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11th - 13th April Conference Booklet

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Najmanja dozvoljena LOGOTIP REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE veličina logotipa u tisku: KOLOR OUTLINE NEGATIV h = 7,5 mm Based in Graz, Austria, Bongf ish was founded in 2007 with the simple goal to craft incredible games that combine state-of-the-art technology with deep .

Our games, including the acclaimed Stoked series of snowboarding titles, unique racing/shooter hybrid Harms Way, and the exciting new Frontline battle mode for ‘s , have won millions of fans around the globe. We bring a high-tech approach to game development and have more than 10 years of experience working with some of the top game publishers in the industry on console, mobile and PC platforms.

2 3 INTRO REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019

y With great power comes great responsibility

Dear games industry friends, I am both year in Banff and then in 2020 just few days humbled and proud to be able to welcome prior even bigger Reboot Develop Blue we you, together with our tiny tireless team, yet are finally preparing the launch of delayed again, for the 6th year in a row to incredibly Reboot Develop Uni 2020 next door in special edition of Reboot Develop Blue picturesque Cavtat, an industry conference 2019 game developers and games industry solely focused on students and newcomers conference. Reboot Develop Blue this year to our industry! We all hope you will enjoy stands at the crossroads of being not just next three days full of incredible content one of the most unique and interesting, very as we have enjoyed building this event finely crafted game developers conferences during the last 12 intensive and challenging in the world but also truly one of the months! biggest anywhere. Featuring more than 140 speakers in our really ground-breaking _Damir Durovic ([email protected]) speaker lineup that spans 9 parallel tracks CEO is a feat we are especially proud of! And Reboot this is not where our dreams, ambitions and plans stop... we are already looking far unto the horizon with our huge Canadian venture Reboot Develop Red 2019 happening this

Patrons OF fine digital art and entertainment: Patrons OF fine digital art and entertainment:

4 5 SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019

Reboot Develop through half a decade of it’s existence has become a synonym for outstanding, best in its class speaker lineups, gathering some of the finest worldwide games industry creators and developers, including not just industry legends but also indie developer superstars as well as AAA studio heads and leads. This year Reboot Develop is going to host 142 great speakers. *arranged in alphabetical order (except five speakers; Paul Wedgewood, Karlo Jez, Luka Hrabar, Robert Sajko and Ellie Osili-Wood due to last minute edit) Alon Or-bach Samsung Electronics, Senior Software Engineer

y Alon works in the Game Ecosystem Team in Samsung Alen Ladavac Electronics’ R&D center in the UK, part of Samsung’s Galaxy GameDev , CTO / Co-Founder program. He has been deeply y Alen Ladavac is leading the involved in mobile graphics since 2006 and rep- technology team as well as work- resents Samsung within the Khronos Group. Alon ing on all aspects of Croteam engages with game developers and Samsung’s GPU games since 1993. Now mainly partners to shape the Vulkan API to make gaming on heading the efforts on Android better and better with every passing year. 4 development, his previous work includes the world-famous Serious Sam franchise and critically acclaimed , as well as a series of Andrej Kovacevic console, VR and mobile versions of those games. Exoridum Games, Game Director / Board Member His broad range of interests and experience spans all technical areas of the game development, from y Andrej’s passion for games as a rendering, sound and physics, to networking, build medium is spilling over into many systems and content pipelines. different fields. This is shown through running Exordium Games as Managing Director and co-owner being most known for their acclaimed adventure series Bear With Me, through writing an indie column for the regional Indiependent, Writer/Director gaming culture magazine Reboot as well as being very active in CGDA with lobbying and building a better y In a career spanning 30 years, eco-system for game development in Croatia. Amy Hennig has worked as an artist, animator, game designer, and most notably in the last two decades, as Andrew Parsons a writer and director. Most recently, , Head of Production Amy worked as the creative director and lead writer on title, at . y Andrew Parsons is the head of This was following a decade at as production at Indie publishing label the creative director and writer of Computer Devolver Digital. Since his introduc- Entertainment’s acclaimed game series. tion to the industry in 2005, he has Prior to joining Naughty Dog, she served as the writ- worked in multiple disciplines in both er and director of the groundbreaking Soul Reaver publishing and development that run the gamut / Legacy of series over eight years at Crystal from brand management to design. His con- Dynamics. tinuing mission is to support the talented developers of the Devolver family and to help bring Indie great- ness to the unwashed masses. He thinks most games are too difficult. 6 7 Ante Odic

Andrej Levenski Ekipa2 part of Outfit7 Group, Fellow Data Scientist

Gamepires, Technical Director / Co-Founder y Ante Odic worked at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Engineering, where he y Andrej is an industry veteran of earned a PhD in context-aware rec- 16 years and the Technical Director ommender systems, before joining at Gamepires. He has been a pro- Outfit7 Group in 2013. There he has grammer for much longer, almost progressed from hands-on user behavior analysis 22 years, starting out as an enthu- to leading a large team of data scientists, and now siast with his friends. He co-founded Gamepires 8 promotes data-driven decision making at a strate- years ago, working on the in-house PranaEngine gic level. He has co-designed big systems – such used on the award-winning Gas Guzzlers Extreme as ad-mediation and cross promotion – for Outfit7 racing combat game, and has spent the last 2 Group’s mobile games, and has been instrumental years working in UE4 on SCUM, a multiplayer sur- in developing an analytics infrastructure capable vival game currently in . His interests of drawing answers from a 3TB daily data stream and experience span all technical areas of the in a matter of seconds. game development. Anya Combs Anne Toole Games, Senior Games Outreach Writer y Anya Combs is the Senior y Writers Guild Award-winner Games Outreach person at Anne Toole has written for video Kickstarter. She has been in the games, TV & digital series, anima- digital games space for over a tion, comics, and more. Her credits decade, overseeing multiple include Curse of The Pharaohs for mobile and online titles launched for Nickelodeon Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Horizon & AddictingGames, and has worked with countless Zero Dawn, IGF nominee Where the Water Tastes game creators launching successful projects on like Wine; and the Emmy-winning webseries The Kickstarter. She is excited to continue supporting Lizzie Benner Diaries. She also created Alles Liebe, game devs as they bring their creative projects to Annette, a short-form series for the German mar- . Anya has also played the saxophone for 20+ ket. Next, her work will appear on Netflix’s anime years and plays in too many bands in NYC. She series Cannon Busters. doesn’t sleep much. Ante Vrdelja

Croteam, Chief Marketing Officer AriTunes, CEO /

y y Ante is developing marketing Ari is an award winning com- strategies and leading the execu- poser and sound designer. With tion of marketing programs at over 15 years of professional experi- Croteam, Croatia’s powerhouse ence, his works include original and studio behind Serious Sam and award winning music and audio for The Talos Principle. As a co-founder and Secretary games such as , Nex Machina, , General of CGDA – Croatian Game Developers Alienation, HD and Trine -series. Association, he established a network of regional Among many awards that Ari gathered throughout game dev studios and is working towards global the years just some of those that stand out are Hall recognition and local support for the growing of Fame in , Finnish Game Developer industry. Una persona famosa. Muy importante. of the Year 2011 and Best PS4 Audio Award 2013 from Resogun by IGN and many others. 8 9 proud sponsor SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Arnold Nesis Capricia Productions, CEO / Composer Ben Judd y Arnold Nesis is an Israeli metal- head and music composer, mostly DDM, Partner, Executive VP of DDM Japan known for his work in video games y The first foreign producer at and media. Arnold has worked with a major Japanese publisher, Ben companies in the United States, worked on a variety of ’s , Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere and cur- biggest franchises from Resident rently is the CEO of Capricia Productions, making Evil and Devil May Cry to classics interactive music albums. Recently, the like Mega Man. His experience in the US branch company has been focusing on the development office and the Japanese head office, along with of The Birdcage – a music album fully produced as producing multiple international collaborative a video game, featuring leading artists from Guns projects, gives him a unique understanding of N’ Roses, (former) Evanescence, Within Temptation, how to best negotiate deals between companies Epica and others. several oceans apart. Ben leads DDM’s Japanese initiative as it continues to expand its global reach. Ben Jackson Rocksteady Studios, Lead External Development Benjamin Mitchell Imagination Technologies, Developer Support y Ben has been in the games industry for over 10 years. Starting Engineer as an Environment Artist in Scotland, y Benjamin Mitchell is passionate he has worked on titles includ- about games and game develop- ing Redemption, Grand ment. He has experience in a wide Theft Auto IV, and GTAV. Moving on to lead internal range of games programming and external art teams on Playstation VR, he now areas, and loves to learn more heads up the external development department at in his spare time too. As a Developer Support Rocksteady Studios which supports all aspects of Engineer for PowerVR at Imagination Technologies, production including art content, animation, cine- he enjoys a variety of tasks including developing matics, UI and engineering. tools, analysing graphics application performance, and helping external developers with their graph- ics problems. Outside of gaming, he is learning Benjamin Charbit Mandarin, and has a keen interest in sports. Darewise Entertainment, CEO

y CEO of Parisian studio Darewise Paul Wedgewood Entertainment and Vice President Supernova Capital, Founder of Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo, Charbit’s rise within the videogames y Entrepreneur and gaming industry has been swift. With his fanatic, Paul Wedgwood started origins in investment banking he brought an based video games devel- analytical eye, economic savvy and a personal pas- oper Splash Damage in 2001. sion for video games to his debut role at Under Paul’s leadership, Splash in 2011. Initially accountable for the monetisation Damage has grown from a modest games devel- design, development and strategy in the Ubisoft’s opment team to a studio which has created some F2P teams, in 2013 Benjamin took key learnings of the world’s most engaging multiplayer experi- from the games-as-a-service division into the ences. After 17 years at the helm, Paul stepped world of AAA development, becoming Content down as CEO of Splash Damage and founded and Monetisation Director on Assassin’s Creed. In Supernova Capital LLP, with the goal to build more January 2018 he, along with Viktor Antonov opened happy, healthy and profitable studios worldwide. Darewise Entertainment as a development studio. 10 11 Carsten Orthbandt SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP | 2015 Brandon Sheffield zeuz.io, CTO Necrosoft, Creative Director y Carsten is a seasoned industry y Brandon Sheffield is creative veteran with more than 20 years director of Necrosoft Games, devel- of experience. Today he pushes oper of Gunhouse, Gunsport, and the boundaries of what’s possible Oh, Deer! He has worked on over in multiplayer infrastructure and a dozen titles as narrative director, hybrid cloud solutions. Carsten has always been a designer, and biz dev/marketing/other nonsense. technology frontrunner, employing modern devel- He writes a web comic called Hot Comic for Cool opment tools and strategies ever since he started people, and also consults for a number of com- his career at Terratools. After, he founded SEK in panies and conferences in advisory capacities. He Berlin, where he served as Development Director likes weird old games, weird old music and weird before becoming Managing Director at pixeltamer. old towns, so if you know anything about any of net, finally moving on to zeuz.io. that, you should probably let him know. Catalin Butnariu Branislav Siles Carbon / RGDA, CEO / President Atomontage Inc., CEO / Co-Founder y As the President of the y Branislav had his first epiphanies Romanian Game Developers about the inevitable volumetric Association, Catalin consid- future when he won 256-byte com- ers himself an advocate of the petitions in the European demo- Romanian games industry and is a scene, two decades ago. He has firm believer in the talent and potential of Eastern since dedicated his career to developing volumetric Europe in the world of games. He is a Co-Founder graphics technologies that today show a glimpse of and General Manager of Carbon, a Bucharest- what’s possible and how we can only scale to the based games incubator and the Founder and CEO sci-fi visions of the OASIS, Metaverse, and the Matrix of Dev.Play, a game development conference if these virtual worlds are simulated and rendered in focused on Eastern Europe. Prior to RGDA and his a structurally simple, volumetrically sampled way. recent initiatives, he had spent a significant time at Gameloft, where he was managing a global divi- Catherine Channon sion of over 1000 people. PR Expert y Beginning her career in inde- Celia Hodent pendent retail and trade marketing Independent UX Consultant Cat moved into journalism in 1998. y She worked in radio, TV, specialist Celia Hodent is recognized as online and print media. At a leader in the application of user she launched and Half Life 2. experience (UX) and cognitive sci- At Take-Two she was behind the scenes for the ence in the game industry. Celia launch of : Vice City. As Head of holds a PhD in psychology and International Communications at Warner Bros. she has over ten years of experience in the develop- led publicity, community, social media and influ- ment of UX strategy and processes in video game encer campaigns for huge gaming and entertain- studios. Through her work at Ubisoft (e.g. Rainbow ment brands including: LEGO, Harry Potter, Mortal 6 franchise), LucasArts (e.g. Star Wars: 1313), and Kombat and Lord of The Rings. An avid campaigner as Director of UX at (e.g. ), she with an ethical but commercial approach to comms has contributed to many projects across multiple she has also spent the last decade working on pro- platforms, from PC to consoles, mobile, and VR. bono and not-or-profit communications campaigns Celia is also the founder of the Game UX Summit, both inside and out of the games industry with no advisor for the GDC UX Summit, and author of budget and limited resources. The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact . 12 13 Charles Cecil Chris Wren SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP | 2015 , CEO / Co-Founder Electronic Arts / XDS, Sr. Manager / Chair of XDS Advisory Committee y Charles Cecil has been a key fig- ure in the interactive entertainment y Chris is a 16-year veteran of industry for over 30 years. CEO and Electronic Arts, beginning his co-founder of Revolution Software, tenure as a Development Director Charles created the multi-million for Sports and Action titles. Chris selling series which is one of the is a member of EA’s XDI team, world’s most successful adventure franchises. Charles supporting the external development needs of was awarded the status of ‘industry legend’ by the organization. Chris acts as Chair for the XDS Develop, Europe’s leading development magazine. Advisory Committee, which ensures excellence in Currently him and his team at Revolution Software the delivery of the internationally acclaimed XDS are working on redefining classical event. Chris has held a board positions with ACM genre while developing their next big game. SIGGRAPH Vancouver, and Vancouver Film School. Chris has delivered sessions at games industry events in the UK, United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Chris Avellone Colombia. Writer / Game Designer / Creator of Worlds y Chris Avellone is best known for Christian Fonnesbech his work on a number of role-playing games over the past 20+ years, Nordisk, Head of IP Development including Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: y Christian Fonnesbech is an The Sith Lords, Fallout (2 and New Vegas), Divinity: Executive Consultant at DDM. He Original Sin II, and Prey. Recent works include Into is also Head of IP Development at the Breach with Subset Games (the makers of FTL), Nordisk Film Games, which is the Pathfinder: Kingmaker with Owlcat Games, and game investment arm of Egmont ’s Dying Light 2. – a Nordic media conglomerate with 6.600 employ- ees. His main focus is story and franchise develop- ment – building game IPs into lasting properties Chris Petrovic and brands. Zynga, SVP / Head of Corp Strategy, M&A and Bizde Christina Seelye y Chris is a tech and games indus- try veteran, with over 20 years of , CEO global experience in the sector. He currently serves as SVP and Head y An industry veteran of nearly of Corporate Strategy, M&A and 20 years, Christina Seelye heads Business Development for Zynga. Chris is respon- Maximum Games, a video game sible for driving the company’s growth through publishing company she co-founded strategic M&A, partnerships and market expansion in 2009, and its premier indie label, efforts. To date, Chris has deployed $1B in capital Modus Games. In fewer than five years, Christina through the acquisitions of Small Giant Games, Gram built Maximum Games into a Top 15 global pub- Games, Peak Games board and card studio, Harpan lisher. In 2016, she led the acquisition of Avanquest and Puzzle Social. Chris also oversees the company’s UK, establishing a prominent presence overseas. In IP licensing efforts with global partners Disney (Star 2017, Maximum Games created its premier indie Wars), Warner Brothers (Harry Potter), Univeral (Fast branch, Modus, to give innovative independent & Furious), HBO () and World Poker games a platform, such as newly released Ninjin: Tour, and also spearheads Zynga’s emerging and Clash of Carrots and the upcoming mech brawler, new market expansion strategies and efforts. Override: Mech City Brawl. 14 15 SPONSORED STAGE

16 17 Christopher Bergstresser Damjan Mravunac Croteam, Composer / Sound Designer MTG, Investment Executive y Damjan is best known as the y Christopher has been in the in-house audio guru for Croatia’s games industry for over 25 years oldest and most reputable studio, and has been with some of the Croteam. He is currently compos- biggest brand names – , ing tunes and designing sound , and . Over effects for , the next instalment in the years, Chris has had several start-ups, raised the long-running franchise about aliens attack- millions in venture capital and has had some great ing the Earth and dying a horrible death while exits, the most recent being the sale of Appscotch screaming in remarkably high quality as a melodic Interactive Empathy to AppAnnie. Currently, Chris is an investment hybrid metal-orchestral score commemorates their executive with Modern Times Group (MTG) where passing. Citizenship and Storytelling in Video Games he is focused on both investments and M&A. Dan Murray Thursday 11 April, 11:30 – Place: Zeuz Stage Christopher Kassulke Skybound Interactive, President Roundtable speakers: Moderator: HandyGames – THQ Nordic, CEO / Co-Founder y Dan Murray oversees Skybound • Renaud Charpentier (FR) • Srđan Laterza Entertainment’s robust gaming y Christopher is CEO and co- • Andrej Kovačević (HR) business. He works closely with founder of HandyGames a THQ • Hendrik Lesser (DE) the industry’s leading publishers, Nordic family member and oper- developers and investors to extend • Anne Toole (USA) ates as an international publisher Skybound’s IP into mobile and console games. for small and mid-sized projects Skybound’s game slate among others includes and developers for a worldwide audience on all Telltale’s The Walking Dead series, Scopely’s The game platforms (PC, Switch, PS4, Walking Dead: Road to Survival, Night School’s Do games have the power to change the world by enhancing empathy One, VR and of course mobile). Christopher is . In addition, Skybound Interactive has responsible for international Biz-Dev and Sales amongst the worldwide audience? a handful of video game projects in the pipe- within the organization for around two decades. line including Overkill’s The Walking Dead from Starbreeze and Rival Games’ of Thieves. Games that tackle serious social issues have the power to inspire players’ empathy by letting them feel the world from the outsider’s standpoint. As the Damir Durovic most immersive medium, games also change our everyday lives by impacting Reboot, CEO Daniel Pearson , storytelling, and culture. Prominent industry experts, from indie to Purewal Consulting, Business Development AAA studios, have been gathered for this panel to explore the importance of y As a veteran of games industry Manager with 22 years of combined expe- interactively told stories and talk about how games do shape our narratives. rience in running huge games y Dan is a business development industry events, media and being manager at Purewal Consulting, key part on marketing and PR side focused on taking the hard work This round table is part of a project carried out by the Goethe-Institut Kroatien and the of things Damir has seen empires fall and rise. For out of opening new revenue Institut français de Croatie, with the support of the Franco-German Cultural Fund. It last 8 years together with an incredible and small streams for indie clients of all aims to raise awareness about the importance of citizenship and mutual understanding but super agile team has been running REBOOT sizes by facilitating a broad range of projects such through the development of dedicated video games. The planned activities will focus brand that besided running one of the biggest as merchandising, IP iteration, PR planning and on improving writing skills amongst students and young professionals. The goal is to comsumer games shows in Europe, as well as brand building. He is always in search of high- commit a wide and renewed audience on citizenship-related topics. the big european consumer games media is the quality, low-hassle solutions which let our partners company behind world famous Reboot Develop concentrate on their core business. Dan is an ex- The Franco-German Cultural Fund was set up in 2003 to mark the 40th anniversary Blue and Red, two games industry conferences games industry business journalist – beginning of the Elysée Treaty. This programme demonstrates France and ’s desire to that have redefined the worlwide games industry his games career at before spending reinforce their cooperation in the cultural sector, by supporting projects carried out by event landscape. Damir was also recently elected seven years at the industry’s leading publication, national cultural institutes and the cultural offices of embassies, in close collaboration to serve as an advisor on advisory board of GamesIndustry.biz, leaving as a veteran European with local cultural stakeholders. European Game Developers Federation. Editor in 2016. 18 19 Premiering this year... SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Daniel Rantala Loud’n’Brash bar track Fingersoft, VP of Publishing Deborah Guzman Barrios y Daniel is the CEO of Round Zero, powered by a Finnish publisher Oculus, Developer Relations operating as a part Fingersoft, a game developer with over 1 billion y As part of the Developer installs and 50+ million monthly Relations team at Oculus, Deborah active users. Daniel has a significant amount of works closely with developers and experience in the fields of overall game publishing, publishers during all phases of management, business development, and analytics. development. As a lifelong gamer, Daniel knows the pros (considerable success) and she is super excited about VR and its potential to cons (revenue decline and downfall) of the games bring us into new uncharted worlds where we can industry through experience, and is eager to share experience anything. his findings with other game developers. Diana Moldavsky Dave Gilbert , Director, International Partnerships , Creative Director / Founder y Diana is Director of International Partnerships at Tencent Games y Dave has been interested in Europe where she focuses on adventure games ever since 1986, partnerships and investments when his mother made the mistake and covers Eastern Europe out of of buying him a copy of ’s Tencent EU HQ in Amsterdam. She has many years Wishbringer. Fifteen years later, of experience in tech and gaming in business devel- he discovered the AGS engine and began making Join us at the Sheraton lounge bar at the early evening pop-up track, grab opment and investment roles, both in Silicon Valley, his own. In 2006, he decided that making games Eastern Europe and internationally. She was CRO was too much fun to do anything else for a living, a drink, and join the discussion or just listen to these short opinionated at Zeptolab (Cut the Rope), a partner at an early and formed Wadjet Eye Games to do just that. stage venture fund and worked for companies such standup rants about very specific games industry topics done by very Wadjet Eye Games has developed a reputation for as , Yandex and OLX ( group). She producing award-winning and critically acclaimed unique games industry people has also advised startups, funds and done angel adventure game. The company’s award-winning investments. portfolio includes and the series, Puzzle Bots, and many others. Dino Patti 11th of April - Thursday 12th of April - Friday Davor Tomicic JUMPSHIP, Executive Producer / Co-Founder

Croteam, Co-Founder / Game Designer y With 15 years of experience in the games industry Dino Patti, has 19:00 Damir Durovic, Reboot 19:00 Brandon Sheffield, Necrosoft y Working in game development made a name for himself. Most 19:20 Hendrik Lesser, rcp / EGDF 19:20 Mikael Haveri, since mid 1990’s. During the time he notably he is known for his role in 19:40 Arnold Nesis, Capricia Productions 19:40 Kate Edwards, Geogrify worked on various aspects of game co-founding, scaling and running creation including game design, Playdead for almost 10 years while they developed 20:00 Jonas Antonsson, Raw Fury level design, gameplay mechanics and published the multi award winning titles and scripting, story writing and more. He worked LIMBO and INSIDE. Dino has had an advising role in on The Talos Principle, Serious Sam series, it’s VR several game and game related companies includ- spinoff and is currently working on Serious Sam 4 ing the GDC Europe Advisory Board. In 2017 Dino and always experimenting with new things. Craving founded JUMPSHIP with Chris Olsen, where the for perfection, he brings high standards to projects promising title “Somerville” is brought to life. * There might be special guests joining! he participates. 20 21 Don Daglow Dragan Jerosimovic AIAS Foundation, President 3Lateral, Programmer

y Don Daglow is a three-time y Dragan Jerosimovic works at Inc. 500™ CEO, a pioneering game 3Lateral (now part of Epic Games) designer and 2008 Technical Emmy® on integration of their next-gen Award recipient whose career spans digital character technologies the history of the games industry. into 4. He has been Teams have shipped over $1 billion in products designing and developing games and tools for under his leadership. He is the only games executive making them for the past 33 years, starting as a who has held leadership positions on every genera- kid on ZX Spectrum 48K. Since that time, he imple- tion of video game consoles, from 1980 to the pres- mented several game editors and experimental ent. In 2003 he received the CGE Award for “ground- programming languages for making games, one breaking achievements that shaped the Video Game of which was used for production of Metamorf’s Industry,” and in 2018 he was inducted into the Wall Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade. He also of Fame at the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin. made games at Emerging Dreams, Supersonic Parachute, LevelBit and TabTale. As his early roots were in text adventures, he never stopped think- Doug North Cook ing about the problem of interactive storytelling, even dipping his toes into AI in hope to solve it. Chatham University / Fallingwater Institute, Professor y Doug North Cook is the profes- Estelle Tigani sor behind the Bachelor of Arts Treyarch, Associate Producer in Immersive Media program at Chatham University in Pittsburgh y Estelle started her career at where he teaches and conducts The Walt Disney Company, then research. He also runs the Immersive Design moved into game development Residency at the Fallingwater Institute, develops in 2014 working as a Producer immersive narrative experiences and games with a on Ghostbusters with Fireforge small team at Decoder, and writes about architec- and . She then worked at Loot Crate tural and design theory as it relates to immersive Interactive, where she launched the Alternate design. Doug’s work combines his passion for Reality Game The Secret Order of the Keys and immersive technology with his obsession with archi- a number of other mobile titles. In 2017, Estelle tecture, design thinking and theory, and storytelling. joined Treyarch as an Associate Producer and is currently working on : Black Ops 4. Elena Lobova Achievers Hub, Founder Eugen Harton , Project Lead y Elena Lobova is the founder of Achievers Hub, a platform that unites y Eugen started his career in indie developers with investors, games with Pixel Federation and publishers, services and mentors now works at Bohemia Interactive, from around the world. Elena has utilizing his experience from enter- a track record for growing a game development prise architecture. Joined the team outsourcing company iLogos from a small studio of DayZ Standalone developers couple months of 30 to 300+ employees international company as into the early access release as an engineer and COO and then CEO, founding and organizing a game moved into production and project management. developers conference Get IT in Ukraine, consulting Keeping up with the pace and demands of the and helping various companies on business devel- project. Aiming to solve hot topics of early access, opment. modding, cheating.

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24 25 SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Eran Alboher Ekipa2 part of Outfit7 Group, Senior Art Director y Eran Alboher first lent his unique, intuitive art style to TV genDESIGN, Game Designer / Founder and film projects as a character y Fumito Ueda is a Japanese designer and animator, before game director and creator of award switching to his first games indus- winning PlayStation titles , try role at Tabtale. From there he made the move and The to Outfit7 Group where, as Senior Art Director, he Last Guardian. After working at warp lead the artistic vision that brought My Talking and Sony Computer Entertainment he has founded Tom 2 to life. genDESIGN in 2014. Him and his team have worked together with Sony Computer Entertainment in fin- ishing The Last Guardian, and currently he is work- Guy Richards ing on his first independent project at genDESIGN. We are an agency ID@Xbox, Strategic Partner Manager y Guy has been with ’s Graham McAllister that stimulates powerful reactions in the gaming universe Global Gaming Partnerships & Advertising by gamers, for gamers! Development team for nearly 3 UX Consultant years. He partners with the industry’s y Graham helps developers leading independent publishers to improve their likelihood of success explore opportunities within Microsoft’s evolving using two main approaches – by gaming ecosystem, including new initiatives such evaluating the UX of their game as Xbox Game Pass. Guy previously spent 5 years at early and often throughout develop- PlayStation managing PlayStation VR, supporting ment, and by putting in place a ‘players-first’ devel- the launch of PS4 and working with early adopt- IN PARTNERSHIP WITH opment mindset. The majority of player experience ers of digital self-publishing on PS3. His career and issues can be identified and removed during devel- expertise of digital publishing started at Electronic opment, but only if you have a process in place to Arts in 2010. do so. Previously he was founder of Player Research which was acquired by Keywords Studios, he now George Krstic works as a freelance UX consultant. , Director of Story Graham Wihlidal y As Director of Story for SEED, Senior Rendering Engineer Blizzard Entertainment’s Story and Franchise Development division, y Graham is a senior rendering Emmy, Annie and Saturn Award engineer at SEED, a cross-disciplin- nominated creator George Krstic ary team working on cutting-edge helps shepherd the narrative expressions of all future technologies and creative of Blizzard’s game IPs including Warcraft and experiences at Electronic Arts. Overwatch. A veteran of both the game and enter- Before SEED, Graham was on the render- tainment industries, George has worked on such ing team, implementing and supporting technol- diverse projects as “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” ogy used in many hit games like Battlefield, Dragon “,” and “Transformers” as well Age: Inquisition, Plants vs. , FIFA, Star Wars: as creating his own television series for Cartoon Battlefront, and others. Prior to Frostbite, Graham Network – “Megas XLR”. George is a lead member was a senior engineer at BioWare for many years, of the story group responsible for Blizzard’s ani- shipping numerous titles including the mated shorts, in-game cinematics, comic books, and trilogies, and Star Wars: The Old novels and audio dramas. Republic. Graham is also a published author and has presented at several conferences. 26 27 Hermen Hulst Hendrik Lesser Guerilla Games, Managing Director / Co-Founder remote control productions / EGDF , CEO / y As Managing Director, Hermen is President responsible for the company’s direc- tion and ultimately for Guerrilla’s y Serial entrepreneur Hendrik is games from a creative and com- well known as CEO of the interna- mercial perspective, including award tional production house remote winning games like series and Horizon: control productions and President Zero Dawn. He gained his first experience in the of the EGDF. After starting out in the games industry during his student years at Ubisoft industry as a Producer and Product Manager he has in the USA, and started his professional career at been building a family of independent development Philips Electronics in Strategic Marketing. He sub- studios throughout Europe for over 13 years, which sequently worked as a management consultant at today consists of 13 teams in five countries with Andersen Consulting before returning to the games more than 270 passionate game makers. Hendrik is industry. Hermen has been the Managing Director also a co-founder and Executive Producer of Chimera of Guerrilla since 2001, and the Vice President for Entertainment, the 60 heads strong development Sony Computer Entertainment’s World Wide Studios studio behind the AAA mobile productions Angry in Europe since 2011. Birds Evolution and Angry Birds Epic (100+ million downloads) and a yet to be announced title. Besides his roles as CEO and producer, Hendrik also is an avid Hilmar Veigar Petursson lobbyist for the political and academic acceptance of video games as goods of cultural value. CCP Games, CEO y Hilmar has been leading CCP Games’ ongoing success and growth since his appointment as Chief From Software, Director / CEO Executive Officer in 2004. Under Hilmar’s management CCP’s criti- y Hidetaka Miyazaki joined From cally acclaimed science-fiction game EVE Online Software in 2004. He’s directed a pioneered concepts like player-driven digital econo- wide variety of games including mies, democratically elected community govern- 4, Armored Core: ments, and free-to-play mechanics long before they For Answer, Demon’s , DARK became commonplace in the industry. EVE Online, SOULS, , III, Déraciné, launched in 2003, celebrated an unprecedented ten and Sekiro: Shadow’s Die Twice. In May, 2014 he consecutive years of subscriber growth and contin- was named as CEO of From Software. He recently ues to see growth in engagement as it nears its 15th received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the anniversary. and is working on finishing his latest title Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Hrvoje Kelemenic Igor Cesi LGM, Lead Engine Developer y Hrvoje Kelemenić joined Little Ubisoft Paris, Senior Programmer Green Men Games in 2012 when the studio began its work on Starpoint y Igor Cesi is a senior program- Gemini 2. Since then he was a core mer at Ubisoft Paris studio member of studio that created a where he helped making 10+ number of successful titles in the series on both PC games including multiple titles and , along with numerous expansions. in Ghost Recon and Just Dance Those games ended up popularizing his novel take franchises. The latest game he participated in is on technical UI design among developers working on Mario+ Kingdom Battle. He has been pro- similar titles, setting new industry standards in the gramming games in C++ for the last 20 years. process. He currently works as the lead engine devel- oper on LGM’s new, yet undisclosed flagship project. 28 29 SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP | 2015 Ilari Kuittinen Housemarque, CEO Jakub Marek SuperScale, Head of Big Data & Monetization y Ilari Kuittinen is the CEO of Housemarque and has been man- y Jakub Marek is a veteran industry aging the award-winning Finnish expert that helped fast-growing game studio for over 20 years. Mr. game companies like Fingersoft, Kuittinen co-founded the company BoomBit, Frogmind & Dodreams to with Harri Tikkanen in 1995. Housemarque has cre- significantly improve business perfor- ated several critically acclaimed hits over the years mance through better understanding needs of their including one of reviewed games of 2017 more than 2 billion strong player-base through data. Nex Machina ( 88), the PS4 launch title Resogun and critics favorite Outland for PS3 & . The studio is currently employing over 50 tal- ented game developers at the downtown Helsinki James Green studio. Creative Assembly, Lead Game Designer

y James is a lead game designer Ivan Trancik with over 13 years’ experience SuperScale, CEO across multiple specialties including systems, level and multiplayer design, y As a CEO of SuperScale, Ivan and various platforms having worked pioneered a white-label publishing on PC, console and mobile. He is currently working approach to help talented game on a top secret Total War project for the UK’s largest developers to get invested, improve, developer, Creative Assembly. His previous credits market and scale their games under span the studio’s history, having worked on Alien: their own brand. Together with his team he has Isolation, Wars 2 and a plethora of Total War worked to launch and scale over 100 games with titles including Shogun 2: Total War and Empire: over 2 billion downloads – growth partners of Total War. SuperScale include fast growing game studios like Fingersoft, Frogmind (in partnership with Supercell), BoomBit, DoDreams, Traplight, Paradox and others. Some of the more notable games are Hill Climb James Portnow Racing 2 and recent launches of Badland Brawl, Extra Credits / Rainmaker Games, Writer / CEO Tanks A Lot and Darts Club. Likes pineapples with pizzas on top. y Best known for writing the web series Extra Credits, James Portnow is a game designer and consultant Jakub Dvorský known for his theories on socially positive design. He received his , CEO / Creative Director Masters from Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center and went on to work for y Jakub is the founder, lead game Activision as a designer on the Call of Duty series designer and creative director in before raising funds to start his own company, Divide Amanita Design, Czech based award- by Zero Games. He currently serves as the CEO of winning independent studio best Rainmaker Games, a design and consulting firm that known for multi-platform adventure has worked with partners from Zynga to , games , , series and in addition to writing the popular Extra Credits and CHUCHEL. The studio currently consists of five stand- Extra History series. alone teams working on several new exciting games.

30 31 Jari-Pekka Kaleva Jason Sussman EGDF, COO Studios, Art Lead 9+ billion y An Army veteran from Dallas, y As the COO of European Games Texas, Jason Sussman brings 18 game Developer Federation (EGDF), Jari- years of gaming industry experience Pekka Kaleva follows European to his role as Lead Artist on Destiny politics from the games industry downloads franchise. Of those 18 years, 11 perspective. He is also the senior years have been spent at Bungie, designing mission, policy analyst at Neogames, working to accelerate, competitive multiplayer maps, and DLC environ- coordinate and support the development of the ments for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach and Finnish games industry. The Destiny franchise. Currently, Jason leads Art direction for future content being created by part- ner studios as well as internally. We take Jen MacLean fun Eran Alboher & seriously. Larisa Perčinlić IGDA / IGDA Foundation, Executive Director The Art of Creating y As the Executive Director of the Joachim Ante A Successful Sequel IGDA and IGDA Foundation, Jen Technologies, CTO & Co-Founder 16:00 - 17:00 MacLean works to build a more Friday, 12th of April SUPERNOVA LIBRARY inclusive game development com- y Joachim Ante is well known munity and support game devel- of Unity opers around the world in achieving sustainable, Technologies, who co-founded Unity fulfilling careers. From the start of her career as a in 2002. Joachim is responsible playtester at Microprose Software, through senior for writing the core of Unity in his roles at AOL, Comcast, 38 Studios, and StoryArc teenage days, and today the engine is in the hands Media, Jen has managed game development, of more than 5 million registered developers. As strategy, marketing, business development and Unity’s chief technology officer and co-founder, partnerships across multiple gaming platforms. She Joachim has brought pro-level game development was named one of the “Game Industry’s 100 Most tools to the masses, and is one of key game devel- Influential Women” by Next Generation, one of the opment figures responsible for democratization of “Top 20 Women in Games” by . game development and is playing a major role in the ongoing renaissance of independent games. Jean-François Boivin Panache Digital, Co-Founder / Producer Johannes Kuhlmann y Co-Founder and Producer of , Head of Core Technologies panel guest Ante Odić Živa Čižman Panache Digital Games, JF has been y Johannes is Head of Core in the game industry since 2005 Free to Play, Profitable to Influencer Marketing: The overseeing various production man- Technologies at Deep Silver agement positions. His shipped titles Fishlabs. Never shying away from a Produce: Maximizing Truth Behind the Hype include Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2, Assassin’s Creed challenge, he finds particular joy in Monetization through 11:30 - 12:30 Brotherhood as well as a few within the Nintendo, solving difficult problems and creat- Analytics Friday, 12th of April ing powerful technology that is easy to use. He has SUPERNOVA LIBRARY Star Wars and Splinter Cell franchises. He is also a 17:30 - 18:30 board member of the Independent Video Game been in the games industry for more than 10 years Thursday, 11th of April Developers Guild of Quebec, a cooperative of over by now, even if it feels a lot shorter. He started out ZEUZ STAGE - POOL 160 independent video game developers and the building technology for the Nintendo DS and soon largest of its kind in the world. Previous to being moved on to work on the LittleBigPlanet franchise. in the , JF developed custom- At Deep Silver Fishlabs, together with his team based web solutions for Fortune 500 companies. he built the in-house engine and now focuses on adapting existing titles to new platforms.

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34 35 proud sponsor of Live Stream Indie Hour SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Jonas Antonsson Raw Fury, Troublemaker / Founder Julie Heyde y Jonas is an Icelandic entrepre- neur that has founded several com- VRUnicorns, Co-Founder / CEO panies in the games space. 6 years ago he moved to Sweden, where he y Julie Heyde is a game developer worked at Paradox Interactive. In the + #ChickenBitch @VRUnicorns. She beginning of 2015 he founded Raw Fury, and inde- has a creation crush on semi-realistic pendent publisher of games, which he now runs. The VR sports games with a twist of company has established itself firmly in a short time dark humor & brutality alongside a and enjoyed success for both itself and the develop- passion for quirky flat games. IRL she is in the forest ers that it has worked with. Some of Jonas’s friends with her pony Shayla or sporting in the ocean. suspect he might be a vampire. He does not deny that this might be true. Jose Emilio Munoz Justin Ma Arm, Software Engineer Subset Games, Co-Founder / Artist y With a background in Electronics and Computer Science, José Emilio y Artist and designer Justin Ma joined Arm to work on the Mali fam- teamed up with Matthew Davis to ily of GPUs, initially on their develop their first game, FTL: Faster development and instrumentation Than Light. Released in 2012, FTL tools, and for the past two years on performance received worldwide attention and analysis and developer support for mobile gaming. praise for uniquely putting players in the captain’s seat of a spaceship. Their second project, a minimal- ist tactics game called Into the Breach, was released Kate Edwards early 2018 to critical acclaim and commercial success. Travel and food-obsessed, Justin started Geogrify, CEO / Principal Consultant working in the games industry in 2009 at Games Shanghai, later co-founding Subset Games in 2011. y Kate Edwards is the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which pioneered content culturalization, and is the Julian Mautner former Executive Director of the stillalive studios, CEO International Game Developers Association (IGDA). In addition to being an outspoken advocate who serves y Julian is the founder and manag- in several advisory/board roles, she is a geographer, ing director of stillalive studios, best writer, and corporate strategist. Following 13 years known for the Bus Simulator series at Microsoft, she has consulted on many game and and the highly anticipated SciFi non-game projects for BioWare, Google, , strategy game Drone Swarm. Over and many other companies. Fortune magazine the past 7 years, he has formed an internationally named her as one of the “10 most powerful women” respected team of talented devs, focused on techni- in the game industry in 2013 and in 2014 was named cally ambitious simulation, management and strat- by GamesIndustry.biz as one of their six People of egy games. The growing team of stillalive studios the Year. In 2018, she was honored with Reboot creates own IPs like Drone Swarm and Rescue HQ Develop’s annual Hero Award and also presented as well as it works on franchises like Bus Simulator. with ’s annual Game Changer Award. She Four years ago, the studio released the Kickstarter is also profiled in the December 2018 publication backed action-adventure Son of Nor. Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play.

36 37 proud sponsor SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP | 2019 Kris Rose BLUE Khronos Group, Developer Relations

y Kris’ background lands squarely between computer hardware and the video game industry having worked at both and AMD on their Developer Relations teams. He now heads up Developer Relations globally at The Kiki Wolfkill Khronos Group where he is working on improving , Studio Head – Halo Transmedia the overall developer experience around Vulkan and evangelising the API. Kris is also currently advising y Kiki heads up 343 Industries’ a UK start-up developing an exciting new graphics transmedia and entertainment technique that could change how we view comput- efforts. She served as Executive er graphics in the near future. Kris also assists game Producer on the digital series Halo: developers with unique projects to make connec- The Fall of Reach, Halo: Nightfall, as tions with publishers and platform holders. well as for the recently announced Halo television series being developed with Showtime. Kiki joined 343 Industries in 2009 as Executive Producer and Lois Wang was responsible for building the internal game team and shipping Halo 4. An industry vet- XDS advisory eran of nearly 20 years, Kiki’s career in games began in the visual arts, where she eventually became y Lois started her career working Director of Art of Microsoft Studios. Her past cred- as an artist in a game outsourcing its include the and Forza company. She developed her man- Motorsport franchises, as well as classics like Fable, agement experience through work- Crackdown, , and Mass Effect. ing with clients from all over the world making console, PC, social, mobile games as well as trading card and toys. Working at both out- sourcing and development studios, the one thing that is consistent in her book is to create delightful Leigh Alexander experiences and success communication with all Narrative Designer members in the team. Lois is determined to support both internal and external team working as one y Leigh Alexander writes futurist toward to the next win! fiction and is a narrative designer with a deep passion for the craft of storytelling systems. She was Larisa Percinlic narrative director on the acclaimed game Reigns: Her Majesty, and recently worked on Ekipa2 part of Outfit7 Group, Director of Design Reigns: Game of Thrones, among others. Previously and Animation she worked as a journalist and critic, and her digital culture writing has appeared in The Guardian, The y Starting out as a multi-skilled Columbia Journalism Review, Motherboard, the New game artist at Zootfly, Larisa Percinlic Statesman and more. She is the author of Breathing has been a UI art specialist at Outfit7 Machine, a memoir of early internet society, and Group since 2015. She prides herself her occasional ASMR video series “Lo-Fi Lets Play” on designing UI that “players love to explores ancient computer adventure games. touch”, and has done so on global hits like My Talking Tom 2, Talking Tom Gold Run, My Talking Hank and Talking Tom Pool. She’s currently leading the UI team on Outfit7 Group’s next, as-yet-unannounced big release.

38 39 Luis Villegas Louis-Felix Cauchon Bungie Studios, Director of Services and Quebec Video Game Developers Guild / Borealys Infrastructure Games, Co-Founder / President y Born in Medellin, Colombia, he y Louis-Felix co-founded the video moved to the United States at the age game company Artifice Studio, which of 16 with dreams of becoming either will give birth to the very first title a professional basketball player or a based on the Quebec culture and folk- game developer. Basketball was not lore Sang-Froid. Later he co-founded as fun as playing games so he decided to pursue a Games Borealys which launched in 2017 its first degree in Computer Science from Florida International game Mages of Mystralia. In 2015, he founded The University and joined Bungie Studios in 2003. Luis Independent Video Game Developers Guild as a non- spends his free time practicing Jiu Jitsu, and when he profit producer co-op. The group becomes from its is not at Bungie working on Destiny, he is at the Jiu foundation the largest official group of independent Jitsu school choking people out. Luis is the Director video game developers in the world (166 studios). of Services and Infrastructure at Bungie, leading the Through The Guild, Louis-Félix created the MEGA festi- team that ensures that every Destiny player has the val, The musical video game Odyssey and JamNATION. best possible experience, and works with other leads at Bungie to keep improving the craft of Leadership. Maarten de Koning Mark Estdale DDM, Partner / Executive VP of BD OM, Founder / Dialogue Director y Maarten de Koning has over 13+ y Dialogue Director and Founder years of experience in executive, entre- of OM London & Los Angeles Mark preneurial and advisory positions in Estdale is known for his work with the game industry with a strong back- developers and actors, casting and ground in investment management. As recording well over 10,000 characters partner and Executive VP of Business Development, he for games. From The Witcher to Broken Sword, to oversees business development and the expansion and Game of Thrones and . When not consultation of DDM’s clients in Europe and Asia (Japan in production Mark runs masterclasses on casting, excluded). Previously, he co-founded production house pipelines and performance for developers and pub- Green Hill, providing agency, production and develop- lishers, and for actors at three of the world’s leading ment services for game studios, publishers and inves- drama schools. He’s also the tools and system design- tors. DDM acquired Green Hill on February 2013, grant- er behind Creative Dialogue Tools and the Game ing Maarten the position of Partner and Executive VP. Immersive Voice Recording method (CDT & GIVR). Modus Games is a new label of Maximum STOP BY OUR Marco Minoli Mariusz Gasiewski Games, a top 20 publisher, focused on Slitherine, Marketing Director bringing AAA publishing services to the best Google, Head of Mobile Gaming and Apps Poland REBOOT BOOTH y Marco started in games marketing independent developers around the world. y in 1998. After experiences in Eidos and Mariusz Gąsiewski has been with With offices in the US and the UK, we’re one of Electronic Arts, he soon discovered Google since 2007. He is now respon- AND SEE WHAT his hidden love for niches. He joined sible for growth of mobile gaming the fastest growing full-service game Slitherine in 2007 and contributed to ecosystem in Poland. During most publishers, and are comprised of AAA grow it from a strategy games developer into a suc- of his career was helping some of WE’RE MADE OF cessful publishing powerhouse. After twenty years into Google’s biggest clients in Central and Eastern Europe industry veterans, gamers, and developers. games, an open mind and a vision that knowledge in preparation and implementation of mobile mea- We offer a pain-free partnership that and information are the key to grow sustainable busi- surement strategies. Lecturer at the most prestigious nesses, Marco is still eager to grow its audience, learn university in Poland, Warsaw School of Economics. He disrupts traditional conventions and from an ever-changing landscape and share his experi- is a frequent speaker at gaming and mobile confer- redefines the studio-publisher relationship. MODUSGAMES.COM ence with as many stakeholders as possible. ences and a founder of GameCamp, one of the big- gest mobile gaming communities in Europe. 40 41 proud sponsor of Indie Expo Martin Eder Michal Grno Bongfish, Lead Level Artist Pixel Federation, Head of Marketing Analytics y Martin has been working at y After getting Master’s degree in Bongfish for around 11 years, he Applied Mathematics and quitting has started his company career as job at a bank, Michal joined Pixel a level designer and is leading the Federation in 2014 as a data ana- Environment Art team for 4 years lyst to support one of the smaller now. He was working on several titles for consoles, projects back then – Diggy’s Adventure. He mostly PC and mobile. Martin studied contemporary art at focused on improving monetization using custom the University of Applied Arts Vienna, shifted soon segmentation strategies and later as part of the after his studies into the gaming industry, where mobile launch team on improving player’s onboard- he is able to combine his passion for gaming and ing and ad monetization. Currently he’s working technology with the creation of artistic as Head of Marketing Analytics – bringing the environments. Currently he is working on the devel- right data insights for UA team, (soft and global) opment of a new unannounced big title for PC. launching of new games, and last but not least, ad monetization. Masatoshi Tokuoka Writer / Game Journalist Mihai Pohontu y As a game reviewer and games Amber, CEO media journalist Tokuoka-san con- tributed a lot to 4Gamer.net (one of y Mihai is the CEO of Amber, a the largest online PC games media game development agency head- in Japan) for almost 10 years. Also he quartered in Bucharest, Romania. has been a columns writer for Command Magazine Previously Mihai was VP of Emerging Japanese Ed. (table top wargame magazine). Platforms at Samsung, building its Recently, as a game journalist, he edited a book developer ecosystem. Before Samsung, he oversaw named Games Now. 17 writers with special skills and Product Operations at Disney Interactive, a team knowledges (like Mr. Sho Sato) contributed articles, of 600+ staff across 9 locations around the world. to make a “text book for beginners”. It covers range Prior to Disney, Mihai was the VP and GM of Central of topic from game-economics to VR technology. As Development Services at Electronic Arts, overseeing a game story writer, he participated in designing a operational teams supporting 18 development stu- main scenario for Sen-no-Kaizoku (SEGA). dios on 3 continents. He founded and was the GM of EA Romania, one of the largest game develop- ment studios in Eastern Europe. Matt Conte Oculus, Head of Developer Relations Engineering Mikael Haveri y With nearly 20 years in the game industry under his belt as a program- Housemarque, Head of Self-Publishing mer, Matt and his team help devel- y Mikael is the Head of Self- opers ship their titles on all Oculus Publishing at Housemarque. All the platforms at the highest quality. Prior things outside of actual develop- to Oculus, he was engine programmer at Activision’s ment still need to be done and he Vicarious Visions, maintaining a proprietary cross- is the proper the man for that job. A engine and toolset that powered the good example of his daily grind can be seen in the Skylanders franchise, and the Bandicoot and Name of the Game movie, out now in the best digi- Spyro the Dragon HD remasters. tal theaters around the world.

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44 45 proud sponsor SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Mundi Vondi Klang Games, CEO / Co-Founder Nikola Cavic y Started out as a graphic designer, GameBiz / SGA, MD / Chairman went into fine arts, fashion and film- making, and finally computer games. y Nikola Čavić is Managing After founding Klang back in 2013 Director at the GameBiz consulting with Oddur and Ivar from CCP, he firm and Chairman at the Serbian now sits as CEO of Klang which is building SEED. A Games Association. Previously, he massively multiplayer simulation game taking place served seven years as the Head of in the future when humanity must settle on a new Business Development at – the indepen- planet. Very passionate about the creative and visual dent gaming studio best known for Top Eleven, one elements of everything, loves coming up with big the world’s most successful mobile sports game. visions and getting people on board. Love complex Prior to Nordeus, he spent 5 years with CCP Games big projects! where he was responsible for global distribution of EVE Online. During the last 12 years, Nikola has been involved in a number of international projects Neil Alphonso with global leaders in the sports & games industry. Splash Damage, Creative Director

y Neil Alphonso is a Creative Nika Dvoravic Director at Splash Damage and was Croteam, Level Designer / Environment Artist instrumental in the and live phase of Dirty Bomb. Neil’s successful y Nika is a Level Designer and 10-year career at Splash Damage has Environment Artist at Croteam. also seen him help bring Batman: Arkham Origins She has worked on titles such as multiplayer and BRINK to fruition. Before coming Serious Sam VR The Last Hope, First to Splash Damage, Neil’s globe-trotting seventeen- Encounter VR and Second Encounter year career included such hits as the original Tom VR. Currently at Croteam she is working on their big- Clancy’s: Splinter Cell from and gest game project to date – Serious Sam 4. She holds from Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam. an architecture degree and has worked as an archi- tect prior to joining the game industry. Her biggest interests include photoscanning, photogrammetry, Nikola Nikita Jeremic photorealism and hard surface modeling. Nika is also one of the Women in Games (WIGJ UK) Ambassadors. Waveform Studio, Music Composer / Founder y Nikita is an avid hard-core gamer Noirin Carmody who turned out to be a skilled game composer as well, and is cur- Revolution Software, Co-Founder / COO rently one of the young aspiring in the industry with over y Noirin Carmody founder and 5 years of experience in both AAA and Indie. His COO at Revolution Software is ever-expanding list of credits includes titles such responsible for strategic business as and Destiny 2 Warmind, Warhammer affairs. Noirin is the Executive 40k Battlefleet Armada 2, and The Witcher Producer of Revolution’s games 3: Wild Hunt official music album. Besides being a including the Broken Sword Series and recently game composer, Nikita is also a skilled music sound announced 2. She was voted designer creating various custom-made virtual one of the top UK 100 women in Games in 2013. instruments in order to make his sonic signature Noirin is an elected board member of the UK stand out from the crowd. When he is not compos- Interactive Entertainment Games Association (Ukie) ing, Nikita spends most of his time in PvP modes of and is a voting member of BAFTA. She also holds a Destiny 2, Quake and Halo 5. number of pro bono appointments. 46 47 20th of April - 22nd of April Cavtat / Dubrovnik, Croatia

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48 49 Quentin Guislain Patrice Desilets European Games Group, Head of Marketing Panache Digital, Co-Founder / Creative Director y Quentin is a seasoned marketeer y Patrice is at the head of Panache who has been navigating from a Digital games, an independent brand and social media agency to Montreal-based studio he co-found- the digital fitness industry to now ed in 2014. With close to 22 years of leading the marketing department game design under the belt, he his at GamesGroup, a f2p game publisher based in mostly known for his work on : The Munich, Germany. There he, together with his team, Sands of Time and as the creative director behind constantly aims at maximizing marketing’s contribu- the global success franchise Assassin’s Creed from his tion to product development and user growth. years at Ubisoft Montreal. His first independent title Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey on the evolution of humankind is now starting to make noise as it will be released in 2019. , CEO Pawel Rohleder y Rami Ismail is the Business & Development Guy at Vlambeer, a Techland, CTO Dutch independent game studio known best for , y A highly experienced developer, Wasteland Kings, , leader and video games enthusiast , , GUN GODZ, Serious who is keen on new technologies. Sam: The Random Encounter & Radical Fishing. Right now working on shared Believing sharing knowledge openly is the cor- technology for two amazing AAA nerstone of independent development, Rami has titles at Techland (Dying Light 2 and another big spoken on a variety of subjects at dozens of game unannounced AAA project). He has over 15 years in events around the world. His current big project is the game development industry, of which the last organizing Gamedev.world, a truly unique online 12 years are with Techland (known for Dying Light, game developers conference. , Call of Juarez. Currently he is respon- sible for a team of 50+ programmers developing cutting-edge technology and systems for games across multiple platforms. Renaud Charpentier Tower Five, Game Director / Co-Founder Philomena Schwab y Renaud joined the games indus- try more than two decades ago when Stray Fawn Studio, Co-Fawnder & Game Designer he helped a few friends on what would today be called an . y Philomena is a game designer He then designed games for Ubisoft, from Zurich, Switzerland. She co- Insight Games and Sega at Creative Assembly, founded Stray Fawn Studio together working on brands like , Splinter Cell, Largo with Micha Stettler. The indie game Winch, Corunea and Total War. His last position studio recently released its first before leaving Creative Assembly was that of a game game, Niche – a genetics and is now director. Currently he is quietly and secretively work- developing its second game Nimbatus – The Space ing as game director on his next big thing! Currently Drone Constructor. Philomena wrote her master he is quietly and secretively working as game direc- thesis about community building for indie game tor on his next big thing at Tower Five, completely developers and founded the nature gamedev col- new studio he recently co-founded! Game design, lective Playful Oasis. As a chair member of the Swiss game rules and systems, including artificial intel- Game Developers association she helps her local ligence remains his primary interests, with a focus game industry grow. on transforming player experience intentions into systems which actually materialise them. 50 51 proud sponsor of Coffee Breaks Renee Blair Funomena, Co-Founder / CEO Six Foot, Game Designer y Robin Hunicke is the y Renee Blair is currently a game Co-founder of the independent, designer for Six Foot, focusing on San Francisco game studio combat and systems design for Funomena. Her titles include Luna Dreadnought. Previously she has (PS4), Journey (PS3), worked for Hi- Studios and () and MySims (Wii). She is also Professor of Key Productions on Jetpack Fighter, LawBreakers, Art at UC Santa Cruz, Director of the Art Games & and Radical Heights. In academia Renee has Playable Media BA and the Digital Arts and New worked in education, UX, and accessibility, earning Media MFA. Robin is also an outspoken evangelist her master’s degree in human-computer interac- for diversity of thought and participation in both tion from the Georgia Institute of Technology. design and business. She believes that by broad- Renee is also regularly involved in game jams and ening the game community and expanding the conferences, having previously participated in feelings game designs explore, developers will Pirate Jam, as a speaker for the Xbox Women in make better, more broadly appealing games. Gaming Luncheon, and as an IGDA Scholar. Ryan Payton Richard Franke Camouflaj, CEO and Founder y Magic Notion, Director / Kitty Powers Ryan is the founder and CEO of Camouflaj, and advisor y Richard Franke is the Director of to Kowloon Nights and Makers Magic Notion Ltd and the creator of Fund. Ryan started his career as Kitty Powers’ Matchmaker and Kitty producer on Solid 4 Powers’ Love Life. He also plays Kitty at in Tokyo. He then returned Powers’ herself, the drag queen star home to direct Halo 4 at Microsoft until he started of both games. Richard started doing drag around Camouflaj, a Seattle-based game studio behind 2008 as a hobby, for a number of reasons, his love République and a new, recently announced game of costumes, his love of drag queens, and his desire he won’t be able to talk about! to get better at being in front of a crowd! Richard has worked on many award-winning AAA games in a variety of roles and in several genres since gradu- Sam Carlisle ating, including , , BLACK, Microsoft, Sr. Director, External Partner Tearaway, Dreams etc. Relations

y Sam came to the games Richard Huddy industry with a background in Behavioural Analysis as a con- Samsung Electronics, Head of Game Ecosystem sultant specializing in training businesses in negotiation and y Richard leads the Game partnering. During this time Sam also maintained Ecosystem Team based in Samsung a passion for comics and gaming. In 2006 he Electronics’ R&D center in the UK, committed full time to games by joining Sumo part of Samsung’s Galaxy GameDev Digital as an artist and becoming Outsource program. That’s the team that sup- Manager in 2009. In this position he successfully ports developers in Europe (and occasionally world- guided Sumo’s Indian art studio into becoming wide) to make games look their best on Samsung’s a fully integrated partner, while managing the high end phones. Richard has over 20 years of developer’s rapidly expanding outsource program experience in graphics and gaming and loves pixels which stretched across several simultaneous (often more than almost anything else. cross-platform) titles for a variety of publishers, 52 including Microsoft, Sony, Sega and EA. 53 Saku Lehtinen SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 , Art Director

y Saku has worked for Remedy Sebastien Benard Entertainment since 1996. He has had Motion Twin, Lead Game Designer a directorial role in many of Remedy’s games, most notably as Art Director for y Sebastien prefers making games and 2. His main to playing them. He has spent a focus is the overall game experience, especially when large part of his life creating games, it comes to story-driven moments. He has also worked finished or unfinished projects, in areas such as audio directing, music production, art and he participated in quite a lot direction, franchise development, outlining content of gamejams (and won more then few). After 15 pipelines and technology functionality. Saku was the yrs of web and F2P game development at Motion Cinematics Director on Max Payne and Max Payne 2: Twin, his team decided to jump in PC and console The Fall of Max Payne. Alongside , he worked markets, with their recently released and critically on the concept development of and acclaimed game that launched with the game’s cinematics. overwhelming success. Ste Curran Stefan Randelshofer Game Designer / Speaker / Consultant , Audio Director y Ste Curran is a game designer, y Stefan has worked in the field of speaker and consultant. He works Audio and SoundDesign for TV and with small teams around the world to Movies since the end of the 90‘s. assess and develop prototypes, and In the mid 00’s he started to work writes and delivers monologues about on games as Sound Designer and life and design which have been described as “life- Audio Director – i.e. EA – Battleforge, changing” and “an hour of nothing”. He co-presents – 3, Ubisoft – Kingdom of Anteria. One Life Left, the oldest videogame radio show in the He is a certified Fmod and Wwise User and teaches world; co-hosts Marioke, the popular game develop- Soundscape Design for Games at the University ment karaoke singalong, and co-founded the Gelato of applied Sciences in Salzburg, at ETIC in Lisbon Diners Conference, San Francisco’s most delicious GDC. and at various SAE institutes in Germany. At the He wrote this bio on his own. moment, he is the Audio Director at Ubisoft Blue Byte and is responsible for all products in the studio. Stefanie Scherer Bongfish, Marketing and Community Specialist Steve Escalante y Stefanie started out as a Community , General Manager / Founder Manager at Women in Games y International. After graduating from the Steve Escalante is the General University of Graz with her Master Thesis Manager and founder of indepen- on “Music and Sound in Games – their dent games publisher, Versus Evil. function, interactivity and atmosphere in 2015, she An industry veteran with 19 years of started working as Marketing and Community Specialist game development and publishing at Bongfish for the Smurfs Mobile Game franchise. She experience, Escalante started his own indie devel- focuses on the role of the Community in game develop- opment team in 1999 to then just prior to Versus ment, psychological pricing and covers all social media Evil served as the Director of Marketing at Bethesda platforms for Smurfs’ Village. Besides that, she is a Softworks. Now with these past five years running Community and Marketing specialist at Dyadic Games, Versus Evil, Escalante’s indie roots and AAA publish- which are currently working on their ing background is being leveraged in the sales, release of Sikanda, a Fantasy Action-Adventure/RPG marketing, distribution and business development inspired by famous Japanese SNES classics of the 90s. needs for mobile, console and PC games. 54 55 SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Susan Gold Global Game Jam, Co-Founder & President y Susan is a 20 year industry Tamara Popovic veteran and academic scholar who understood the need for her students Mad Head Games, System Designer and in turn, the game community to y constantly grow and innovate. Susan Tamara Popovic is a system started the Global Game Jam (GGJ) as a place for stu- designer at Mad Head Games, cur- dents and developers to come together, experiment, rently working on their up-and-com- fail and innovate while having fun. The annual event ing aRPG Pagan Online. Before join- has turned into a weekend of excitement and new ing the gaming industry, she gained ideas, new friends and new games. 2019 boasting extensive experience in testing and solving user over 47K participants and 9K new games made in 113 experience problems on different digital platforms. countries. Susan also works on numerous projects that When she’s not playing or making video games, utilize games to promote positive social impact and she’s working on her PhD in cognitive psychology. create opportunities for developing countries to share their culture and get their games seen and played. Tero Virtala Swen Vincke Remedy Entertainment, CEO y Tero Virtala is the CEO of Remedy Larian Studios, CEO / Creative Director Entertainment. Previously he spent 12 years building and running the y Swen is the founder and CEO of Finnish video games development Larian Studios. He’s been active in studio Redlynx. During his tenure, the games industry 1997 and has the studio created the global hit franchise . produced over 40 titles including Ubisoft bought Redlynx in 2011. After spending the Divinity Series. In a previous life a few years as a consultant to some of the world’s Swen was the lead software engineer on all of Larian leading video game studios, Tero joined Remedy in Studios’ titles, but since 2007 his focus is the creative 2016 as the CEO. Remedy Entertainment employs direction of the Larian team. His latest game is over 170 developers and is working on two projects: award winning Divinity: Original Sin 2. His ultimate Crossfire 2 / HD and Control. ambition is to make the very big RPG that will dwarf them all and he is already working on his next huge RPG project! SWERY Hidetaka Suehiro Enhance, CEO / Founder y Mizuguchi is best known as the White Owls Inc., CEO creator behind critically acclaimed, y award-winning titles including One of Japan’s representative Sega Rally Championship, Space indie developers. He continues to Channel 5, Rez, /Lumines create unique, spirited work based Remastered, Child of Eden, Rez Infinite and on the slogan: “From Osaka to all of Effect. His lifelong pursuit of research centered YOU around the world.” His newest around activating one’s imagination and elevating game “The MISSING – J.J. Macfield and the Island human consciousness through media has resulted of Memories” was lauded as a “very important in crafting highly unique, one-of-a-kind experiences game” by many media sources and received high across video games, music and live performances. praise internationally, such as being nominated At Enhance, Mizuguchi is committed to concep- for the “Games for Impact” category in the Game tualizing and developing synesthetic, next-level Awards 2018. His other representative works include entertainment experiences through the power of “Deadly Premonition,” “D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die,” emerging technologies such as (VR), “Spy Fiction,” etc. His next game, “The Good Life,” is augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). planned to be released in 2019. 56 57 Raw Fury is a boutique publisher. We (un)publish games. Sometimes you need to undo a thing before you can redo it. That’s how we think when it comes to publishing games, hence that “un” stuff at the beginning. For us it’s important to build long-term partnerships with developers where both sides feel they are equal and in this together. We care about experiences and emotions, and we look for magic. Are you making magic? Drop us an e-mail at [email protected].

58 59 Tomislav Gojevic Toby Ow Nanobit, Business Development / Project Sony Interactive Entertainment, Production Manager Supervisor y Tomislav has been a gamer his y Toby is responsible for budgeting whole life, and has worked in the and supervising projects supporting gaming industry for the past 4 Sony Worldwide Studios developers years. As a business development in art, motion capture, scanning, and project manager in Nanobit animation, cinematics, and external he makes sure that projects are delivered on time, development. He has helped manage outsourced that they bring value and fun to the people using waterfall and agile projects for game art assets, them and a sense of pride to the people creating Indie & game co-development, R&D software technologies, them! He’s a reliable and energetic problem solver and internal studio project management tools for who enjoys interacting with people and optimizing PS3, PS Vita, and PS4 exclusive titles. business operations. He has a very cool nickname, Tomahawk, from his early hoop-shooting days, and his all-time fave games include Fallout 2, Baldur’s Tomasz Kaczmarczyk Gate 2, Max Payne, and Uncharted. Team, Founder / Business Director Tomislav Pongrac y Tom is the guy running busi- ness stuff in SUPERHOT Team, the Gamepires, Creative Director / Co-Founder hero awards studio most people recognize for y their undeniably consistent nam- During the late 80s, Tomislav ing skills and the blockbuster indie started experimenting with hits SUPERHOT and SUPERHOT VR. Tom was one of 2D-computer graphics for the SATURDAY the original founders of the studio and has had the demo scene. In the mid-90s, his pleasure of seeing it grow from 5 people working group of friends got together and on borrowed desks in 2014 to a still growing crowd founded Croteam, where he worked on many games 17:30 - 18:30 of over 40 people with offices in two cities in 2018. including the Serious Sam series. In the last 25 years, Personally, he’s hoping to turn more indie devs away he has worked on nearly all aspects of the artistic bongfish stage from treating business development as an elaborate part of gamedev – concept art, 2D, 3D, animation, cargo cult and lure them towards the fine art of actu- level design, game design, gameplay, and other. ally looking at a goddamn spreadsheet for a change. At the moment, Tomislav is the creative director at Gamepires, a super ambitious team currently work- ing on their huge open world survival game SCUM. Tom Crago Tantalus, CEO Tomislav Uzelac y Tom is the CEO and owner of 2x2 Games, CEO Melbourne-based videogame devel- oper Tantalus, a studio with more y Tomislav joined the world of video games industry a decade ago than forty acclaimed titles to its cred- Powered by it, including a handful of million-unit as an indie developer, following sellers such as : Twilight Princess several long stints as programmer HD. Tom is a past President of the Game Developers’ on music related projects (most Association of Australia. He is presently a Board famously creating the mp3 playback engine for Member of the not-for-profit Australian National WinAMP). His first project was Unity of Command, a Development Index. His first book, Flashbacks from strategy game noted for its clever design, merciless the Flow Zone is published internationally by Hardie AI and “exceptional ergonomics”. Tomislav’s interests Grant, and his hybrid artwork/videogame Materials include game design, game programming in python, recently appeared at the inaugural National Gallery and all things related to the business of indie game of Victoria Triennial, in what was the largest art exhi- development and he is currently intesively working bition ever staged in Australia. on finishi development of Unity of Command 2 with lunch to happen in next few month. 60 61 Tsahi Liberman OtherSide Entertainment, Studio Director The Beachside party Funnel, Head of Studio y Best known for his work on the Sponsored by Oculus y Tsahi is an award winning Deus Ex and Disney Epic Mickey educational games developer and games, he also worked on several designer, which spent the last 15 entries in the series early years in working with various TV in his career. He began in 1983 in brands and titles, and developing tabletop games, with Steve Jackson Games and TSR, games for children. He is running the biggest moving into digital games in 1989 where he worked Oleander Beach Bar game development and art program in Israel, at at , Electronic Arts, Looking Glass, Tiltan School, and have been part of Games for and Eidos before starting Junction Point Studios, 12th April, 21:30 – 02:30 Peace, an NPO that connects children in conflict acquired in 2007 by the Walt Disney Company. From 2013 until 2016 he was the Director of the Denius- zones around the world using games, which won Reboot and Oculus invite you yet again to a beautiful beachside bar for now a tradional Sams Gaming Academy in the Moody College of the UN innovation prize at 2017. Last but not least, night long entertainment and drinks at Oleander Beach Bar, near Astarea Hotel Tsahi is the Head of BD and Marketing for Simpool, Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. a revolutionary platform to predict and optimize Currently, he is Austin studio director for OtherSide *Every attendee badge comes with two drinks coupon for the party Game and LTV, and is leading the Entertainment working on 3. Funnel entertainment studio in Haifa, working on Grime – an action RPG game influenced heavily by Dark Souls trilogy. Youichiro Miyake , Lead AI Researcher

Vanja Todoric y Youichiro Miyake has been in Mad Head Games, Senior Artist development of video game titles while researching game AI tech- y Vanja Todoric graduated from nologies as the lead AI researcher the Academy of Fine Arts. He is at SQUARE ENIX. He developed the proud to say that some of his work technical design of AI for the following game titles: has been awarded and published CHROME HOUNDS, Demon’s Souls, Armored Core V by: CGsociety, 3Dtotal, Layer paint, developed by FROM SOFTWARE, and EXPOSE, SPECTRUM, PRIME, 2D Artist Magazine, XIV, Final Fantasy XV, and Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Digital Painting Techniques, Digital Painters, developed by SQUARE ENIX. He is the chair of the Imagine FX. He is working as a Senior Artist at SIG-AI in IGDA Japan, and also the board member MadHead Games, and also teaching Concept Art for of DiGRA Japan and the Society of Art and Science. Video Games and Movies at the Academy of Fine He is the author of the books “Game AI methods Arts, Novi Sad (Illustration Department). for Digital Games” “Western Philosophy for ” (2016) “Eastern Philosophy for Artificial Vitor De Magalhaes Intelligence” and “The theory of Game AI”(2018). Improbable, Business Development y Vitor has been doing business YS NET, CEO development at Improbable for over 2 years. You’ll frequently find him y Yu Suzuki, one of true games flying to different shows, searching industry veterans and legends, for developers looking to make new began his incredible more then types of online experiences. Despite being obsessed three decades long games industry with games his whole life, his path to the industry career working at Sega at the end was an unconventional one. After completing a of 1983, He is widely know as a creator of a variety Masters in Japanese at Oxford, he went on to sell of tentpole franchises like Outrun, Afterburner, cloud services within finance before finally settling Virtual Fighter and Shen Mue. He currently resides into the industry he was meant for all along. And he as the CEO of YS NET. Currently him and his team wouldn’t change it for the world. are working on finishing III which is to 62 release later this year. 63 SPEAKERS REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019

Zeb West Luka Hrabar Stoic, Senior Producer Croteam, Terrain Engine Programmer y Zeb met Arnie, John and Alex, y Luka is one of the newer addi- key member of Stoic studio working tions to the Croteam crew with just as a producer at BioWare on Star 3 years under his belt. Starting with Wars: The Old Republic. As project gameplay and engine program- manager of both Triple A and Indie ming, he immediately showed games, he strives to foster creativity, humanity and that he would gladly involve himself in any and all humor among artists, programmers and designers. aspects of game development. Consequently, Luka Recently he has been active in key producer role is currently working on one of Croteam’s largest on Banner Saga series. When not working in video technological challenges yet – the terrain engine. games, he creates silly works of puppetry about cos- Even after years’ worth of feature additions the ter- mic angst and performs them at burlesque shows. rain engine and its toolkit is ever-growing. Much to his amusement, Luka is among the select few who Ziva Cizman know how and why it all works. Outfit7, VP of Marketing Robert Sajko y Working for Outfit7 since 2014, Croteam, Senior Engine/Gameplay Programmer Ziva Cizman leads an international y team as the VP of Marketing. Her Robert Sajko is a hands-on focus has been on identifying the developer and a 10-year veteran at unique selling points of games as Croteam, where he has helped ship well as making sure all marketing activities can a number of key titles on multiple

be measured. Her previous role at Google gave platforms, including Serious Sam her an inside track to excelling at user acquisition 3: BFE, The Talos Principle and Serious Sam VR: and advertising. Global marketing campaigns for The Last Hope. While he excels in engineering, his My Talking Tom 2 and Talking Tom Gold Run have interests span beyond that. Alongside his partner in helped Outfit7 achieve over 9 billion downloads and crime, Karlo Jez, he is a co-founder of a small indie counting. game-dev team currently working on a turn-based action RPG, where he took on the role of a lead game designer. Karlo Jez Elle Osili-Wood Croteam, Senior Engine Developer Host / Presenter y Karlo Jež is a senior engine devel- oper at Croteam who also dabbles y Elle Osili-Wood is a video in game and tools programming. gaming and entertainment pre- With a huge interest in graphics and senter, and editor and presenter multi-platform support, Karlo is one of PlayStation Access, the official of the key figures in Croteam’s presence on almost channel of PlayStation UK. Having all gaming platforms known to man, including PC, started her career as a political reporter for the BBC, consoles, mobile and VR. When he’s not writing code she quickly gravitated toward her life long passion and developing the Serious Engine and Serious Sam for video games, and has appeared on air to cover 4, Karlo is making worlds as a co-founder and team gaming for outlets including BBC Breakfast, BBC lead of a small indie game-dev team currently work- Click, Channel 4’s Gadget Man, Sky News and The ing on a turn–based action RPG. Guardian. Elle is also the founder of YouTube chan- nel Bear vs. Grenade, and was named a “rising star of YouTube” by Red Bull. 64 65 GROW YOUR GLOBAL GAMING BUSINESS

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ARM y Arm technology is at the heart European Games Group of a computing and connectivity y revolution that is transforming the European Games Group is way people live and businesses the alternative to signing off to operate. Our advanced, energy- a portfolio publisher or taking efficient processor designs have enabled intelli- the risk of self-publishing. We are gent computing in more than 130 billion chips. the next generation enabler for independent minded developers that are looking for a strong partner to scale their game in the ever changing and competitive free2play market! Bongfish y The Austrian-based studio made its name with Stoked, the Finder first open-world snowboarding y Finder d.o.o. (Ltd.) is Croatian game in 2008, and is proud of distributor of well known IT brands its high-tech approach to game including Wacom Inc., FileMaker development. Bongfish became Austria’s largest Inc. and Vegas Creative Software. developing force by attracting a diverse team of 80 We are also Apple, Adobe, ZBrush, people from 14 different nations. The company is Substance Painter, V-Ray, Boris FX & RealFlow engaged in multiple projects for major publishers Authorized Reseller. and operates from three studio locations.

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Raw Fury Modus Games y Raw Fury is a boutique pub- lisher. We (un)publish games. y Maximum Games is a top 20 Sometimes you need to undo a 70.000 CCU global game publisher, and we thing before you can redo it. That’s also just launched a new “Triple-I” how we think when it comes to ... Piece of cake! publishing division, Modus publishing games, hence that “un” stuff at the Games, which is focused on indies. beginning. We care about experiences and emo- Christina is the owner and founder, and I run tions, and we look for magic. Are you making global marketing. magic?

Remote Control Production Andrej Levenski (@LevaOpaki) Nanobit y Remote Control Production Co-Founder / Technical Director at is an independent, international y Nanobit is a company special- Gamepires for SCUM active production house which ized in developing and delivering focuses on mediation, develop- mobile games. We live by our ment and production of entertain- motto “Crafting bits of fun” and are ment software. proud to say that we are one of the leading Croatian tech companies, with continuous strong growth and a clear focus on excellent work- #BACKENDBADASS ing conditions. 70 www.zeuz.io 71 Meet us at Reboot! Book a meeting: [email protected]. Coffee on us! b2b expo powered by madhead REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019

SGA Trust Pay y Serbian Games Association y TrustPay belongs to first finan- is supporting the growth of the cial institutions within the region Are you working with video games sector in Serbia and to provide secure e-commerce pay- enhancing its ability to compete ments across EEA area. Our princi- globally. The association coor- pal membership with VISA Europe, dinates its activities with representatives of the MasterCard and UnionPay as well as PCI DSS Level the right influencers Serbian government, businesses and non-profit 1 certification enable us to provide our clients with organizations, as well as with other entertainment outstanding cross-border B2B services. for your game? industry trade associations worldwide. Ubisoft Blue Byte Special Effect y More than 400 talented and motivated employees in y % of campaign Views to installs SpecialEffect is an award- Düsseldorf, Mainz and Berlin cre- winning charity that helps people ate thrilling game experiences spend per region rate per region with disabilities to benefit from the every day and are inspired by the fun, rehabilitation and therapy of direct contact with the players. Fun at work and a video games. They support people fabulous working environment are the two central 71 % 80 % 4 % of all ages through assessments, equipment loans pillars on which Ubisoft Blue Byte is founded. and equipment modifications. 3.1 %

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The Boutique Games Industry Conference of

74 75 ASTAREA CONFERENCE VENUE MAP REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 HOTEL

VILLAS MLINI

RESORT AREA MAP

OLEANDER BEACH BAR

POWERED BY MADHEAD GAMES INDIE AND B2B EXPO AREA CROTEAM STAGE BOUTIQUE HOTEL MLINI

11 BIT STUDIOSSTAGE

BONGFISH RAW FURY STAGE STAGE

REGISTRATION DESK

ENTRANCE

LUNCH AREA 9 minutes walk HOTEL RECEPTION

ZEUZ STAGE

LOUNGE BAR

3LATERALSTAGE

SUPERNOVA STAGE

SHERATON DUBROVNIK RIVIERA FINGERSOFT STAGE

76 77 SCHEDULE REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Find session descriptions at www.rebootdevelopblue.com/sessions

THURSDAY 11.4.2019 THURSDAY 11.4.2019

BONGFISH STAGE 11 BIT STUDIOS STAGE FINGERSOFT STAGE CROTEAM STAGE 3LATERAL STAGE ZEUZ STAGE RAW FURY STAGE SUPERNOVA stage

Keynote: Hidetaka Miyazaki, From Software & Fumito Ueda, genDE- SIGN 10:00 – 11:00 10:00 – 11:00 Opening Ceremony - Damir Durovic, Reboot

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break powered by Matchmade Coffee Break powered by Matchmade 11:00 – 11:30

Martin Eder, Bongfish Hrvoje Kelemenic, LGM Neil Alphonso, Splash Graham Wihlidal, EA WORKSHOP Character PANEL Interactive Zeb West, Stoic PANEL Games Industry Specifics of making a map Starpoint Gemini 3: a Bold Damage SEED Design Live Demo Empathy - Citizenship Banner Saga: Inception to Networking 3.0: From for World of Tanks Frontline change in direction Out of the Box: An AAA Halcyon: Rapid Innovation Eran Alboher, Ekipa 2 of and Storytelling in Video Conclusion Design Asia to South America Design Design Studio’s Journey from using Modern Graphics Outfit 7 Games Industry Tomislav Gojevic (Nanobit), 11:30 - 12:30 Boxed Product to Service Tech Hendrik Lesser, Renaud Ante Vrdelja (Croteam), 11:30 - 12:30 Design Charpentier, Anne Toole, Maarten De Koning (DDM Andrej Kovacevic, moder- Agents) moderator by ated by Srdan Laterza Nikola Cavic Business

Renaud Charpentier, Don Daglow, AIAS Ilari Kuittinen, Luka Hrabar & Robert WORKSHOP Character vs Rick Beachside chat with Catherine Channon Tower Five Foundation Housemarque Sajko, Croteam Design Live Demo Grimes Mundi Vondi, Klang Is PR as we know it dead? Gameplay patterns theory The Art of the Interview: Reinventing Housemarque Four Million Acres, Eran Alboher, Ekipa 2 of Kiki Wolfkill, 343 Industries Games Business 12:30 - 13:30 to practice Design Adding and Integrating the - From Arcade to AAA Seriously: GPU-Based Outfit 7 & Dan Murray, Skybound Hosted by Andrej 12:30 - 13:30 Right Kinds of People into Business Procedural Terrains in Interactive, hosted by Matt Kovacevic, Exordium Your Dev Team Business ‘Serious Sam 4: Planet Handrahan Business Games Industry Badass’ Tech Industry

13:30 - 15:00 Lunch Break Lunch Break 13:30 - 15:00

External Development Nordic Discovery Session Benjamin Charbit, Eugen Harton, Bohemia Branislav Siles, The success of premium Philomena Schwab, Stray Julian Mautner, stillalive Panel Business hosted by Jacob Riis Darewise Entertainment Interactive Atomontage games in mobile Fawn Studio studios Lois Wang (XDS advi- The Making of AAA: What it Security in Games Tech How to prepare for the Beachside chat with Community based market- Stable.Steady.Stillalive sory), Toby Ow (Sony), takes to build a studio with inevitable volumetric Christopher Kassulke, ing and development - lessons from 13 years 15:00 - 16:00 Ben Jackson (Rocksteady the best of credentials future Tech Handy Games, hosted by Industry of growing a sustainable 15:00 - 16:00 Studios), Chris Wren (EA), Business Nikola Cavic Business studio Business Sam Carlisle (Microsoft)

Tero Virtala, Remedy Richard Huddy, Samsung Kate Edwards, Geogryfy Alen Ladavac, Croteam Quentin Guislain, EG Production pipeline of Swen Vincke, Larian SCUM: The Beginning Entertainment Electronics Game Creators and the Myths and Misconceptions Group the future Studios Beachside chat with The Transformation of Accelerating the Evolution Quest for Worker Rights of Frame Pacing: A Pre- The Road to Launch - Estelle Tigani, Tomislav Publishing D:os 2 Andrej Levenski & Tomislav 16:00 - 17:00 Remedy Entertainment of a Platform Business Industry Sequel to the Marketing dos and don’ts Uzelac (2x2 Games), Ryan Business Pongrac (Gamepires) 16:00 - 17:00 Business Elusive Frame Timing Tech when developing your f2p Payton (Camouflaj) Design mobile game Business Business Design

17:00 - 17:30 Coffee Break powered by Matchmade Coffee Break powered by Matchmade 17:00 - 17:30

Ste Curran Beachside chat: Inclusive PANEL Whats your design Kris Rose, Khronos Group Nikola Nikita Jeremic, PANEL Free to Play, Guy Richards, ID@Xbox Marco Minoli, Slitherine KILLING THE GAMES Futures in Augmented made of? Shipping 7 Platforms with Waveform Studio Profitable to Produce: ID@Xbox: Maximising your When niche is big enough INDUSTRY 2019 Industry Realities Davor Tomicic, Nika a single GPU API Tech The Interactive Music Of Maximizing Monetization Opportunity Business for a success - The process through Analytics 17:30 - 18:30 Doug North Cook Dvoravic, Philomena Starpoint Gemini 3 Audio of marketing a game for a 17:30 - 18:30 (Chatham University) Schwab moderated by Michal Grno (Pixel Fed), limited audience Business & Robin Hunicke Renaud Charpentier Jakub Marek (Super Scale), (Funomena) Industry Design Ante Odic (Outfit7) moder- ated by Mariusz Gasiewski (Google) SCHEDULE REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Find session descriptions at www.rebootdevelopblue.com/sessions

FRIDAY 12.4.2019 FRIDAY 12.4.2019

BONGFISH STAGE 11 BIT STUDIOS STAGE FINGERSOFT STAGE CROTEAM STAGE 3LATERAL STAGE ZEUZ STAGE RAW FURY STAGE SUPERNOVA stage

George Krstic, Blizzard Entertainment Morning talk with... hosted 10:00 – 11:00 by Dan Pearson (STREAM) 10:00 – 11:00

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break powered by Matchmade Coffee Break powered by Matchmade 11:00 – 11:30

Beachside chat with Matt Conte, Oculus Carsten Orthbandt, Zeuz Pawel Rohleder, Techland Vitor De Magalhaes, PANEL The Art of invest- Justin Ma, Subset Games Ziva Cizman, Outfit 7 Hilmar Veigar Petursson, Down the Rabbit Hole with Fair to Cloudy - The Eighty programmers sitting Improbable ing into games industry Into the Breach & Lessons Influencer Marketing: The CCP Games Oculus Quest (and Rift S) Challenge of Scaling Online on one branch Tech Automating Business Christopher Bergstresser in Non-Attachment Truth Behind the Hype Hosted by Matt Handrahan Tech Services For Games Tech Development - How to do (MTG), Paul Wedgwood Design Business 11:30 - 12:30 Industry more, with less Business (Supernova), Chris Petrovic 11:30 - 12:30 (Zynga), Diana Moldavsky (Tencent) moderated by Nikola Cavic Business

Beachside chat with Celia Hodent Tom Crago, Tantalus Igor Cesi, Ubisoft Paris Damjan Mravunac, Jean-François Boivin Sebastien Benard, Leigh Alexander Hermen Hulst, Guerrilla How Cognitive Science Art & Meaning in Video Tidy your room! (... and Croteam (Panache Digital) and Motion Twin Going beyond ‘Yes, Queen’: Games and UX Can Impact Game Games Design Art keep it that way) Tech Sound processing in game Loius-Felix Cauchon (Le Dead Cells: what the f*n?! The Narrative Design of Guild) 12:30 - 13:30 Hosted by Maarten de Design Design audio design - getting the Design Reigns: Her Majesty 12:30 - 13:30 Koning Industry best out of your sound La Guilde Industry Design recordings and effects libraries Audio

13:30 - 15:00 Lunch Break Lunch Break 13:30 - 15:00

Patrice Désilets, Jason Sussman, Bungie Daniel Rantala, Youichiro Miyake, Square Andrew Parsons, PANEL State of the Dave Gilbert, Wadjet Eye Jari-Pekka Kaleva, EGDF Panache Digital Studios Fingersoft Enix Devolver Digital Industry Japanese Industry Games One year after GDPR - what Full Circle Design Building Worlds in Destiny Automating data-driven AI Technologies in FINAL Mental Health, Brain Hidetaka Swery Suehiro, Narrative design as next on game regulation? – The Dreaming City Art mobile game evaluation FANTASY XV Tech Chemistry and You: How Dan Luffey, Masatoshi character study: creating Business 15:00 - 16:00 Design Business understanding neurosci- Tokuoka, moderated by empathetic characters in 15:00 - 16:00 ence can help you become Ben Judd Industry Design a better game developer

Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Charles Cecil, Revolution Renaud Charpentier, Alon Or-bach, Samsung Graham McAllister PANEL Masters of sound Dino Patti, Jumpship Larisa Percinlic & Eran Enhance Software Tower Five Electronics & Karlo Jez, Saving the Games Industry: Arnold Nesis (Capricia Playing Dead? On Building Alboher, Ekipa2 of The Future of Enhanced Revolution - the next Difficulty balancing Croteam Becoming Player-driven Productions), Ari Pulkinen a Vision-Driven Studio Outfit 7 16:00 - 17:00 Synesthesia Experiences adventure: Beyond a Steel Design Some Seriously Explicit Industry (Ari Tunes), Nikola Nikita Business The Art of Creating A 16:00 - 17:00 Design Sky Design Lessons in Vulkan Tech Jeremic, Waveform Studio, Successful Sequel Art moderator by Damjan Mravunac Audio

17:00 - 17:30 Coffee Break powered by Matchmade Coffee Break powered by Matchmade 17:00 - 17:30

Beachside chat with Yu Saku Lehtinen, Remedy Ivan Trancik, SuperScale Johannes Kuhlmann, Stefan Randelshofer, PANEL Building sustain- Tomasz Kaczmarczyk, Suzuki, YS NET Art of Storytelling – The Launching and Scaling Deep Silver Fishlabs Ubisoft Blue Byte able brands in the games Superhot Team Hosted by Ben Judd Remedy way Art Games: Case Studies Turn your frame rate up From Top Down to First industry How to sell two million 17:30 - 18:30 Business to 60 with Vulkan on the Person in a Blink of an eye - Christian Fonnesbech indie games? Fancy charts, 17:30 - 18:30 Nintendo Switch Tech Audio Environment System (Nordisk), Noirin solid numbers, and con- in 1800 Audio Carmody (Revolution troversial advice for fellow Software), Mikael Haveri underdogs and business (Housemarque) Industry people Business SCHEDULE REBOOT DEVELOP BLUE | 2019 Find session descriptions at www.rebootdevelopblue.com/sessions

SATURDAY 13.4.2019 SATURDAY 13.4.2019

BONGFISH STAGE 11 BIT STUDIOS STAGE FINGERSOFT STAGE CROTEAM STAGE 3LATERAL STAGE ZEUZ STAGE RAW FURY STAGE SUPERNOVA stage

Amy Hennig Morning talk with... hosted by Dan Pearson (STREAM) 10:00 – 11:00 10:00 – 11:00

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break powered by Matchmade Coffee Break powered by Matchmade 11:00 – 11:30

Luis Villegas, Bungie Christina Seelye, Deborah Guzman, Oculus Vulkan: One API to rule Tsahi Liberman, Funnel PANEL Indie Funding Anya Combs, Kickstarter Renee Blair, Six Foot Studios Maximum Games True Tales of VR Success them all – Exploring the Into the twisted lore of Steve Escalante (Versus Everything You Wanted to Children and Video Games: Leadership at Bungie: A How to Launch a Game Stories Business Design benefits and challenges Grime’s foul existence – No Evil), Elena Lobova Know About Kickstarter But Let’s Not Mess This Up transformational journey in the New Digital Game of a cross-platform API Hands! Design (Achievers Hub), Were Too Afraid to Ask Industry 11:30 - 12:30 Industry Landscape Business Christian Forfang (Arm), Jonas Antonsson (Raw Business 11:30 - 12:30 Graham Wihlidal (SEED), Fury), Mikael Haveri Karlo Jez (Croteam) moder- (Housemarque) Business ated by Alon Or-bach Tech

Warren Spector, Hendrik Lesser, remote Joachim Ante, Unity Jose Emilio Munoz, Arm Tamara Popovic, PANEL Corporate social Richard Franke, Magic Catalin Butnariu, Carbon OtherSide Entertainment control productions / DOTS - the new core of Create performant games Madhead Games responsibility Notion / RGDA Stay On Target: Game Goals EGDF Unity Tech with Vulkan and the Arm Human side of System Susan Gold (Global Game Theater and Video Games - The Role of Star Games 12:30 - 13:30 and the Definition(s) of Oh brother, have patience Mobile Studio Tech Design Design Jam), James Portnow, Rami Crossing the Fourth Wall in Building Game Dev 12:30 - 13:30 Success Design - how to master the way of Ismail (Vlambeer) Industry Industry Ecosystems Industry your indie studio Business

13:30 - 15:00 Lunch Break Lunch Break 13:30 - 15:00

Rami Ismail, Vlambeer Jen MacLean, IGDA Stefanie Scherer, Dragan Jerosimovic, Mihai Pohontu, Amber PANEL Heroes of the Jakub Dvorsky, Amanita Game Development from A The Revolution is Coming: Bongfish 3LATERAL Innovation in Games Narrative Design to Z 2.0 Business How the Next 5 Years Will A romantic relationship Uncanny Valley 2: Beyond Business Anne Toole, Charles Cecil CHUCHEL, Our Problem Bring the Most Change between community & Faces. The next set of moderated by Chris Child Design 15:00 - 16:00 Gamedev Has Ever Seen- studio Industry challenges for creating Avellone Design Industry 15:00 - 16:00 And How to Thrive in Chaos believable digital charac- Industry ters Tech

James Green, Creative Hidetaka Swery Suehiro, Vanja Todoric, Madhead Benjamin Mitchell, Mark Estdale, OM PANEL State of the indie Jonas Antonsson, Raw Assembly White Owls Games Imagination Creating powerful and landscape Fury The Sweet Spot of Why did I make “The Aproaching Character Technologies memorable voice content Rami Ismail, Julie Heyde, Ridiculously honest AMA 16:00 - 17:00 Asymmetric Design MISSING: J.J. Macfield and Design Design Hands-on Profiling Mobile Audio Justin Ma, moderated by Part 27 Business Industry 16:00 - 17:00 Design the Island of Memories” as Graphics Applications, Brandon Sheffield first career step in my new presented by Imagination Industry studio? Design Business Technologies Tech

17:00 - 17:30 Coffee Break powered by Matchmade Coffee Break powered by Matchmade 17:00 - 17:30

Reboot Develop Indie Award powered by Xsolla, Hero Award and Closing Ceremony 17:30 - 18:30 17:30 - 18:30 Sheraton Resort, Dubrovnik, Croatia 23rd to 25th, April 2020

CONFERENCE WAS SOLD OUT OF EVERYTHING THIS YEAR! We urge all of you to book your passes and accommodation right away, this is the only way to have them secured h As a big thank you for supporting us yet again, EXTREMELY Najmanja dozvoljena LOGOTIP REBOOT DEVELOPDISCOUNTED BLUE all types of tickets and packages, in super veli čina logotipa u tisku: KOLOR OUTLINE NEGATIVlimited in quanity, are available for next 15 days only, until h = 7,5 mm 26th of April!

SECURE YOUR SPOT www.rebootdevelopblue.com/2020