintendo¹s groundbreaking Nintendo 64 console.  After a long stint at Virgin Interactive Entertainment's London studio as lead programmer creating a multi-product football game engine, in 2000 Andrew left to pioneer a Broadband Browser for Surfcast during the dot com era.

Andrew then spent time freelancing for games developers and becoming development manager of 3G network operator, three, and project manager at Symbian.

Returning to video games with Computer Artworks in Brighton to lead their DJ project. In 2003, Andrew co-founded Relentless Software with David Amor. Relentless has developed DJ: Decks & FX, worked on EyeToy and Singstar and developed a new million-selling franchise, Buzz!: The Music Quiz, for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Andrew joined the board of TIGA in 2005.

Barrie Ellis, OneSwitch.org
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Barrie Ellis is the founder of OneSwitch.org.uk, an organisation promoting fun inclusive activities for disabled people using 'accessibility switches' and other enabling technology. This includes video games.

Katie Ellwood began writing as a freelancer for theatre, film and game. After completing The Getaway screenplay in 2000 she was asked to join Sony Computer Entertainment as Script Consultant and Assistant Producer in 2001. Two Getaways later she is the Narrative Producer and Writer for the Getaway franchise.

She is involved with the narrative concept of the games, characters and interactive story design. She also maintains a production role which spans the creative design & cinematic teams as wells as external writing, acting and directing talent.  Kate is currently working with the team on developing the next generation Getaway for PS3.

István joined the Technology Group of SCEE in 2005, supporting PS3 developers full time. Special interests include CPU architectures, multi-processing, multi-threading, OS, optimisation techniques, emulation, good algorithms and OOD/OOP.

Nowadays, when not torturing a PS3, developers or other beings, he is an addicted fan of Married with Children and The Shield, plus pretty much any spectacular popcorn movies.

Rob Fahey is the founding editor of GamesIndustry.biz, the videogames industry's most popular business news website. Narrowly escaping an ill-chosen career as a programmer, has been working as a technology and entertainment journalist for over 11 years, has worked on leading publications including the late lamented CTW magazine, and has interviewed people ranging from videogame legends to heads of state. Although he covers the industry from a trade perspective, Rob is a dyed-in-the-wool gamer, and is notable for sore loser temper tantrums during multiplayer games of Mario Kart DS and for screaming like a girl when attacked by black headcrabs in Half-Life 2.

Eelke Folmer, University of Nevada
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Eelke Folmer is an assistant Professor at the University of Nevada in Reno. Previously he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Software Engineering / Games Group at the University of Alberta. He received a PhD degree from the University of Groningen where he worked on the European Union funded Software Architecture for Usability (STATUS) project.

His research interests revolve around the relationship between software architecture and software quality, motivated by the fact that the quality of a system is very much restricted and determined by architecture design. His interests are primarily geared towards the games domain where he currently works on:

- game architectures & component based game development.
- usability& accessibility; interaction design patterns.

Michael French is the editor of Develop. He has written about video games and the games industry for four years.

Tak Fung, is an old timer in Lionhead terms as he has been with the company for five years. He graduated from Cambridge University with Double First in Computer Science and during his degree worked at Electronic Arts for four months. Having decided that game programming was for him on leaving university he joined Lionhead Studios as a programmer. After a brief stint working on the physics engine of another project, he joined the Fable team working as a programmer on special abilities and effects. Now a core member of the Fable team he is hard at work programming effects and shaders concentrating on graphics for a new project. Tak does not have spare time.

Giannis Georgalis, University of Crete
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Giannis Georgalis is a graduate student at the University of Crete, Greece and works full time at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), in Crete, Greece, where he develops accessible applications.

Mike Goldsmith is Group Senior Editor for Future Publishing’s Bath-based games portfolio, including Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, Edge and PC Gamer. Mike has also written about games and culture for a wide range of magazines including NME, T3, Total Football, The Guardian and Total Film and has previously chaired sessions at both GDC Europe and EIEF. Mike is responsible for product development and new launches at Future and is currently overseeing next-gen projects on PS3 and Wii. Mike is also deciding between Ghostface, Starbuck and Burkina Faso as the name for his forthcoming child while listening to Electrelane b-sides and hoping Mark Gonzalez lights up Anfield next season.

Dimitris Grammenos
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Dr. Dimitris Grammenos is the lead interaction and game designer of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory of the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) and he is in charge of the Lab's Universally Accessible Games (UA-Games) Activity (http://www.ics.forth.gr/hci/ua-games). For the past ten years he has been involved in numerous European R&D projects related to Design for All and Universal Access and he has given several related lectures, seminars and tutorials. He is the lead designer and programmer of UA-Chess (www.ics.forth.gr/uachess), which is an award-winning publicly available universally accessible chess game. He is also the lead designer of Access Invaders (http://www.ics.forth.gr/hci/ua-games/access_invaders/), a universally accessible remake of Space Invaders.

Erik Goosens, Zylom Media Group
Casual Game Developers Group Gathering
Group Gathering, 60 minutes

Erik grew up in an entrepreneurial family running a medium sized IT company. After the family company got acquired, Erik decided to go work for Gamegate.com for which he set up the San Francisco business development office. After co-founding Zylom he spent 2 years as managing director at Lycos Benelux after which he returned to Zylom. At Zylom, Erik is responsible for strategy and all product development including games, technology and the overall user experience.

In 1994, Mark Green was plucked from his life of academic failure and offered money to play games. How could he refuse? Working on games for the Atari Jaguar, Mark got to try his hand at a number of disciplines - Quality Assurance, Design, Production, Motion Capture, even some Programming - before settling on a job as Lead Designer with Sony. Mark has now been with Sony for nine years, and for the last five has worked in the Cambridge Studio as the Communications Manager. The story-based nature of the games has led to an ever-increasing link with the acting world and Hollywood in particular, most notable in the recent title, '24: The Game' on PS2."

Track: Business · Sponsored Session, 60 minutes

Kay Gruenwoldt is responsible for the delivery of Nokia’s next generation mobile games platform Developer Program to the global development community. Kay joined Nokia in 2004 as Producer, European Games Publishing, Nokia, where he was responsible for the production and management of external development teams.

Prior to Nokia, Gruenwoldt spend 10 years within marketing, product marketing, sales, design and development departments within the games industry, and held a project management and new product development position with General Electrics Industrial Systems.

Phil Harrison, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Develop Debrief: Where we are and where we’re going
Keynote panel, 60 minutes

In September 2005, Sony Computer Entertainment unified its regional product
development operations under a global structure, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, and appointed Phil to serve as President of the new organisation. Working closely with the talented studios in Japan, Europe, North America and Polyphony Digital, Inc., Phil is responsible for setting the global product strategy and managing development operations of 13 studios in 5 countries.

Phil is a corporate executive and representative director of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc, and Executive Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Since joining Sony in 1992, Phil has held executive management positions in Europe and North America – where he served as Vice President, 3rd Party Relations and Research and Development for SCEA from 1996 to 2000. He has been a core member of the teams that successfully launched all of the
PlayStation family of hardware formats and innovative software that have helped expand the market for computer entertainment worldwide.

From 1989 to 1992, Phil served as head of development for Mindscape International and prior to that as a consultant game designer and graphic artist in the UK.

Michelle Hinn
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Michelle is the Vice President of Game Development at DonationCoder.com and is completing her doctorate at the University of Illinois where she has been teaching courses on video game design and adolescent psychology. She is also the chairperson of the special interest group on game accessibility for the International Game Developer's Association (www.igda.org/accessibility). She has a B.A. in Music Performance, a B.S. in Psychology, and a M.A. in Multimedia Design. Michelle has worked at Microsoft Game Studios where she focused on piloting usability tests for Xbox multiplayer games. Additionally, she has worked for Computer Sciences Corporation, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the University of Nevada at Reno. She is the co-editor of the 2001 book Visions of Quality: How Evaluators Define, Understand, and Represent Program Quality and is on the editorial board of the Computers in Entertainment magazine. Michelle is currently working on a book with the IGDA Game Accessibility SIG on Game Accessibility.

Oliver Hume, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
PS3 Audio: Meet The Team
Track: Audio · Lecture, 60 minutes

Oliver Hume joined the SCEE Technology Group in 2002 after finishing a degree in Computer Science. Since this time he has worked in the Audio team on a number of high profile audio projects including the infamous SULPHA PlayStation®2 audio debugger and optimisation work on the ATRACs codec. Since 2004, Oliver has been the lead programmer on the PLAYSTATION®3 MultiStream audio engine.

Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive
I’m with the brand: Developers as the stars
Track: Business · Panel, 60 minutes

Miles Jacobson is managing director of Sports Interactive (SI), the sports management simulation specialist, originally the creators of the Championship Manager series of football management games and now the company behind the new smash hit football management simulation, Football Manager. Having enjoyed a successful career in the music industry (with Food Records and Universal Music), Miles transferred a long-standing love affair with Sports Interactive and gaming in general into a career change when he joined SI in 1997, initially as business consultant before assuming his current role in 2001. He gave up his other interests and became full time at Sports Interactive in 2002.

He was also responsible for acting as a music consultant on more than 30 computer games, including the first three Gran Turismo European releases. 2004 will be recognised as a watershed in SI’s development: the company ended its long-standing relationship with the game publisher Eidos and, as a result, no longer has any involvement with Championship Manager. Instead, the SI team incorporated its award-winning code and database into a new game, Football Manager 2005, which was released on November 4th by SI’s new publisher SEGA (immediately becoming that company’s fastest-selling game since records began). The latest version of the game, Football Manager 2006, was released on October 21st 2005, and became the second fastest selling PC game of all time in the UK, with over 100,000 units sold over the counter in the first weekend.

In addition, SI has taken its expertise into new fields for the first time, with the release of its first non-football game (the ice hockey management simulation NHL Eastside Hockey Manager, which was first released in July 2004) and the announcement of its first baseball game (Out Of The Park Baseball, due in 2006). They have also recently announced that the Football Manager brand will be coming to PSP & Xbox 360 in early 2006, and have a few other announcements up their sleeve for titles to be released in 2006 and beyond.

Miles lives in North London and is currently carrying out a study into the long-term effects of sleep deprivation.

Nick Jovic, Autodesk
Animating characters within Maya & showcasing the real-time workflow within MotionBuilder along with FBX
Track: Art · Sponsored Session, 60 minutes

Nick Jovic is one of Autodesk’s Maya & MotionBuilder application specialists, based out of London, England. He started his career as an Industrial Designer but was seduced by 3D computer graphics. Nick gained experience in the multi-media, games and film production markets. Nick then joined Alias, now part of Autodesk, in 2005 after working as a Motion Capture Technical Consultant. At Autodesk, Nick’s area of focus is film, TV and games development covering Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Rob Kay, Harmonix
Designing new kinds of games for the masses
Track: Design · Panel, 60 minutes

Rob Kay a senior designer at Harmonix, was Lead Designer on Guitar Hero. With six published games in as many years he’s made major contributions to titles for publishers EA, Atari, Red Octane, and Sony.

Trained as a 3D animator he got his start as a game artist, but his desire to help craft the full player experience soon triggered a move into level design and ultimately game design. He joined Harmonix to head up the level design team on the innovative camera-driven game Eyetoy: AntiGrav, after which he fulfilled his lifelong rock star fantasies by signing on as Lead Designer for Guitar Hero.

Nik Kennedy, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
PS3 Audio: Meet The Team
Track: Audio · Lecture, 60 minutes

Nik Kennedy started work at SCEE as an industrial placement, then after finishing his degree in Computer Science at Kings College London he went back to SCEE as a full time engineer. He works in the Audio Team developing the PlayStation 3 MultiStream audio engine, advanced DSP effects and various audio tools.

Göran Lange, Pin Interactive
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Göran Lange is President of Pin Interactive. Previously he was Head of Development at the http://www.mmedu.net Multimedia Education & Technology programme, Stockholm University (http://www.mmedu.net, http://www.mmedu.net) which he also founded in 1993. It was the first academic programme in this field as far as he knows. Pin Interacitve has developed an Award-winning game http://www.terraformers.nu Terraformer (http://www.terraformers.nu, http://www.terraformers.nu) which can be played by both blind and sighted. In 2002 Lange started a game based learning project, the "Digital Room" where pupils in upper secondary school learn the curriculum by playing games like WoW and HL2, as well as developing their own games. He has now also run two courses at Stockholm University within World of Warcraft. During 1983-1993 he was working for the Swedish Graphic Employers Association, responsible for competence development in the Swedish graphic industry. During this time he was project manager for PrintSim, a digital simulation of a printing machine where you can learn how to print, and evaluate printing knowledge. He also started EGIN, the European Graphic Industry Network.

William Latham, Games Audio
Leveling the Playing Field
Track: Business · Lecture, 60 minutes

William Latham is CEO of Games Audit Ltd, which is an Operational and Technical Due Diligence Company focussing on games companies and related sectors. Games Audit clients include Banks, VCs and City Investment companies. Clients include ITI Techmedia, Add Zero Ltd and Imprimatur Ltd. William is also Running Stream Professor of Creative Technology, at Leeds Metropolitan University.

From 1993 to 2003, he was CEO of Computer Artworks Ltd, which after initially working with the Music Industry for 2 years, then focussed on producing computer games for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. Employing around 90 people, hit games included the award winning ‘The Thing’ (PS2, Xbox, PC) for Vivendi Universal which was a number one hit in the UK and Germany. The game is a sequel to the cult John Carpenter film of the same name set in Antarctica. Other Computer Artworks products the PC game Evolva for Virgin Interactive and Organic Art for Warner Interactive and Mattel. Other clients included Microsoft, Nokia, Atari and Sony Computer Entertainment.

Originally trained as an artist at Oxford University BFA (79-82) and The Royal College of Art MA (82 to 85). William is well known for his pioneering work with IBM (87 to 93) in evolutionary art and computing at the IBM UK Scientific Centre in Winchester. He is co-author of the book “Evolutionary Art and Computers” published in 1992 which covers the work during this period with the mathematician Stephen Todd. His award winning organic computer animated films were shown at SIGGRAPH and many computer graphics events around the world, and he had major art exhibitions, touring the UK, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan for four years. During this period his work received much press and TV coverage and a number of IBM patents emerged from this work.

Nick Laviers, Electronic Arts

Audio Programming, Tools & Techniques For NexGen AAA Games
Track: Audio · Panel, 60 minutes

Nick Laviers is Senior Audio Director at the UK Studio of video game publisher Electronic Arts. His most recent work is the audio for Burnout Revenge for the Xbox 360.

From spending every free moment writing ZX Spectrum games and composing, Nick went on to study Electronic Music and Computer Science at Keele University where he also obtained a Diploma in Digital Music Technology. Prior to joining Electronic Arts in 1995, he worked as a Software Engineer and Audio Consultant in the field of contemporary music alongside composing and performing his own works.

He started at Electronic Arts as a programmer specialising in audio but immediately became involved in sound design alongside his programming duties. During this early period at EA he contributed Sound Design and programming on “Privateer 2 - The Darkening”, “Beasts and Bumpkins”, “FIFA Soccer Manger” and “Premier League Manger ’99”.

In 1997 he became manager of EA’s audio department and has to date overseen audio production for 28 EA titles including the Harry Potter games and “Theme Park World” for which he was awarded a BAFTA together with Richard Joseph and James Hannigan in 2000. He picked up a second BAFTA earlier this year with Jeremy Soule for the music production on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Ben Lee is Lead artist at Relentless Software in Brighton, currently working on the Buzz! games. His previous background includes traditional animation, voice direction, 3d animation direction, concept work and mocap direction. Before moving to the UK, he was art director at Irrational games on the titles Freedom Force, Tribes Vengeance and Freedom Force Vs The third Reich.

Track: Business · Panel, 60 minutes

Chris Lee has over 12 years of experience in interactive entertainment. Following a degree in Manufacturing Engineering and Opermilations Management, Chris became one of the first virtual reality research and applications engineers in the mid-1990s, contracting throughout the world for companies such as Superscape and Silicon Graphics. This led to the opportunity to enter the games industry working on products in the ‘Nintendo Dream Team’ solution for Nintendo64, with companies such as Rare, DMA Design & Software Creations. In 1998 Chris was one of the first employees of NxN Software, joining to build their worldwide sales and marketing organisation. Over the next two years he and the NxN team established their product Alienbrain as the de-facto standard asset management solution within the games industry.

From mid-2000, Chris spent over five years as vice president of Criterion Software, running the worldwide RenderWare division; managing sales, marketing, and field engineering disciplines throughout Criterion’s European and North American offices. During this time he signed franchises such as GTA, Tony Hawk, Call of Duty and Mortal Kombat to use RenderWare and grew the user base from 2% to 25% of all console games in development. Criterion was acquired by Electronics Arts in October 2004.
In January 2006, Chris accepted the role of Commercial Director at FreeStyleGames, one of a new wave of groundbreaking European independent development studios. Chris takes on responsibility for the strategic growth of the business in an exciting year where FreeStyle will launch their first product; an innovative and orignal IP on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.

Track: Coding · Sponsored Session, 60 minutes

As Technical Lead and SDK Manager Matt Levy is responsible for the technical development behind Nokia’s SNAP Mobile platform. He has played a major role in making this platform the premier end-to-end operator and publisher solution for mobile multiplayer Java games and online game-playing communities.

During his career, Mr. Levy has developed a reputation for designing and developing cutting edge applications for a wide range of operating environments. Before joining Nokia in 2003, he was Director of Development and Lead Programmer for San Francisco-based Saverlink, Inc. His responsibilities included the overall technical design and application development. Mr. Levy also led the development of the company’s e-commerce engine and an innovative multi-channel, multi-site inventory management system.

Prior to Saverlink, Mr. Levy was an independent consultant specializing in helping start-up companies develop and implement their systems architecture. Among the projects he worked on was a community-based website for Aid Workers Network, in Windsor, England, that linked relief and development field staff to facilitate the sharing of support, ideas and best practices.

Prior to that, Mr. Levy was the Development Manager & Lead Programmer for Topica, Inc, an independent company providing integrated email list management and self-service publishing, capable of delivering over 6 billion customized, unique email messages a month. He led the transition of Topica's end-to-end mail infrastructure from start-up to enterprise class systems. While there, he also had a principal role in creating innovative architecture for highly available, distributed systems.

Since joining Nokia, Mr. Levy has worked as a server programmer focusing on Nokia’s SNAP technology. For the last two years, he has focused exclusively on the SNAP Mobile platform, taking it from proof of concept to a world class mobile gaming platform.

Mr. Levy has a B.A. in Computer Science from Vassar College. He also studied Conflict Sensitive Project Management with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo.

Nicholas Lovell, GameShadow

Money for Non-Suits
Track: Business · Lecture, 60 minutes

Nicholas Lovell is CEO of GameShadow, the intelligent tool that helps gamers find the latest patches, demos and cool things to buy for their games. The company was started in 2003 and has raised one round of angel investment.

Until April 2006, Nicholas was Managing Director of Lodestar Partners, a corporate finance firm that focuses exclusively on the electronic games industry. He has over a decade of experience advising companies in the media and technology sectors on buying and selling business and raising capital. Clients included Blitz, Codemasters, Deutsche Bank, Eidos, Talpa Capital and Vis entertainment.
Nicholas was Deutsche Bank's Internet Research Analyst from 1999 - 2000, during which time Deutsche Bank was ranked as #1 for its understanding of the New Economy.

Nicholas was chief financial officer of ShopSmart.com, a comparison shopping engine funded by advertising and affiliate marketing from 2000-2001, during which time the company raised a significant amount of venture capital and secured investment from AOL and Wal-Mart.
Nicholas is also a trustee of the MusicSpace Trust, a national charity that provides music therapy to adults and children throughout the UK.

Track: Coding · Lecture, 60 minutes

Igor Makaruks joined the SCEE Technology Group since summer 2005 after completing his Computer Science Degree in Riga, Latvia. Igor's primary role is supporting PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 developers by creating graphic related sample code to improve game performance. He is also involved in consultancy and training developers throughout Europe and actively participates in public game developer conferences worldwide.

Andrew Macdonald, DNA Films
Lights, Camera... Where Movies and Videogames Meet

Track: Next Wave · Lecture, 60 minutes

In 1993, at the age of 27, Macdonald produced his first feature film SHALLOW GRAVE for Channel 4. Written by John Hodge and directed by Danny Boyle, the film was a major box office success and won the BAFTA for Best British Film.

The same creative team went on to make a number of films together: the critically acclaimed and extremely popular film version of the Irvine Welsh novel TRAINSPOTTING, A LIFE LESS ORDINARY, the 30-minute science fiction film ALIEN LOVE TRIANGLE and the big screen adaptation of Alex Garland’s book THE BEACH, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Since 1997, Macdonald has headed DNA Films, which is a joint venture with Fox Searchlight, the specialist distributor of Twentieth Century Fox. The company finances and produces British films and provides access to an international distribution network.

Through DNA Films, Macdonald has overseen the following productions: BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, STRICTLY SINATRA, THE FINAL CURTAIN, THE PAROLE OFFICER, HEARTLANDS, SEPARATE LIES, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, NOTES ON A SCANDAL and THE HISTORY BOYS.

For DNA Films and Fox Searchlight, Macdonald has also produced the highly successful 28 DAYS LATER and, most recently, the science fiction thriller SUNSHINE. Both are scripted by Alex Garland and directed by Danny Boyle.

Jamie Macdonald, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
How to win battles and influence publishers
Theme: Making Money from Games · Lecture, 60 minutes

Jamie Macdonald started his career in the entertainment business at the BBC running various new technology projects across TV and Radio. This initial foray into the media world was followed by an extended period in Italy, Bavaria and the south of France where he managed global software projects for Digital Equipment Corporation, played a lot of Doom and lost whole weekends to Civilisation.

In those far off days, that was enough to get into the games industry and on returning to the UK in 1995 Jamie was asked to join Criterion Software to head up their newly-formed games initiative. He grew Criterion Studios into a highly talented and effective team of 45 people and delivered their first 3 games for PC and Dreamcast.  He then moved into a broader role in which he was closely involved in the early planning, staffing and R&D for RenderWare. 

In 2000 Jamie joined NTL as their content director where he was responsible for producing all the output for the NTL digital interactive TV service. Following a helter skelter 18 months in the TV biz he decided to go back to his first love of videogames.

SCEE’s London Studio was formed in late 2001 with the amalgamation of the Soho and Camden studios. Jamie joined in December 2001 as its first director and has been responsible for introducing and establishing such major new global franchises as EyeToy, SingStar and The Getaway. In January 2005 Jamie was promoted to vice president, development and is now responsible for both London and Cambridge Studios.

Jamie is married with two young sons and lives in Battersea. 

Adam Martin, MindCandy
ARG: immersive gaming for the mass market

Track: Design · Lecture, 60 minutes
ARG Developers Group Gathering
Group Gathering, 60 minutes

Adam Martin is the CTO for MindCandy, developers of Perplex City, and co-founder and Chair of the IGDA ARG SIG. Previously he was the chief architect for an MMOG middleware company inventing patented server technology. He has been a fanatic of online games since running a multiline BBS in the early nineties, and wrote on MMOG networking and Secure by Design for Game Programming Gems 4 and 5. Adam is handy with both boomstick and railgun, and hopes that when the revolution comes,
malloc() will be first against the wall.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Q Entertainment Inc
Creativity led production: How to bring new ideas into line

Track: Next Wave · Lecture, 60 minutes

Born in 1965, Tetsuya Mizuguchi produced his first game title ‘Sega Rally Championship’ in 1994 with Japanese game company, Sega. Following more racing game productions, he announced the release of the musical action ‘Space Channel 5’, blending trance music and shooting game ‘Rez’. Mizuguchi left Sega in 2003 and has established Q Entertainment Inc., where he is continuing his creations in ‘Lumines’(PSP), ‘Meteos’(NDS) and ‘Ninety-nine Nights’(XB360).

Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios
Design by democracy: How to keep your vision - while taking on board everyone else's

Track: Design · Lecture, 60 minutes

Peter Molyneux is one of the best-known names in the international world of computer games. He co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987 and created a new genre of computer games, “ the god game” with the release of Populous. Since then Peter has been responsible for a string of massive selling games including Powermonger, Theme Park, Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper. Cumulative sales of his games are now approaching the ten million mark worldwide. In 1997 Peter left Bullfrog Productions to form a new games development company Lionhead Studios. The company has released two games Black & White in 2001 and Fable in 2004, cumulative sales are already over 3 million copies. Autumn 2005 saw the release of Black & White 2 (PC), The Movies (PC) and Fable The Lost Chapters (PC and Xbox) Lionhead now numbers over 200 employees and is working on four new games.  Peter is recognised as one of the computer games industry’s most articulate and eloquent speakers on the subject of the development of computer games. He has recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Abertay and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. Peter was also awarded an OBE in the 2005 New Years Honours List for services to the computer video games industry.

Marty O'Donnell, Bungie Studios
The Future of Audio in Interactive Entertainment: A Personal Vision
Track: Audio · Keynote, 60 minutes

Marty O'Donnell received his Masters of Music Degree in composition, with honors, from USC in the early 80's and since then he has written and produced numerous original scores for TV, Radio and Film. In 1997 his company, TotalAudio, produced sound design for Cyan’s "Riven, the Sequel to Myst", and all the audio for Bungie’s award winning "Myth: The Fallen Lords". TotalAudio went on to produce the audio for Valkyrie Studio’s "Septerra Core, Legacy of the Creator" and Bungie’s “Myth II: Soulblighter”. In May of 2000, ten days after Marty accepted a full time position with Bungie Software focusing entirely on the audio production for “Oni” and “Halo”, Microsoft purchased Bungie and moved them to Redmond to develop games for the Xbox. The audio for “Halo” received numerous industry awards including The Game Developers Choice Award, The Edge Award, and Best Soundtrack of 2002 from Rolling Stone Magazine. In 2004 he composed the music and produced the audio for the highly anticipated "Halo 2". In addition to the many game industry awards, including Best Sound from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences and the International Game Developers Association, Halo 2 has been chosen for a Wired Rave award, and named to the Time 100 List. Also, the soundtrack for Halo 2 has sold more copies than any game soundtrack to date. Although still co-owner of TotalAudio with Mike Salvatori, who stayed with the Chicago studio, Marty is currently Audio Director for Bungie Studios at Microsoft. He has been married for 28 years to Marcie and they have two daughters, Alison, and Christine.

Andrew Oliver, Blitz Games
Pros and Cons of Developing Your Own Middleware
Track: Coding · Lecture, 60 minutes

Andrew Oliver is co-founder and co-owner of Blitz Games and took on the role of Technical Director when he and his twin brother Philip started the company in 1990. In August 2002 he was appointed Chief Technical Officer and is now responsible for all aspects of the company's game development direction as well as ensuring that the company's reputation for high quality standards and prompt delivery is maintained. He is the current Chapter Leader of the UK Midlands Chapter of IGDA (International Game Developers Association).

Jason Page , Sony Computer Entertainment
PS3 Audio: Meet The Team
Track: Audio · Panel, 45 minutes

Jason Page has worked in the computer games industry since 1988. He has has held rolls as both programmer and composer in this time. His music credits (approximately 50 titles to date) include titles from the 8 and 16bit era such as Rainbow Islands and Paradroid 90 as well as many PlayStation titles, including Gran Turismo, This Is Football, ATV and CoolBoarders.

Currently holding the position of Audio Manager in the Technology Group at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, his work involves supporting developer audio requirements for all PlayStation platforms, writing sample code and trying to squeeze as much out of any system as possible. He currently manages the team who have been creating the PlayStation 3 MultiStream audio engine.

Ken Perlin, New York University
Animating Emotion
Track: Coding · Lecture, 60 minutes

Ken Perlin a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University, and founding director of the Media Research Laboratory, also directed the NYU Center for Advanced Technology from 1994-2004. His research interests include graphics, animation, and multimedia. In January 2004 he was the featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2002 he received the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU. In 1997 he won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television. In 1991 he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Perlin received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University in 1986, and a B.A. in theoretical mathematics from Harvard University in 1979. He was Head of Software Development at R/GREENBERG Associates in New York, NY from 1984 through 1987. Prior to that, from 1979 to 1984, he was the System Architect for computer generated animation at Mathematical Applications Group, Inc., Elmsford, NY, where the first feature film he worked on was TRON. He has served on the Board of Directors of the New York chapter of ACM/SIGGRAPH, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Software Industry Association.

Sergio Pimentel, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Buy now, pay later!
Track: Audio/Production · Lecture, 60 minutes

Combining his knowledge of music, licensing experience, and industry contacts with his account management background, Sergio is responsible for managing the music licensing on all internally developed games at SCEE's London studio as well as some second and third party titles, ensuring that their music requirements are realized. Prior to this, Sergio was creative director at music consultancy CouchLife, working on game soundtracks with leading publishers and developers worldwide. His earlier experience was corporate, having spent two and a half years as senior account manager at PR Newswire. With over six years experience in the market research industry, Sergio has been involved in high profile international research campaigns across a number of industries.

Frank Puranik, Director, Itheon Networks
Why good online games go bad
Track: Business · Expo Seminar Theater, 60 minutes

Frank co-founded Itheon in 1987 and is responsible for the Application Testing and Network Performance division which specialises in the delivery of software performance testing and network emulation technology. Frank has a Pure Mathematics degree from Sheffield University and over 20 years experience of working in a wide variety of roles within the software IT industry including software development, sales, technical support and design.

Dave Ranyard , Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Buy now, pay later!
Track: Audio/Production · Lecture, 60 minutes

Dave has been in the games industry for the last eight years. He started out as an AI programmer at Psygnosis, later moving to SCEE's London Development Studio where he is currently the audio manager. He has worked on titles including WIP3OUT, THE GETAWAY and THE GETAWAY: BLACK MONDAY, EYETOY: PLAY and SINGSTAR brands. Prior to the games industry he lectured in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Leeds where he also earned a Ph.D.. Dave is also a musician and has written and produced many records and toured the U.S. and Europe with his band Supercharger.

Torsten Reil, NaturalMotion
Motion synthesis and unique game moments
Track: Art · Sponsored Session, 60 minutes

Torsten graduated in Biology from Oxford University and holds a Master in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems from Sussex University. Prior to founding NaturalMotion, Torsten was researching for a PhD in Complex Systems at Oxford University. In 2003, he was named as one of the world's top 100 innovators by MIT's Technology Review.

Margaret Robertson, Edge magazine
Design DNA: 10 new game designs ideas from the past 12 months worth stealing
Track: Design · Lecture, 60 minutes

After a glitteringly unsuccessful career as a medieval historian, Margaret Robertson made the decision of turning her interest in games from time-consuming liability into a job opportunity and shifted into freelance writing.  Since starting at Edge Margaret's written for a wide range of game and mainstream magazines, helped run the Edinburgh games festival and never missed a change to bang on about Magic Pengel.

James Rogeres, Softimage
Real Characters, Real Fast: Next Gen character creation using Softimage|XSI
Expo Seminar Theater, Lecture, 60 minutes

Ten years experience with CG, starting with Softimage products in 1996. Working with Softimage as a Product Specialist since 2001, helping companies make the most of our technology.

Stephen Root, Electronic Arts
Black: A Case Study Steve Root, Electronic Arts UK Track: Audio · Theme: Profiting from Technology · Lecture, 45 minutes

Stephen Root is the Senior Audio Director for Criterion Games, an EA Studio, based in Guildford. During his six years at Criterion he has successfully built up one of the most highly regarded audio teams in the industry and ensured that his team delivers outstanding and critical acclaimed content for Criterion's AAA franchises; namely Burnout and Black.

Before entering the games industry, Stephen trained at Goldsmiths College and then spent a further 9 years working within the audio industry. Prior to joining Criterion, Stephen was the UK Audio Director for Acclaim Entertainment, where he was responsible for such classics such as Alien Trilogy, Die Hard and the Extreme G series.

Serious Games Workshop

Ben Sawyer, Digitalmill
Half Day Workshop

Ben is the producer of Virtual U, a million dollar plus foundation funded project to build a university management simulator. Virtual U, now shipping Version 2.1, was a 2000 Independent Games Festival finalist. Ben is also the author of Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-Based Learning and Simulation Whitepaper for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (wwics.si.edu) and was a contributor to Game Developer Magazine. He also has author of two books on gaming for Coriolis Group Books and is developing a book on simulations with Paraglyph Press. He has published several research reports on the games industry for DFC Intelligence.

Paul Scargill, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
PS3 Audio: Meet The Team
Track: Audio · Lecture, 60 minutes

Paul Scargill started life in the industry at DMA Design in Scotland working as an audio programmer before heading south. He spent 5 years at Team17, in sunny Yorkshire, working on several Worms titles, with a varied role encompassing bits of everything from game-play to character animation programming as well as all things audio.

He is currently working within Sony’s Technology Group as an audio programmer developing DSP algorithms and building tools, in order to help push next-gen game audio to new levels (and we’re not talking decibels).

Vincent Scheurer
Towards an industry standard publishing agreement: the TIGA Model Contract
Track: Business · Lecture, 45 minutes

Vincent Scheurer is a lawyer specialising in video game contracts and the editor of the TIGA Model Contract. He has worked in the games industry since 1997, when he joined a UK games publisher as sole in house counsel. After spending five years at law firm Osborne Clarke, Vincent set up Sarassin LLP, a legal consultancy in the video games industry, in 2004. Sarassin LLP advises on all classes of commercial agreements and related issues in the video games industry.

John Sear, University of Derby
Academics Group Gathering
Group Gatherings, 60 minutes

John is the Programme Leader for the BSc Computer Games Programming degree at the University of Derby. He combined his academic background, having previously taught at the University of Manchester, and his years in the games industry in order to develop an undergraduate degree specifically targeted to fill the games programmer short-fall in the UK.

He is frequently engaged in academic / industry relationship building discussions and has sat on both sides of the fence. John has been successful in attracting more women into games development by raising awareness by generating international publicity of this issue and by also running game development workshops specifically targeted for females. He is looking forward to helping shape Higher Education’s contribution to the UK games sector.

Jonathan Shaw has been at Lionhead for six years now, having joined the Fable Team when it was called Big Blue Box Studios. After graduating from Cambridge University with a First in Computer Science, he spent eight months working with databases before he managed to break into the computer games industry; he hasn't looked back since. One of the first things he worked on was the navigation solution for Fable, but before too long he'd worked on many different gameplay systems. He's now a senior programmer, and is one of the two leads of the gameplay team on Fable 2. In his spare time Jonathan is a keen actor and takes part in various amateur shows and also attends acting, singing and dancing lessons.

Jonathan Smith, TT Games Publishing
Money for Non-Suits
Games design room 101:  Four designers each consign a game design horror to the dustbin · Track: Business · Lecture, 60 minutes

Jonathan Smith, Travellers Tale is a former games journalist and editor at Future Publishing, Jonathan Smith is development director at TT Games, where he was responsible for the production of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game. Jonathan’s currently working on a number of new titles, all of which promise to be amazing.

Robert J. Spencer, BigWorld
Web-Enabling Your MMOG using BigWorld
Expo Seminar Theater, Lecture, 60 minutes

As Strategic Business Manager for BigWorld, Robert is responsible for working with BigWorld's licensees to help make the development of their MMOGs faster, cheaper, easier and more profitable. Prior to joining BigWorld, Robert was Publisher of PC Games Plus, G+ and Australian PC Gamer, then Executive Producer at Cafe Nova working on the Red Martian Blues MMP.

Richard Stenson, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Shaders: The Sky is the Limit
Track: Code · Lecture, 60 minutes

Richard Stenson is a Graphics API Engineer in SCEA R&D. He has worked in the games industry for over 8 years with experience in PSOne, PS2, PC and PSP graphics programming. For the last three years he has been in SCEA R&D where he has worked on PSGL, the official Graphics API for PS3, and COLLADA the open source 3D file format now an Open Source standard adopted by the Kronos group. Most recently he presented at GDC 06 talk “COLLADA for PS3” with a demo of FX Composer exported COLLADA_FX on the PS3. Other areas of research include CELL SPU processor based rendering algorithms and general processing task management system for dynamically distributing streaming processes on the CELL to fully utilizing SPUs.

Jeff Sullivan, Microsoft Game Technology Group
Xbox Live: Now and in the Future
Track: Code · Lecture, 60 minutes

Jeff Sullivan is a developer relations manager in Microsoft’s Game Technology Group. After cutting his teeth writing code in the bowels of the Xbox software team for five years, he decided it was time to interact more directly with the game developers that drive the platform. All in the service of Making Games. Better.

James Swallow, freelance writer
Game Writers Group Gathering
Group Gathering, 60 minutes

James Swallow is a freelance scriptwriter, author and director. He has written scripts and developed stories for several high-profile videogame projects, including Maelstrom, Battlestar Galactica, Killzone 2 and Star Trek Invasion. A member of IGDA’s Games Writing Special Interest Group committee, James is also a contributor to the forthcoming book Games Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media). In addition, he is currently working with the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain on the development of industry guidelines for games writers and with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) on raising the profile of games scriptwriters. Swallow’s other credits include writing for the television series Star Trek Voyager – he remains the only British writer to have worked on a Star Trek television show – and radio drama for Doctor Who, Judge Dredd and Space 1889, as well as thirteen novels and the critically acclaimed non-fiction book Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher. He lives and works in London, England.

Nick Thibieroz, ATI
DirectX 10 for Techies · Track: Coding · Lecture, 60 minutes

Nicolas Thibieroz is part of the European Developer Relations team at ATI Technologies. He originally discovered programming on Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC before moving on to the PC world, where he realised the potential of real-time 3D graphics while playing Ultima Underworld.

After obtaining a BEng of Electronic Engineering in 1996 he joined PowerVR Technologies where he occupied the role of Developer Relations Manager, supporting game developers on a variety of platforms and contributing to SDK content. His current position at ATI involves helping developers optimize the performance of their games and educating them about the advanced features found in cutting-edge graphic hardware.

Richard van Tol, University of Portsmouth
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Richard van Tol is a Ph.D. student at the University of Portsmouth (England), researching game audio design. He has an Audio Engineer Diploma and a M.A. in Audio Design. Van Tol teaches several courses on game audio design at the Utrecht School of the Arts (Netherlands). He has been involved in game accessibility since 2001, having developed several blind-accessible games such as Drive, Dark and The Curb Game, as well as many research prototypes. Van Tol is co-founder of AudioGames.net (http://www.audiogames.net), a community website for gamers, developers and researchers focusing on audio games (games based on sound). He currently works at the Bartiméus Accessibility Foundation (http://www.accessibility.nl), a Dutch foundation that provides information, training and evaluation services to businesses, (local) governments and other organizations concerning the accessibility of hardware, software and the Internet for everyone, including people with a disability and the elderly. Here he set up the Game Accessibility project (http://www.game-accessibility.com), in which a community- and resourcewebsite related to game accessibility is developed. Additionally, he develops interactive audio installations.

Mary Margaret Walker, Mary-Margaret.com
Womens Group Gathering
Group Gathering, 60 minutes

As CEO, Mary Margaret leads the recruitment strategies and new business endeavors for Mary-Margaret.com. She brings to the role 14 years of experience in recruiting and 6 years of experience in video game development.

Prior to moving to recruiting in 1996, Mary Margaret was Manager of Studio Services for The 3DO Company managing the milestones and development process of all projects in production and the hiring of over 200 employees. Previously, she was at Origin Systems where she created the company’s Human Resources department and contributed to titles in development as a Design Manager.
Mary Margaret is a regular speaker at international trade shows and has authored numerous articles. She was a contributing author to Ernest Adams' popular book, Break Into The Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games.

A founding member of the IGDA, Mary Margaret holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Christian University and an M.B.A. from Sacred Heart University.

Mark Ward, Bastion
I’m with the brand: Developers as the stars
Track: Business · Panel, 60 minutes

Mark Ward has been a part of the Bastion team for over ten years, man and boy, and has worked with some of the biggest development and publishing names in the interactive entertainment industry, past and present, including 3DO, 505 GameStreet, Black Friar, Blue Planet Software, BMG, Capcom, CDV, CIC, CMP, Crystal Dynamics, Enlight, Evolved, Funsoft, Gamer.tv, Gremlin, Hasbro, Massive Incorporated, Maxis, Metaboli, Monte Cristo, Novalogic, Oxygen Interactive, Reflections, THQ, UbiSoft, URwired, Virgin Interactive and Westwood Studios.

Mark is currently managing the media and developer relations campaign for the launch of Philips amBX, as well as PR campaigns for Buena Vista Games, Mindscape and Mythic Entertainment.

Prior to Bastion, Mark worked for sales promotion agency, CBH and Partners, on SEGA's 'In 2 Action' road show, taking Sonic the Hedgehog and MegaDrive-fitted double-decker coaches to music and sporting events around the country. Mark looks good in blue lycra.

Thomas Westin, Pin Interactive
IGDA Accessibility Workshop
Full Day Workshop

Thomas Westin is Vice President of, <http://www.pininteractive.com>Pin Interactive AB (<http://www.pininteractive.com>http://www.pininteractive.com), which won the "Innovation in Audio" award at the Independent Games Festival 2003 for its 3D game <http://www.terraformers.nu>Terraformers (<http://www.terraformers.nu>http://www.terraformers.nu), playable by sighted and blind. Westin also started the IGDA Game Accessibility SIG in 2003 and was chairperson until June 2004. Westin has contributed to two whitepapers published by IGDA, as well as to the SIG Wiki and projects. Westin is also a member of the Macromedia Director Advisory Council, has contributed to projects for multimedia education in Tanzania, Africa, as well as several other projects regarding accessibility. For example, in 1998 he developed an online web browser which enabled sight disabled users to surf the web on any Mac or PC. He also made a prototype VR system with biofeedback for stroke therapy at the Karolinska Hospital.

Gareth Wilson, Bizarre Creations
Gotham Racing 3: A Post Mortem on developing a XBOX 360 launch title
Track: Production· Format · Lecture, 60 minutes

Gareth Wilson is Design Manager for the Gotham Racing Team at Bizarre Creations. “Design Manager” is a hybrid role of game design, management and production to ensure the creative vision of the design team comes through to the final product. The Design Manager also acts as a point of contact for the whole team to get design decisions and solve implementation issues.

Prior to Bizarre Creations, Gareth was Product Manager at massively multiplayer developer Destiny Star, where he managed a team of developers ensuring production milestones were met and gave high level design direction to DS’s MMO titles. He also holds an MSc in Computing from Manchester Metropolitan University and has published papers on game design and production methods.

Nick Wiswell, Bizarre Creations
Session: PS3 Audio: Meet The Team
Track: Audio · Format · Panel, 45 minutes

Nick Wiswell is the Audio Manager at Bizarre Creations where he has been working in various roles since 1999. Whilst still working as a hands on Sound Designer most of the time, the growing audio team at Bizarre is committed to pushing back the boundaries of what is possible with audio in games, with particular attention being paid to use of surround sound. Previous titles include Fur Fighters, Disney's Treasure Planet and the PGR series.

Kenny Young, Sony Computer Entertainment
Recreating Reality
Track: Audio · Format · Lecture, 60 minutes

Kenny Young is a sound designer at SCEE's London Studio. In the past couple of years he has worked on eight titles including The Getaway Black Monday, Fired Up, EyeToy Kinetic and 24. Prior to this he studied music technology as an undergraduate and gained an MA, with distinction, in sound design. He has given guest lectures on interactive audio at GDCE, the University of Edinburgh, Leeds College of Music and Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies. Kenny recently set up the website gamesound.org as a resource for those wishing to learn more about sound for games.