Speakers
Ian Livingstone – Eidos
Ian Livingstone is Life President of Eidos and one of the UKs founding fathers of interactive games and fiction. In 1975 he co-founded Games Workshop and launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe. In 1977 he launched White Dwarf, the UKs first interactive games magazine. In 1982 he co-wrote The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first in the Fighting Fantasy series of interactive gamebooks that sold over 16 million copies in 23 languages. He wrote more than 20 books in the series. He served as Executive Chairman of Eidos plc from 1995 until 2002. At Eidos he helped to secure many of the company’s major franchises including Lara Croft:Tomb Raider. He is a Non-Executive Director of ELSPA, Chair of Skillsets Computer Games Skills Council, Vice Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee and an advisor to the British Council. He has been awarded an OBE, a BAFTA Special Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Technology for his contribution to the UK computer games industry. Ian will host the 2011 GameHorizon Conference.
Hilmar Veigar Petursson – CCP Games
As Chief Executive Officer of CCP since 2004, Hilmar Petursson has led companys continuing success and explosive growth. Overseeing the expansion of CCP operations to Shanghai, China in 2004 as well as a strategic merger with Atlanta-based White Wolf Publishing in 2006, Mr. Petursson has brought CCP to the forefront of the video game industry as a widely-recognized innovator in the areas of virtual world development, publishing and technology. Named as one of the 20 Most Influential People in the MMO Industry in 2007 and 2008 by Beckett Massive Online Gamer Magazine, Hilmar is frequently sought after as an engaging public speaker, delivering thought-provoking presentations and keynote addresses for many prestigious industry-, technology- and business-related events including the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Nordic Game Conference and the Austin Game Developers Conference.
Originally joining CCP in 2000 as CTO, Hilmar spearheaded the engineering efforts necessary to bring CCPs critically-acclaimed EVE Online to life in 2003. Previously, Hilmar was CTO of SmartVR, an OZ.com spin-off based on that companys multi-user virtual reality technology, and following his tenure as VP of software development for the OZ Studios division of OZ.com. He is active on a number of boards and committees relating to Icelandic information technology and innovation. Hilmar has a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Iceland.
Louis Castle – Zynga
Louis Castle is the co-founder of Westwood Studios, former VP of Creative Development for Electronic Arts and CEO of Instant Action Inc and is currently VP of Studio’s at Zynga. Castle served as CEO, COO, and CFO, growing Westwood from 2 to over 250 staff. He contributed as executive producer, creative director, technical director, programmer and artist to over 100 games, most recently collaborating with Steven Spielberg to create the award winning game franchise, BOOM BLOX.
Louis is the second individual honored with the Game Developer Associations lifetime achievement award (1999) and serves as an outside director for Shuffle Master, (SHFL).
Tom Chatfield – Author
Tom Chatfield is an author, editor and essayist; his book on the culture of video games, ‘Fun Inc.’, was published worldwide in 2010. He’s a senior editor at Prospect magazine and writes widely in the national press, as well as writing for games and new media companies. His latest project is a game for Channel 4 Education with award-winning British company Preloaded.
Tom’s recent appearances include the RSA, authors@Google, TED Global, the House of Commons, the Games Based Learning Conference, GameCamp, the World Congress on Information Technology, Science Foo Camp, and the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative party conferences. He tweets at @TomChatfield.
As you can see Tom has a fascinating background and extensive experience of delivering world class talks. You can watch his TED Global talk here.
Rick Gibson – Games Investor
Rick is a Director of Games Investor Consulting, a games industry consultancy. Specialising in the business of games, GIC has provided strategy and financial consulting services for over 60 games, broadcast and investment companies, as well as TIGA, UKIE, NESTA and 6 government departments. With 15 consecutive years experience, GIC is one of the industry’s most trusted sources for games market intelligence, and advises companies on how to maximise their revenues from all corners of the ever-changing games market.
Ana Kronschnabl – Fluffy Logic
Ana Kronschnabl is CEO and producer at the digital media and computer games company FluffyLogic. She has an MA in TV production and has taught at UWE and Bristol University on Digital Media and is one of the UK’s leading authorities on digital media, aesthetics and viral technology. Ana is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of web-film project plugincinema. Ana has a background in independent film-production which includes establishing and running the video production company Cambridge Video Unit, the film and animation workshop at Chapter Arts in Cardiff, as well as working for the BBC and Granada. She is also the co-author of ‘Plug In & Turn On: A Guide to Internet Filmmaking’ (2004).
Tero Virtala – RedLynx
Tero Virtala has been the CEO of RedLynx since 2002. Before that, he spent five years as a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, developing and implementing strategies for media, entertainment and IT companies.
RedLynx is at the moment a fast growing, 45-person game studio based in Helsinki, Finland. It develops and publishes games for all major gaming platforms. Its biggest successes so far are the million-selling Trials HD for Xbox LIVE Arcade and the Monster Trucks Nitro series for the iPhone.
John Nash – Blitz Games
With 18 years experience in the games industry, John Nash has acquired a vast amount of knowledge and experience of game content creation. As Studio Design Director at Blitz Games Studios he oversees game design for the companys games in production, new IP creation, game design schemas, tuition and mentoring.
Sylvain Liége – Liemur
Sylvain Liége is a Director, co-founder and principle consultant at Liemur. He has a PhD in Computer Science from Nantes University and is President of the Board of Trustees for IS2T in France (who specialise in embedded technologies). Sylvain is an expert on the “human dynamics” that exist within software development projects, and played a pivotal role in the creation of the Project Cycle OptimisationTM model. He has consulted across business sectors such as energy, finance and software vendors and for the past year has been concentrating on the “human dynamics” that exist between computer games studios and publishers in the UK.
Jesse Schell – Schell Games
Prior to launching Schell Games in 2002 Jesse was the Creative Director at Disney Imagineering Studio where he worked for seven years as a designer, programmer and manager. He has helped develop interactive theme park attractions, as well as mass market MMOs (Pixie Hollow and Toontown Online), and is currently developing mobile apps, social games, interactive toys, and what he calls “transformation games.”
Robert Nashak – BBC Worldwide
Robert Nashak was named Executive Vice President, Digital Entertainment in January, 2010. Robert oversees the companys gaming strategy, developing new opportunities across a wide range of gaming platforms.
Prior to joining BBC Worldwide, Robert served as Vice President at Electronic Arts (EA) where he ran EAs Casual Studios. Before that, Robert was VP and General Manager of Yahoo! Games. He also worked as SVP for mobile entertainment publisher, Glu Mobile, where he was responsible for creative direction and product development. Earlier in his career, Robert held key positions at Acclaim Entertainment, Vivendi Games and Disney Online. Robert also currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at USCs School of Cinema and Television, teaching an undergraduate course on the Business and Management of Video Games as part of Princeton Reviews top-ranked US games program.
Stuart Mann – Global Collect
Stuart Mann is a Business Development Manager for GlobalCollect, the leading international Payment Service Provider of local e-payment solutions. Stuart is an expert on working with companies within the Video Gaming Industry. His in-depth market knowledge qualifies him to work with all sorts of gaming companies developing a variety of games. From MMORPGs to Casual Games, Casual MMOs, Social Gaming/Virtual Worlds, Browser Games, DTOs, or Free to Play with virtual currencies and item sales, Stuart has been consulting them on best practices and creating customized solutions enabling them to monetize games both domestically and worldwide.
He understands the challenges e-commerce merchants are facing, the best way to increase their reach, and ultimately to maximize their profit. Stuart has had 10 years global experience within the financial sector, having worked and lived in Sydney, London, and New York. He now resides in Amsterdam.
Mark Rein – Epic Games
Mark Rein is the vice president and co-founder of Epic Games, one of the world’s leading game developers and game technology providers. Epic is responsible for the award-winning Unreal series and Gears of War, the 2006 Game of the Year.
Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 has won Game Developer magazine’s Front Line Award for Best Engine three consecutive years, and engine licensees include BioWare, Square Enix, Take-Two, Microsoft Game Studios, Namco, Activision, NCsoft, Sony Computer Entertainment, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft.
For the past 16 years, Mark has spearheaded Epic’s licensing and publishing deals, business development, public relations, academic relations, marketing and business operations. A self-described computer geek, Mark has been involved with personal computers since his teenage years when he helped his father build an Altair 8800 back in 1975 and taught himself how to program.
In 2005, CNN Money’s Chris Morris listed Mark as one of “the five most powerful people in the game industry today” and GameDaily BIZ ranked Mark third in their top five list of “Game Industry Persons of the Year.” Mark was also honored in Develop magazine’s 2008 “Game Changers,” a list of 25 gaming industry luminaries who are “reshaping the games development business as we know it.”
Renate Nyborg – Edelman
Renate is Director Digital at Edelman, the worlds largest independent PR Agency with over 3,700 people in 53 offices worldwide. Their UK digital practice has delivered campaigns across digital, social media and mobile for brands including Xbox, HP, Puma, Diageo, Starbucks, Pepsi and Research in Motion.
Renate previously ran mobile business development for A&N Media, owner of the Daily Mail, MailOnline.co.uk, Metro, FindaProperty.com, Jobsite.co.uk, Motors.co.uk and Teletext Holidays. In her time there the group published 70 apps across all major Smartphone platforms, and she was instrumental in setting up mobile games and apps publishing brand Metro Apps. Prior to this Renate ran global marketing for social hardware company Poken in San Francisco, and was a co-founder of Twestival, a global charity project run by volunteers through Twitter that raised over $1.7 million in 2009-2011.
Rick Marazzani – Exent
Rick Marazzani is a game veteran with years of experience in mobile and casual games. He is Head of Content Programming at Exent, based in San Francisco. Exent is the worlds largest PC and Android games on-demand distributor, powering game subscription services worldwide for operators including Verizon, Qwest, and T-Mobile.
Chief WONKA – ustwo
@millsustwo - ustwo Chief WONKA living and breathing mobile as the self proclaimed King of Failure. mills has created apps which have sold globally in their hundreds. He openly talks about the ups and downs of running a 90 person, cash positive, non-venture funded, idea generating Mothership.
Paul Farquhar – Intel AppUp
Paul Farquhar represents the Intel AppUpSM developer program team in Europe. When he is not talking to the community about AppUp on Windows and MeeGo at conferences and other events he helps developers in all aspects of the developer program.
Prior to joining Intel Paul was a software developer, IT sales and marketing manager and project manager.
Alexis Kennedy – Failbetter Games
Alexis Kennedy is Chief Narrative Officer at Failbetter Games, a tiny, scrappy, award-winning transmedia and digital fiction company, founded in 2009 to do challenging, addictive things with game and narrative. Their first project, Echo Bazaar, won the Escapist’s Best Browser Game of 2009 Award. The Guardian calls it “beautifully moody and lusciously written” and the New Yorker calls it “rich with clever machinations”. Their clients include O2, Channel 4, Random House, Northern Film + Media and BioWare.