Speakers 2023
SPEAKER LINEUP HAS BEEN REVEALED IN FULL
* alpha version of schedule will be coming shortly
** of course there might be a handful of last minute speaker additions to the lineup 😉

Arjan Brussee
Epic Games
Product Director Unreal Engine
Arjan Brussee created Jazz Jackrabbit 1&2 with Cliff Bleszinski and published by Epic Megagames in 1994. From that he co-founded Guerrilla Games (acquired by Sony in 2005) where he worked on all the Killzone titles and early production on Horizon Zero Dawn. He joined EA in 2012 to work on various entries in the Battlefield series, and left in 2014 to co-found Boss Key Productions where he shipped Lawbreakers. Late 2017 he returned to Epic Games. He’s now heading up Product Management for Unreal Engine.

Holly Reddaway
Voice and Performance Director
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Holly is an experienced Voice and Performance Director based in London working across games, immersive and animation. Having trained on the renowned MA Directing programme at LAMDA and with a background in theatre she has a real appreciation and understanding for the actors craft with her strength as a director in facilitating specific, imaginative and truthful performances. The performance director on multiple award-winning AAA titles her credits include: Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios), Crossfire X (Remedy Entertainment), Formula 1 Manager (Frontier Developments), Zombieland VR (XR Games) and Park Beyond (Bandai Namco). Upcoming titles for release in 2023 include Remedy’s Alan Wake 2 and the latest Assassin’s Creed ‘Codename Jade’ for Ubisoft

Laurence Phillips
poncle
Writer / Designer
Laurence is a Writer and Designer at poncle, the creators of the two time BAFTA winning cult indie hit Vampire Survivors. He has previously worked extensively in games media (PCGamesN, GamesMaster), tabletop RPGs and board games (with writing credits on Legacy: Life Among the Ruins and Spire), and for mobile developer Netspeak Games.

Helen Burnill
CULT GAMES
Founder / CEO
Helen Burnill is Founder of CULT Games, a new label for super indie developers. Her not-quite 10 years in the industry have been fairly action-packed. From playing a key role in driving Mediatonic from small but talented studio via group to global powerhouse to Board Seats with Jagex, UKIE and Film London, she’s worked closely with teams from the largest to smallest possible across the East and West of the world. A relentless fan of the people & teams she works with, she plays commercial multiclass in support of those more talented than her and is aiming to design a new partnership approach in the industry

Dino Patti
coherence / Jumpship
CEO and Founder / Executive Producer
With 20 years of professional experience in the games industry, Dino Patti is best known for co-founding, scaling and running Playdead for almost 10 years. During this time Playdead developed and published the multi award winning titles Limbo and Inside. Dino has had an advising role in several game and game related companies, including the GDC Europe Advisory Board. In 2017, Dino founded JUMPSHIP with Chris Olsen, where the promising title Somerville was brought to life, and in 2019 he launched coherence – an open, flexible, scalable and easy-to-use real-time network engine.

William Hall
Meta
Developer Strategy at Oculus VR
William Hall is a member of the Oculus VR Publishing Team at Meta, as one of the senior team members currently working and focusing on Developer Strategy. He has been with Oculus VR, and now Meta for nearly 9 years in total. A lifelong fan of video games, passionate fan of virtual reality experiences, and blessed to work with some of the most talented developers in that space.

Caroline Miller
Indigo Pearl PR
CEO / Founder
Caroline Miller is the founder and CEO of Indigo Pearl PR, a multi-award-winning video games PR agency. The company was founded in 2000 and is based in London. In addition to its PR services, it also builds, hosts, and manages press web sites under its PXN brand. Miller began her career at Virgin Interactive in the early 90s, as the international sales director. She was later headhunted by Crave before founding Indigo Pearl PR in 2000, to form the agency she always dreamed of working for. As a result of their work with some of the biggest brands in video games, Indigo Pearl was acquired by Keywords Studios in 2020.

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

Julie Elven
Soundtrack Vocalist
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Beyond film and TV, she works extensively on both indie and AAA video games, and has been a vocal soloist on major themes in Horizon Forbidden West, The Legend of Vox Machina, Horizon Zero Dawn, League of Legends, BBC Universe, PBS Nova, World of Warcraft – Legion, Hearthstone, Honor of Kings, Star Citizen, RuneScape, multiple Blizzard Entertainment projects, Tomb Raider – The Dark Angel album project, and more. At The Game Awards 2021, Julie performed her original vocals from composer Joris de Man’s “Promise of the West” of the GRAMMY longlisted and BAFTA winning video game Horizon Forbidden West with film music legends Lorne Balfe, Pedro Eustache and the Game Awards Orchestra during a record breaking live stream audience of 85 Million views.

Yves Le Yaouanq
Focus Entertainment
Chief Content Officer
Yves started his career 25 years ago in the games industry, first on MUDs and MMORPGs, to then join Ubisoft for 11 years in strategic positions to help expanding the PC and Online expertise, while building bridges with external developers. In 2021, Yves joined Focus Entertainment as Chief Content Officer, to lead the Publishing and Acquisition Portfolio transformation, welcoming new games, talents and studios from across the world.

Aaryn Flynn
Inflexion Games
CEO
Aaryn is the CEO of Inflexion Games, a game development studio based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Aaryn has been building computer games for almost 25 years, having started his career as a computer programmer at BioWare after earning his degree at the University of Alberta. After contributing to BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights series, Aaryn focused on gameplay on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire. As BioWare evolved to make the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises after the studio’s acquisition by Electronic Arts, Aaryn oversaw all game development at the studio and was named the General Manager of the studio in 2009. He continued in that role for eight years, leaving in 2017 and eventually establishing Inflexion in 2018. Inflexion is currently working on Nightingale, a survival-crafting game set in its own Victorian Gaslamp fantasy universe, launching in 2023.

Leigh Alexander
Narrative Designer
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Leigh Alexander writes futurist fiction and is a narrative designer with a deep passion for the craft of storytelling systems. She was narrative director on the acclaimed game Reigns: Her Majesty, and recently worked on Reigns: Game of Thrones, among others. Previously she worked as a journalist and critic, and her digital culture writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Columbia Journalism Review, Motherboard, the New Statesman and more. She is the author of Breathing Machine, a memoir of early internet society, and her occasional ASMR video series Lo-Fi Lets Play explores ancient computer adventure games.

Ivan Fernandez Lobo
Gamelab Barcelona
Founder
Ivan is a creative technologist with a deep understanding of the gaming/entertainment media business and 20+ years experience facilitating and developing strategic business relationships and partnerships between gaming, technology and media companies worldwide. Ivan was the co-founder and first ever president of the Spanish Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. In 2005 Ivan founded the Gamelab Barcelona conference, a global think-tank where industry leaders get together to exchange ideas and share their visions about the futures of Gaming and Interactive Entertainment. He has played a key role in the development of the Spanish videogames ecosystem, bridging the interests of the different governments and the industry, and connecting opportunities for them worldwide.

Stefan Ideler
i3D.net
CTO
Stefan Ideler joined i3D.net in 2004 and still serves as it’s CTO today. With over 20 years of experience within the Infrastructure, Networking and Game Services side of the industry he’s been at the forefront of launching online multiplayer games from the very beginning and seen the industry transform from Consumer Hosted Game Servers to Centralized Orchestration Platforms for Live Games that need to be online 24/7.

Dean Takahashi
GamesBeat / VentureBeat
Lead Writer
Dean Takahashi is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He has been at VentureBeat since 2008. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, “Opening the Xbox” and “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked.” He organizes the annual GamesBeat and GamesBeat Summit conferences. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Andrej Levenski
GamepiresTechnical Director / Co-Founder
Andrej is an industry veteran of 22 years and the Technical Director at Gamepires. He has been a programmer for much longer, almost 27 years, starting out as an enthusiast with his friends. He co-founded Gamepires 13 years ago, working on the in-house PranaEngine used on the award-winning Gas Guzzlers Extreme racing combat game, and has spent the last 5 years working in UE4 on SCUM, a multiplayer survival game currently in Early Access. His interests and experience span all technical areas of the game development.

Doug North Cook
Creature
CEO & Creative Director
Doug is a designer and researcher focused on immersive experience design. He was the founding faculty for the Immersive Media programs at Chatham University, lead instructor for the Immersive Design Residencies at Fallingwater, and is now CEO and Creative Director of Creature. Doug has worked on Amoung Us VR, The Last Clockwinder, The Light Brigade, and other VR games. His upcoming book, Human Spatial Computing, co-authored with NYU Professor Regine Gilbert, will be published by Oxford University Press in late 2023.

Emelie Edholm
Rare Ltd.
Designer
From barista to designer at Rare Ltd – the road getting into the industry wasn’t straight, but has been a lot of fun! Emelie is a designer on the Everwild project at Rare Ltd. She has previously been a producer at Team Junkfish and Fundamentally Games. With a passion for building community and creative spaces, she is a board member of SGDA (Scottish Game Development Association), organised game jams and loves talking game dev with university students and school kids. Emelie can be bribed with black coffee and salty liquorice.

Jonas Antonsson
Raw Fury
Reality Distortionist
Founder of Raw Fury, industry old timer, mother of dragons, father of children, amateur hot air machine, lover of potatoes and a little tea pot. Okay. That last thing isn’t true. He will be taking part in a wrestling duel, wearing inflatable sumo suites while facing the contender… CEO of Versus Evil, Steve Escalante at a very special event during Reboot Develop Blue 2023.

Mihai Sfrijan
Amber
Head of Mobile
With a career spanning 20 years, Mihai has been passionately involved in the evolution of the games industry starting as a games journalist in his early 20s, then as a Producer and Designer on something called J2ME phones in EA Mobile, working on high profile IPs as FIFA and Harry Potter; to joining a small company called King and going along for the ride as it exploded into the cultural mainstream with CandyCrush, then setting up a new startup focused on Hybrid-Casual before Hyper-Casual was even a known term, and then joining Amber to help scale the organization from a small team in Romania to a daring and massive operation spanning multiple countries and covering all platforms and services in the games industry. Mihai is currently heading the Mobile, Cross-Platform and LiveOps vertical in Amber.

Don Daglow
AIAS Foundation
President
Don Daglow is a three-time Inc. 500™ CEO, a pioneering game designer and 2008 Technical Emmy® Award recipient (for creating Neverwinter Nights) whose career spans the history of video games. Teams have shipped over $1 billion in games under his leadership, and he continues to advise publishers and developers on current projects. He is the only individual to hold leadership and/or creative positions on every generation of video game consoles, from 1980 to the present day. In 2003 he received the CGE Award for “groundbreaking achievements that shaped the Video Game Industry,” creating seminal games in four different genres (RPG, sports, simulation & RTS) in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with John Carmack of id Software and Mike Morhaime of Blizzard Entertainment, Daglow is one of only three game developers to accept both an Emmy® Award and a DICE Award.

Anna Hollinrake
Electric Saint
Co-Founder / Art Director
Anna Hollinrake is an award winning art director, game developer, and BAFTA Breakthrough Brit. Most recently having worked as an Art Lead on Fall Guys, she helped build the Creative Services team from the ground up to support a 50 million player free-to-play-launch. She has also worked as Art Director on the BBC animated show Love Monster, and has eight years experience across six titles. Anna is an active mentor and speaker within the UK games industry, and has also launched a successful apparel Kickstarter.

Xalavier Nelson Jr.
Strange Scaffold
Studio Head
Xalavier Nelson Jr. is a BAFTA-nominated studio head, narrative director, and writer, with dozens of titles under his belt including Stranger Things VR, Reigns: Beyond, Hypnospace Outlaw, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, and El Paso, Elsewhere. He also makes strides in a burgeoning storytelling career outside of games, with releases such as the cult hit comic Sherlock Holmes Hunts the Moth Man.

Anton Hand
RUST LTD.
Co-Founder & CTO
Anton is co-founder of RUST LTD. and project lead on the top selling VR game Hot Dogs, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. Development of that game began as a personal project experimenting with virtual reality, before it became available to the public. Before working with RUST, Anton was also a 3D artist. When not wrangling its community of firearm and tubed meat enthusiasts, he spends far far too much time on Twitter.

James Pearmain
Massive Monster
Co-Founder / Art Director
James has been working in videogames for 15 years. Starting out in 2007, he made a name for himself creating art for many Flash games including Sushi Cat, Elephant Quest and Corporation Inc. In 2013 he co-founded Massive Monster, a small studio intent on creating colorful games with a core focus on personality and play. He worked as Art Director on their most recent release, Cult of the Lamb.

Enis Cisic
Mad Head Games
Cinematic Artist
Enis Cisic has more than fifteen years of active work experience in various fields of art. During these years he has been working on different national and international projects related to icomic books, movies, animaton, and theater. His work, including comic book pages for Marvel comics, was published all over the world, and illustrations were exhibited in international Galeries. Enis has strong drawing skills and many years of experience in visual narrative (storyboard, visual development) for movies and animation. Currently, Enis is working as a cinematic artist in the Mad Head Games.

Jeanette Bauer
Raw Fury
Senior Event Manager
Jeanette is a Stockholm based creative force, managing events at indie (un) publisher Raw Fury. Her passion for art and creative environments has been a driving passion thru out her entire life! With studies in market economy, law and art history combined with a background from companies like Ericsson, IBM, AIG, she joined the gaming industry in 2005, which became a total contrast and an eye opener to a whole new world of creative possibilities. Jeanette is also a painter and runs an art gallery in Old Town Stockholm, Sweden (c/o Bauer Gallery). She´s a mother of 2 teenage daughters, lives in the archipelago, loves the ocean, addicted to TV series & movies and reloads energy by hanging out with her dog & cat.

Charles Brungardt
Illfonic
CEO / Co-Founder
Charles brings over a decade of experience running IllFonic, from business development to working closely on IllFonic’s projects with the various departments to help maintain the visions of the creative and design leaders throughout development. Charles led IllFonic in bringing Nexuiz to market with THQ for the Xbox 360 and PC platforms. In addition, leading business development on various work for hire projects where IllFonic supported the development of major titles while transitioning the studio into developing their own projects, like helping to turn Friday the 13th: The Game into a massive success and the recent Predator: Hunting Grounds and Ghostbuster: Spirits Unleashed. Prior to Co-Founding IllFonic, Charles worked with business partner Raphael Saadiq on recording over fifteen different platinum, gold, and Grammy winning albums; creating music for film and television; and working directly with record labels and distributors on a global level.

Nikola Sobajic
Supergiant Games
Engine Programmer
Inspired by Luke Skywalker’s bionic hand, Nikola spent his student years studying biomedical engineering. He has since found a new path for himself in game development, specifically at Supergiant Games, in an experiment in remote work that worked out wonderfully. For the past 3 years, he has been working on optimizing and evolving their proprietary game engine and bringing Hades to 7 platforms. Previously, Nikola worked as a team lead at Ubisoft on the Ghost Recon and Riders Republic games, leading teams of 5-20 programmers creating gigantic open worlds. Besides programming, Nikola is interested in creating cruelty-free game development environments, finding ways to increase exposure of the Balkan video game community and board games.

Noirin Carmody
Revolution Software
Co-Founder / COO
Noirin Carmody founder and COO at Revolution Software is responsible for strategic business affairs. Noirin is the Executive Producer of Revolution’s games including the Broken Sword Series and Beneath a Steel Sky Series. She was voted one of the top UK 100 women in Games in 2013. Noirin is an elected board member of the UK Interactive Entertainment Games Association (Ukie) and is a voting member of BAFTA. She also holds a number of pro bono appointments.

Ricky Abu Siddek
Liquid Swords
Senior Designer
Ricky Abu Siddek is a senior designer at Stockholm-based Liquid Swords, founded by former CCO and founder of Avalanche Studios, Christofer Sundberg. Ricky is a leading voice in open-world design and development for the studio’s first title, a AAA, single-player, narrative-driven game. Before Liquid Swords, Ricky spent almost seven years at Rockstar Games in the UK, where, among other projects, he worked most notably as an open-world seniordesigner on the critically-acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2, released in 2018.

Tomislav Pongrac
Gamepires
Co-Founder /
Tomislav is a veteran of the Croatian gaming industry. He was a co-founder of Croteam, where he worked on many games, including the Serious Sam series. In the last 30 years, he has worked on nearly all aspects of the artistic part of gamedev – concept art, 2D, 3D, animation, level design, game design, gameplay, and other. At the moment, Tomislav is the creative director at Gamepires, a super ambitious team currently working on their huge open world survival game SCUM.

Manuel Bustamante
Bongfish
UX/UI Lead
A diverse background in illustration, graphic design, and art direction for both advertisement and entertainment industries. Initially based in Milan, Italy, Manuel is now part of the talented team at Bongfish in Austria, where they are involved in several projects, including the globally popular game World of Tanks.
Lover of everything that’s balanced, whether it be a game experience or a story. Currently on a 700+ days streak on Duolingo.

Jakub Dvorský
Amanita Design
CEO
Jakub is the founder, game designer and creative director in Amanita Design, Prague based independent studio established in 2003, best known for games Machinarium, Botanicula, Samorost series, Chuchel, Pilgrims, Creaks or Happy Game. The studio is currently working on project Phonopolis and other two yet unannounced games.

Kristina Jankovic Obucina
SGAExecutive Manager
In charge of member relations, ecosystem building, programs, as well as events and initiatives, Kris is here to communicate with relevant stakeholders and provide all information about Serbia’s growing gaming ecosystem.

Julio Rodriguez
VOID Interactive
CEO
Julio Rodriguez is the CEO of VOID Interactive, a video game company that has quickly made a name for itself in the industry. Despite a diverse career in operations management across various industries, including aerospace and defense, medical devices and technology, horticulture, food and dairy, paper and plastics, Julio has successfully led VOID Interactive since 2016. The studio’s first game, Ready or Not, became a huge success, becoming number one seller on in its first month in early access on Steam and accumulating over a million unique users in just over 30 days. Julio’s leadership and expertise in operations management have been critical to the success of VOID Interactive, and the studio continues to move forward with plans to establish Ready or Not as a true franchise game as well as pursue broader diversification.

Kathee Chimowitz
Seven Star Consultings
Founder
Kathee is a true veteran of the online media and mobile gaming worlds. With 20+ years of experience leading ops, monetization, and BD for companies like Forte.io, N3TWORK, Chartboost, YouTube and more, she knows how to make a business thrive. Kathee’s also been the Chief Revenue Officer during an IPO roadshow in Poland and a seed investor in game and tech projects. She advises tech and gaming companies, including founders of both Web2 and Web3 community, and has been quoted on diverse gaming topics in a multitude of articles. With Kathee on stage, you’ll gain insights into the strategies and tactics that make businesses succeed in the competitive world of gaming and tech. She is passionate about leveraging her experiences to support mission-driven companies going forward.

Justin Berenbaum
Xsolla
VP of Strategy / GM of Funding Club
Justin Berenbaum, VP of Strategy and GM of Funding Club at Xsolla, has nearly 30 years of strategic development experience in the video game industry, including Activision, 505 Games, and Capcom, and was formerly on the Board of Directors for Global Game Jam and the International Game Developers Association. His career spans publishing, investing, international business development, sales, customer support, game development, strategy, and licensing for game developers, publishers, and technology companies. Fun fact: Justin was also a hip-hop radio DJ.

Tamara Milenkovic
Outfit7 Group
Principal HR Partner
Tamara is a Principal HR Partner & Talent Acquisition Lead at Outfit7, and a firm believer in creating safe, healthy, productive, and creative work environments for people in the gaming industry. Years of frontline game production experience as a Game Artist and Producer have given her unique insights and expertise that she uses to craft her trailblazing new approaches on how to build, develop, support, and grow multidisciplinary teams. Whether she’s promoting eSports culture, doing SFX makeup for zombie walks, or coaching people and teams, Tamara uses a people-first approach to enable others to do their best.

Tobias Sjögren
Starbreeze
CEO
Tobias Sjögren is the CEO of Starbreeze since fall of 2020. He got started in the video games industry as a programmer in 1996 and became the head of DICE Stockholm studio 2001-2004 when Battlefield 1942 released. For 8 years Tobias worked as an agent helping game developers sell their games to publishers, the last half of that period at DDM. Between 2012 and until 2020 he worked at among other places Stardoll, Paradox and White Wolf Entertainment.

Patrick Sweeney
Interactive Entertainment Law Group
Attorney
Patrick Sweeney is the founder of the Interactive Entertainment Law Group. He is one of the leading attorneys in the video game industry, having served both as in-house and external counsel to a variety of companies in his career. In his 25 years in the games industry, Sweeney has negotiated an array of game development agreements for more than 1000 games and over 50 film, TV and comic licenses, and dozens of M&A/corporate investment deals. The firm has represented 400+ clients from over 30 different countries.

Chris Hanney
Independent Game Developer / Rabotica
VR games developer
Chris Hanney loves exploring, whether it be a new technology or a relic from the past, the town square, or the extreme ends of the world. He is absolutely enthralled by the potential of VR to completely transform entertainment, communication, education, and everything in-between. In recent years Chris helped develop the critically acclaimed Space Pirate Trainer with I-Illusions, and the snowboarding game Shredders with FoamPunch. Alongside game development, Chris has built the website Gameplainer.com to help monitor game stores, player sentiment and feedback.

Andreea Chifu
Xbox
Senior Strategic Partner Manager ID@XBOX
Andreea is a mom, dog owner and video games enthusiast with 13 years experience in the industry. Now she works as a Senior Strategic Partners Manager within Xbox. Previously she also worked for Raw Fury, Paradox Interactive and Advanced Mobile Applications where she helped with commercial strategy, growth plans and launching multiple games across all platforms and built lifelong friendships with many developers. She has a background in international business and law and got into video games by chance but loved it since!

Jan Lidtke
Supercell
Art Producer
As a game artist and art director Jan worked with IPs such as Subway Surfers and Angry Birds. At Supercell he designs UIs, does concept art and collects Pinterest pins… lots and lots of pins. He also loves working with external artists – either to find fresh and unexpected angles for character & world design or to help the tight core team to scale and produce tons of game art.

Lou Kramer
AMD
GPU Developer Technology Engineer
Lou is part of AMD’s European Game Engineering Team. She is focused on helping game developers get the most out of Radeon™ GPUs using Vulkan® and DirectX®12 technologies. Besides making games faster she also worked on various projects including Open Capture Analysis Tool (OCAT), AMD FidelityFX™ Downsampler (SPD), FSR2 and the upcoming FidelityFX™ Brixelizer. She has been given talks at various conferences since her debut on stage in her professional life in 2018 covering entry-level graphics programming topics and deep dives into more advanced topics. Before joining AMD Lou pursued her master’s degree in Informatics: Games Engineering at the Technical University of Munich.

Dan Da Rocha
Jaw Drop Games
CEO & Game Director
Dan is the CEO and Game Director at Jaw Drop Games. During his 12 years in the industry, he has shipped several award-winning indie games including the Q.U.B.E. series and Hue. He is now making Deathground and Gun Jam. Dan has been recognised in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, amongst receiving numerous other accolades.

Richard Browne
Digital Extremes
Head of External Projects
Richard is the Head of External Projects at Digital Extremes, a publisher and developer based in London, Ontario most famously known for Warframe. Richard is a 35 year veteran of the games industry, having co-written freelance games on the BBC in the late 80’s before selling his soul to the world of Publishing and spending his time running internal and external development teams at Domark, Psygnosis, Philips Media, Microprose, Universal Interactive and THQ. After a brief stint in the film industry he returned to games to spearhead Digital Extremes foray into partnering and publishing third party developers. Airship Syndicate’s Wayfinder will be the first project from this initiative launching in early May.

Davor Hunski
Croteam
Chief Creative Officer
Davor Hunski is the Chief Creative Officer at Croteam, a leading game development studio based in Croatia. He is considered the grandfather of Croatian game development and has worked in the industry for over three decades. Hunski’s notable contributions include being the main game designer and production manager for games such as Serious Sam and The Talos Principle. Davor Hunski is a strong proponent of intuitive game design and production and takes great pleasure in collaborating with a team of exceptionally talented up-and-coming game development stars at Croteam.

Phil Elliott
Modern Wolf
CEO
Phil started out working in radio, and transitioned into journalism while at BBC Radio 5Live. From there a step into specialist media followed, with GameSpot UK and GamesIndustry.biz, before moving to Square Enix in 2011 as Head of Community. He founded indie publishing label Square Enix Collective a couple of years later, and helped build it into a thriving part of the wider business, before moving on to become CEO of Modern Wolf in 2023.

Chantal Ryan
We Have Always Lived In The Forest
Founder / Game Director
Founder of We Have Always Lived In The Forest, Chantal designs, directs, and produces experimental narrative games and systems built upon disruptive language technologies (at present: darkwebSTREAMER). She holds a BA (Advanced) in Anthropology & English as well as multiple nerdy scholar’s titles. She founded the Women Leaders In Games network + is a Women In Games Ambassador, an IGDA International Scholar & recipient of the 2022 Humble Creator of Color Award. Prone to snarky comments, spontaneous chaos, and hugs.

Simon Barratt
Cooperative Innovations
CEO / Co-founder
Simon ran indie studio Four Door Lemon from 2005 to 2015 developing its 14 platform in-house engine and producing over 50 games across a wide range of genres and platforms including three early AR titles for the Sony PlayStation Vita, Joe Danger Vita, Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee and many more! In 2016 he co-founded immersive technology studio Cooperative Innovations to develop social VR / AR technologies, experiences, games and applications including the chaotic Spaceteam VR released in 2020. Cooperative Innovations recently announced Curatours, a metaverse built for Arts, Culture and Heritage. He is also a proud ambassador of charity SpecialEffect, a long-serving member of the UKIE trade association board and also chairs the School of Computing board for the University of Leeds.

Pavle Miha
Electric Saint
Co-Founder / CTO
Pavle Mihajlovic started his game development career at 18 as a programmer at Peter Molyneux’s 22cans. After working on Curiosity and Godus at 22cans, he moved on to co-found Flavourworks, where they released Erica, an innovative marriage of film and games published by Sony on Playstation, iOS and Steam that reached 8 million players. Flavourworks went on to raise over $3 million in a Series A round led by Hiro Capital and Sky.

Adam Boyes
Iron Galaxy Studios
Co-CEO
Adam started working in the game industry in 1996. Getting his start at Electronic Arts Canada in the QA department, Adam eventually moved to Chicago and joined Midway’s production team in 2003. During his time at Midway, Adam took on the role of Executive Producer, working on MLB Slugfest and Blitz: The League. From there, Adam migrated as Director of Production at Capcom Canada for a few years before deciding to start his own company, Beefy Media. In 2012, Adam joined Sony Interactive Entertainment America as Vice President of Third-Party Relations. His strong desire to get back to his roots and start working on the actual creation of games again led him to Iron Galaxy, where he guided the incubation, development, launch, and support of Rumbleverse.

Marie Havemann
Sandbox Interactive
Senior Audio Designer
Marie Havemann is the Senior Audio Designer and additional composer of Albion Online and also a Freelance Composer and Sound Designer working closely with several Indie Companies. In her 10 years in the games industry she has collaborated with several small to medium sized studios. In most of these projects she was responsible for the whole audio experience and defining the requirements of the musical experience – requiring a broad knowledge of music and sound as well as the technology behind games. One of these challenges was the redesign/extension of the soundtrack of the MMO Albion Online by Sandbox Interactive.

Aaron Loeb
Game Designer / Playwright
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Aaron Loeb is an award-winning game designer, playwright, former critic and gaming executive. His game design work includes the ENnie-award winning Book of the Righteous. His plays have been performed Off-Broadway and around the world, including Ideation and Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party. As a critic, he helped build some of the earliest websites covering games including Next Generation Online and founded the Games Critics Awards. Since 2001, Aaron has been building videogames, first at boutique PC & Console developer Planet Moon Studios (Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed and Dangerous, Smarty Pants), then in Mobile at EA (where he was VP and Group GM at EA Mobile, launching The Simpsons: Tapped Out), Kabam (where he was Co-President of Global Studios, launching Marvel: Contest of Champions), FoxNext (where he was President of FoxNext Games, launching Marvel: Strike Force), and most recently Scopely (where he was Chief Business Officer, driving the company’s development development strategy). Aaron is now on sabbatical in London, where he lives with his wife, an international human rights attorney, and their child.

Imre Jele
Atypical Types / Bossa Games
President, Creative Director / Co-Founder
Imre is a lifelong gamer and game-creator. He is an expert in creativity, prototyping, game design and creative production. Throughout his colourful career, Imre has worked on a wide range of game genres and platforms. He was Head of RuneScape. He co-founded and was Chief Creative Officer of Bossa Studios – winner of multiple BAFTA and other awards, creator of Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread. His most recent focus is on novel storytelling through gameplay and immersive experiences. He’s passionate about cooperation across various media and art forms. And he’s known for promoting innovative and collaborative creative approaches within development teams and including the audience. Imre is on the board and advisor of multiple companies. He provides creative and creative production services to various games and other entertainment companies. And he is building a brand new games studio, creating new games in secrecy for now.

Ryan Peterson
Unity
Vice President of Accelerate Solutions
Ryan Peterson leads Unity‘s professional services practice in verticals and games, helping transform industry through the adoption of real time 3D (RT3D) in their digital transformation. Ryan was formerly CEO and Co-Founder of Finger Food Advanced Technology Group TM, prior to its acquisition by Unity in May of 2020. Under Ryan’s leadership as CEO, Finger Food saw tremendous growth, transforming from a small basement start-up to a multi-million-dollar company with 200+ employees that focused on AI, AR/VR, Blockchain, Robotics, games, and IoT. The company created impactful and elegant cloud, web , mobile, machine, and advanced-interface solutions built on top of emerging technologies.

Daniel Fischer
Fingersoft
Producer
Daniel Fischer is Producer at Fingersoft. Has worn quite a few hats over his career within the games industry and has witnessed the growth and climb of the company from 30 people to over 100. Current board member of The Finnish Game Developers’ Association and former board member of IGDA Finland.

Anna-Carolin Weber
VR Choreographer / Artistic Director
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Award-winning Scholar and Dancemaker Anna-Carolin Weber works at the interface of theory and practice with Media Choreography as her main focus of interest. As a freelance choreographer she initiates performances that explore dance in its relation to Virtual Reality and digital media. Awards: „DIVR Science Award 2021 – Best Impact” and „AVril Gold 2020″ for Virtual Reality Moves. 2022-2023 Artistic Direction for Intermedia Dance Projects funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. 2008-2020 Lecturer at Ruhr-University Bochum, at Cologne University for Music and Dance and at Cologne University for Media and Communication. 2014-2019 international research stays in Switzerland, the USA and Canada.

Marcus Bromander
Innersloth
Co-Founder
Marcus (AKA PuffballsUnited) is a co-founder of Innersloth, artist, animator, and designer/creator of Among Us. He is also the creator of Henry Stickmin Series and besides working on Among Us has recently finished the Henry Stickmin Collection. He also worked on Dig2China, and misc cancelled games

Damir Slogar
Big Blue Bubble
Founder
With over 35 years spent in video game industry and credited for over 100 games across 20 different platforms, Damir experienced the video game industry through and through. From designing the games on the 8-bit platforms in 80’s, through the video game TV show and magazine in 90’s to the programming career in DICE at the turn of the century and finally the almost 20 year long career as the founder and CEO of Big Blue Bubble, he worked on variety of games ranging from Barbie to EA’s Battlefield.

Julian Mautner
stillalive studiosCEO
Julian Mautner is founder and CEO of stillalive studios GmbH. Since 2010 he has built up an internationally recognized studio and a team of talented experts focusing on cross-platform development of Simulation and Management games. Coming from a quantum theory research background himself, the team has a strong tech knowhow and consists of ~70 team members distributed across 14 timezones. Stillalive studios is best known for their very successful Bus Simulator franchise as well as own IPs like Drone Swarm and Rescue HQ.

Darryl Lister
Rally Here / HiRez Studios
Head of Services and Customer Success
Darryl is the head of Services and Customer Success at Rally Here. Darryl
has been working in the Enterprise SaaS business for over 20 years before
joining HiRez Studios a year ago. In February, having 18+ years creating
games (Smite, Paladins, Realm, Roco, DKO), Rally Here was created out of
HiRez Studios to provide a Games as a Service platform for studios building
multiplayer, cross platform, cross progression game

Karla Reyes
Code Coven
Strategic Advisor
Karla Reyes (she/her) is a Product Manager/Designer and founding member of Code Coven, an award-winning global games accelerator that educates and empowers underrepresented talent. Passionate about harnessing the power of games for social impact, Karla is committed to exploring ways game developers and interactive media/art can raise awareness about and tackle environmental, social, and governance issues and catalyse positive behavioural change. When not developing games, Karla mentors, tutors, and can often be found tinkering on a piano or spinning records.

Ilari Kuittinen
Housemarque
Co-Founder / Studio Head
Ilari is the Co-Founder and Studio Head of the award-winning game studio Housemarque. He started his career in 1993, when he co-founded one of the first game studios in Finland, before co-founding Housemarque with Harri Tikkanen two years later. After 26 years of full-time entrepreneurship and running an independent game studio, Housemarque joined PlayStation Studios family in 2021. The studio’s most recent game Returnal released in 2021 on PS5 was a critically acclaimed title with a metacritic score of 86. The game also won several prestigious game awards such as Best Action Game at The Game Awards and many game of the year awards including Bafta Best Game Award. The company is currently focusing on developing the next game production under PlayStation Studios umbrella and has grown to 110 people strong company. Their purpose is to create unique game experiences and their system goal is to create a product-focused learning organization that is optimized for adaptiveness, learning, and customer value.

Matthes Lindner
Spielfabrique
Acceleration Manager
Matthes heads Spielfabrique’s European Videogame Accelerator (EVA). As such, he is primarily in charge of supporting ambitious studios to turn this ambition into success and growth. He is driven by a desire to democratize the cultural power video games hold. He holds a colourful cocktail of educations and experiences: After studying anthropology and sustainability, he worked as project manager in an international science communication NGO. Since then, he has also taught university courses, produced videos and hosted events on topics ranging from career design to futures literacy. Recently, he has become interested in how games foster futures thinking – and in molecular cuisine.

Tony Warriner
UFO Spares
Co-Founder / VP World Building
Tony began working in the games industry during the mid 1980’s and went on to co-found Revolution Software, Europe’s preeminent adventure game developer. At Revolution he worked on both the engine software and game design for many hit games including Beneath A Steel Sky and Broken Sword. More recently he has written a book about his experiences and founded indie game studio, UFO Spares. Tony believes in the power of people and the synergy of small teams!

Chelsea Blasko
Iron Galaxy Studios
Co-CEO
Chelsea got her start in games at Electronic Arts in Chicago where she served as a Production Coordinator on a variety of titles, as well as assistant to the GM. After spending a few years at Robomodo as a Producer and Project Manager, she shared her production expertise at Iron Galaxy. Chelsea quickly took over the entire company’s production department and internal operations. These days, Chelsea oversees all of Iron Galaxy’s projects and people. Her focus on company culture, production, diversity, and recruitment have made Iron Galaxy a truly great place to work, with facilities that bring talented people together in Chicago, Orlando, Nashville, and Austin.

Oscar Clark
Fundamentally Games
CEO / Co-Founder
Oscar Clark is CEO and co-founder of Fundamentally Games, who are reimagining publishing for living games. Oscar has been a pioneer in games services since 1998 helping developers design, deliver, monetize, and operate games live. He literally wrote the book “Games As A Service” published by Routledge.

Mark Schramm
Creature
Lead VR developer
Mark is a leading developer in the VR industry and has launched titles on many popular VR platforms over the last 10 years. He is the lead developer at Creature, a new studio by several industry veterans working on Mixed Reality games. Mark was the lead VR developer of the Quest version of SUPERHOT VR. He is also working on the upcoming Mixed Reality title Laser Dance. Based in Canberra, Mark has extensive experience working with remote teams. In addition to leading other teams, he is an independent XR developer and has released or worked on several critically acclaimed titles such as Gravity Lab, Nighttime Terror, Technolust and Aussie Sports VR in cooperation with the Australian government.

Charles Cecil
Revolution Software
Founder / CEO
Charles Cecil, awarded ‘Industry Legend’ status by Develop, has been a key figure in video games development for 40 years. In 1990 he founded Revolution, today one of the world’s leading adventure game companies which created the Broken Sword and Beyond/Beneath a Steel Sky series. Charles has additionally designed titles as diverse as The Da Vinci Code for Sony Pictures and Doctor Who for the BBC for which he won a BAFTA award. In 2011 Charles was awarded an MBE for services to the computer games industry, and in 2019 was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of York.

John O'Really
poncle
Lead Technical Artist
John O’Really is the Lead Technical Artist at poncle, creators of the two time BAFTA Award winning hit Vampire Survivors. Having an in-depth understanding of Real-Time technology and a knack for problem solving, John specialises in shaders, look development, optimisation and visual effects. Their portfolio includes the trailer for Patrick Osborne’s show This Tape Deck is a Time Machine’ which was entirely made in-engine, and Amazon Studios’ animated talk show for The Legend of Vox Machina’ finale, in which members of the Critical Role cast digitally puppeteered animated characters live on Twitch. John’s expertise has also been a contributing factor in the making of interactive installations, AR and VR experiences, games and animated spots.

Ken Burgess
GIANTS Software
Release Coordinator
Ken Burgess has a strong background in the gaming industry, having studied media production and engineering at the OTH Amberg-Weiden in Germany. During his studies, he gained valuable experience through internships at Daedalic Entertainment and writing for M!Games, Germany’s oldest video game magazine and online publication. In 2017 he has joined GIANTS Software and has since worked on several titles of the Farming Simulator franchise on all major platforms and has become an integral part of the team. His efforts have led to him taking on the role of Release Coordinator in 2022, where he now oversees the publishing process for all platforms.

Chih-Han Hsu
Supercell
Game Artist + UI/UX
General artist with a history of development on various platforms, with roles ranging from 3d environments, character creation, art direction and UI/UX. Within the 9 years at Supercell, he has helped ship a handful of soft-launched projects and live updates. With the most notable success in establishing the Clash Royale UI/UX.

Teemu Haila
Metaplay
CPO / Co-Founder
Teemu is a games industry veteran of over 15 years as a developer, entrepreneur and investor. After his most recent game studio, Playraven, was acquired by Rovio in 2018, Teemu is now a co-founder of Metaplay, a games backend technology company. In addition to Metaplay, he hosts the yearly IGDA Finland Leadership Day conference and lectures on game production in universities. Teemu received a lifetime award from IGDA Finland for his contributions to the games community.

Tramell Ray Isaac
Liithos Entertainment
Vice President of Art
Currently serving as the VP of Art at Liithos Entertainment where they are unlocking the power of web3 to transform the ways we engage with entertainment. Tramell has spent the last 29 years creating a number of classic RPG’s and First Person Shooters. Fallout, Fallout 2, Planetside, Planetside 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Lawbreakers, Predator: Hunting Grounds, and GhostBusters: Spirits Unleashed are amongst the growing list of PC and Console games that grace his resume. He has spent the majority of his career as a manager, mentor, and leader of artists, animators and technical personnel, with a focus on creating better group cohesion and team dynamics. Though shy of it he is the legendary artist that created as much as legendary original Vault Boy in Fallout.

Dave Oshry
New Blood Interactive
CEO
Dave Oshry is the head of New Blood Interactive and one of the most prolific independent game development CEOs working in the industry today. Known to players for the string of best selling, top rated indie hits DUSK, AMID EVIL, ULTRAKILL, GLOOMWOOD and FAITH. Unfortunately, you probably know him from social media instead.

Patrice Désilets
Panache Digital Games
President and Creative Director
Patrice now cumulates 25 years in the games industry and has been recognized over the years for his audacity and thinking outside the box. With a background in theater, improvisation and cinema, he gets his creative inspiration in all sorts of art forms as well as in history. Most known for his work on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and as the original creative director behind the global success franchise Assassin’s Creed, Patrice decided to found his own studio in 2014 in order to have complete creative freedom and create new and original IPs such as Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.

Paul Nunn
SuperAwesome
Chief Strategy Officer / Global Head of Developer Relations
Paul Nunn is Chief Strategy Officer and Global Head of Developer Relations at SuperAwesome, an Epic Games Company. In his role Paul helps some of the largest game developers and platforms in the world to solve the compliance and technology challenges they face with SuperAwesome’s best-in-class tools and services. Paul has held various executive and advisory roles across gaming and entertainment, including being a long term advisor to The Roald Dahl Story Co and Managing Director of Outfit7, one of the world’s largest mobile game developers where he launched and led their highly successful content strategy for Talking Tom & Friends.

MJ Widomska
YRS TRULY
General Manager / Founder
MJ Widomska is the Founder and Director at YRS TRULY, an award-winning gaming marketing agency. YRS TRULY aims to connect gaming brands with new and previously-overlooked audiences. As a B Corp certified business, it’s independently verified as an organisation committed to reaching the highest levels of social and environmental responsibility.

John L. Connell
Modulate
Head of Business Development
John serves as Head of Business Development at Modulate, a TIME100 Most Influential Company that is bringing real-time voice moderation to some of the video game industry’s biggest titles and platforms. As Modulate’s first business hire, he closed Modulate’s first $1M ARR, and manages Sales, Partnerships, Marketing, and Account Management teams. Previously at Microsoft, he supported acquisition and integration efforts for deals including LinkedIn, Minecraft, Havok, etc. Since moving to Silicon Valley, he managed go-to-market for a new product in partnership with Dolby while at an a16z-backed startup (acquired by Dialpad), and catalyzed investment decisions at a ~$5B AUM venture capital fund where he drove Board of Directors-level relationships at portfolio companies including Turo, Forte (Rally), Gen.G, among others.

James Batchelor
GamesIndustry.biz
Editor-in-Chief
James Batchelor is Editor-in-Chief at GamesIndustry.biz, and originally joined the team in 2016. A journalist since 2006, he has also written for Eurogamer, Time Extension, NintendoLife, and was previously editor of Develop and deputy editor of MCV. He is also the author of urban fantasy thrillers Wandless and Blow The House Down, co-host of the Bond & Beyond podcast, and creator of Non-Violent Game of the Day (@NVGOTD) – an account that explores the full breadth of video games. Based in Essex, he does still play violent games (but always on Easy/Story Mode)

Daniel Lucic
Devolver Digital
Marketing Manager
Passionately in love with the games industry, Daniel has has built a successful career writing for prestigious Croatian IT and games magazines before transitioning to marketing and PR roles at Croteam, eventually becoming a marketing manager at Devolver Digital. With his strategic thinking and skills in critical analysis, Daniel has helped promote some of the industry’s top games of recent years.

Jörg Tittel
RapidEyeMovers / Oiffy
Director, Publisher
Jörg is a writer, director, producer and designer of films, plays and games. Projects include graphic novel Ricky Rouse Has a Gun and sci-fi drama The White King starring Jonathan Pryce. He is currently producing the live action / painted animation A Winter’s Journey starring John Malkovich, the first feature to use Media Molecule’s Dreams to design and build its sets. The Last Worker, released on VR, consoles, PC (and to Playdate with the spin-off title Skew) in March 2023, was the only game in competition at the 78th Venice Film Festival. It is Jörg’s first collaboration with VR pioneers Wolf & Wood. Their second, the design and music driven PS VR2 game C-Smash VRS based on SEGA’s arcade and Dreamcast classic, is the first game published by Jörg’s new company RapidEyeMovers.

Michael Schade
ROCKFISH Games
CEO & Co-Founder
Michael is a serial entrepreneur, marketing & PR expert, and seasoned speaker with over 30 years of experience in the CGI / video games industry. He co-founded ROCKFISH Games as a fully independent games studio specialising in space action games for PC and console in 2014. Michael has been sharing his experiences manoeuvring an indie studio through calm and rough waters alike with the indie dev community for more than two decades. His forthright talks about dealing with big industry partners respectfully, self-funding, and marketing tips & tricks learned during the development of the top-selling, self-published EVERSPACE series have been massively popular at video game conferences worldwide.

Richie de Wit
Bear Knuckle / Raw Fury
Founder / Partner Account Manager
Known to be wearing lots of (business) hats over the last few years, Richie started his career by pitching the games of Dutch studios to investors and publishers and organizing INDIGO at the game incubator Dutch Game Garden. Following that, he worked as Business Developer at game consultancy Robot Teddy on games such as Among Us, Gang Beasts, WHAT THE BAT?, Vampire Survivors, the Last Clockwinder, and more, handling business development, sales, release management, strategy, and everything in between. Since the beginning of this year, Richie joined Raw Fury as Partner Account Manager, where he drives strategy and sales opportunities for titles in the portfolio and builds, maintains, and fosters relationships with third-party partners, platforms, and storefronts. Additionally, Richie started his boutique game business consultancy, Bear Knuckle, which focuses on championing independent developers by supporting them with funding strategy, sales, and pricing recommendations and as a sounding board.

Giulia Carlotta Zamboni
Supermassive Games
Lead Producer
Giulia is a 10 years experienced producer, has currently shipped 15+ games on PC and consoles, including the award-winning rpg Alaloth – Champions of the Four Kingdoms with the Italian studio Gamera Interactive. CSM, Amabassador for Women in Games and Asana, Diversity Champion, worthy of Honourable Mention in Develop 30Under30 2017, Selected Contributor for the book “Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play” in 2018, DStars Production Star 2019. She teached production tips at the first Italian University course in Game Production and created the first italian High School Course about videogames. She is currently Lead Producer at Supermassive Games.

Luka Bilic
Mad Head Games
Lead Technology Programmer
Joined Mad Head Games in 2019 as a gameplay programmer on mobile and HOPA games. Later on moved towards working on the in-house game engine: functionality, third party integrations, etc. In 2021 when Mad Head Games stopped developing mobile and HOPA games, he moved to a new position – technology programmer. There he worked on Scars Above – porting to consoles, performance and optimization work – mostly GPU optimization on Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X, build systems, and third party systems integration. In March 2022 promoted to lead technology programmer leading a team of 2 members. Currently doing working on Scars Above.

Christophe Zerathe
NACON
Head of Live Ops
After a long career at Ubisoft, Christophe Zerathe joined the ranks of NACON as Head of the Live Ops division. Passionate about video games and new technologies, he has always been motivated by his missions to bring video games to a higher level of quality thanks to players’ feedback.

Peter Lewin
Commercial/Regulatory Lawyer
Partner
Peter is a commercial and regulatory lawyer with nearly a decade of experience working in the video games industry. He works with businesses of all sizes throughout the entire interactive entertainment industry, including game developers, publishers and distributors to esports and tech businesses. He advises on the legal and commercial aspects of running a digital entertainment businesses, and specializes in games publishing and licensing, intellectual property exploitation and games-related regulation.

Steph Rogers
Microsoft
Game Dev Relations / Go-To-Market Lead
Steph is a 3rd Generation Gamer, Globe-Trotter & Developer Relations Manager and a fierce female gaming advocate. With over 10 years of marketing experience, she has invested significant time in understanding game creator problems and helps roll out global campaigns focused on enabling Enterprise Developer & Video Game Developer audiences. From leading the marketing support at Expedia during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to building skilling & event campaigns for the Microsoft Gaming Ecosystem teams, Steph thrives on enabling others and sharing her experiences.

Nicolas Cantin
Panache Digital Games
Art Director
Art Director at Panache Digital Games since its founding, Nicolas has been in the games industry for over 23 years. After studying visual arts and computer graphics, he started his career at Microids on the award-winning Syberia games before moving on to Ubisoft where he was the Art Director on the first Assassin’s Creed for which he received a
nomination at the GDC Awards in 2007 in the Visual Arts category. After a few months at Ubisoft Shanghai working on Tom Clancy’s End War, Nicolas came back to his native land at Eidos Montreal/Square Enix where he headed the art direction of Thief before being promoted to Game Director in 2013 until the game’s release.

Steve Escalante
Versus Evil / Red Cerberus
General Manager / Founder
Steve Escalante is the General Manager and Founder of independent games publisher, Versus Evil as well as Red Cerberus. Versus Evil initially started Red Cerberus in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to provide internal QA, Localization and co-development support. Now Red Cerberus has grown to over 300 people, supporting many clients around the world including Versus Evil’s development studios with wide array of services including quality assurance, localization, certification, and game development. An industry veteran with 20+ years of game development and publishing experience, Escalante started his own indie development team in 1999 to then just prior to Versus Evil served as the Director of Marketing at Bethesda Softworks.

Rami Ismail
Indie Games Developer / Industry Ambassador
Rami Ismail is a Dutch-Egyptian industry ambassador & independent games developer with over 20 titles across PC, console, web, and mobile. His development of tools like the industry-standard dopresskit.com, his prolific & popular public speaking, and highly-regarded consultancy and insights have helped shape industry opportunities for game communities & independent game developers of any kind, in any situation, and anywhere.

Nika Dvoravic
Deadelic Entertainment
Level and Game Designer
Nika is a Level and Game Designer at Daedalic Entertainment. She is currently working on Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a game featuring stealth and parkour gameplay elements. In the past she has worked on titles such as Serious Sam 4, Serious Sam VR The Last Hope, First Encounter VR and Second Encounter VR. She holds an architecture degree and has worked as an architect prior to joining the game industry. Currently, her biggest interests include photogrammetry, photorealism and modeling. Nika is also one of the Women in Games (WIGJ UK) Ambassadors.

Pierre-Yves Boers
AMD
Senior Software Development Engineer
Pierre-Yves Boers is a Senior Software Development Engineer at AMD’s European Game Engineering Team and collaborates with game developers to optimize their games for AMD Ryzen™ Processors by analysing the code and threading behaviour to provide fixes and improvements that enable developers to maximize performance. He has developed an interest in graphics, physics, and game engine development during his academic years. His focus on optimizing performance evolved into a fascination with running algorithms and simulations in real-time, through both high-level algorithmic and lower memory/instruction level optimizations. This passion led to him pursuing a Master of Science degree in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.

Ben Robinson
Xbox
Strategic Partner Manager
Ben has been passionate about gaming his entire life, ever since playing the original Sonic in 1991. Following Games Development course at university Ben has began his journey by working at Official Xbox Magazine in 2008 and have spent the past 12 years at Microsoft proudly working on the Xbox team as a Strategic Partner Manager.

Milos Scepanovic
Yodo1Global Recruitment Lead
Milos is a passionate gamer, self-thought game developer (C# and Unity) making games as a hobby. Interested in the future of work. Helps fast-growing teams scale effectively and build more diverse teams. Organized the launching of MOnteGames.

Scott Nye
Inflexion Games
COO
Scott currently serves as COO of Inflexion Games, a game development studio based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada working on its first title Nightingale. An original team member from when the Studio was formed in 2018, Scott brings over 25 years of business experience to his role including corporate strategy, business operations, finance, and service development expertise across a variety of industry sectors . Prior to Inflexion, Scott spent several years at Electronic Arts – supporting BioWare locally as well as other North American-based EA Studios. Scott also serves as Chair of Digital Alberta, the industry association for interactive digital media in the province. Over the last 3 years, he’s worked tirelessly with other board members to transform the organization into the trusted voice for IDM in Alberta’s tech ecosystem.

Jared Gerritzen
Illfonic
Chief Creative Officer
Jared is an industry vet. As a child, Jared would wake up with ideas for comics, stories, and video games. He was never without a notebook and pencil, often getting in trouble in school for “doodling.” Today he can credit that “doodling” for his successful 20+ years in the games industry. He started his career as an artist working on Drakan: Ancients Gates and moved into Level Design on projects like F.E.A.R. and more. He continued to work on multiple titles over the years and became the Creative Studio Director at Zombie Studios, known for Blacklight: Tango Down. From there he spent a few years lending his expertise in the esports arena at MLG. Now as the Chief Creative Officer at IllFonic he flexing his imagination and years of designing to create immersive game worlds for everyone. Recently leading teams to create Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Arcadegeddon, and Predator: Hunting Grounds.

Ste Curran
Game Designer / Creative Director
Ste Curran is a game designer and creative director from London, England. As well as working on games that he probably can’t talk about right now he hosts the world’s longest-running gaming radio show, One Life Left, and runs Maraoke, a night of pop songs rewritten about videogames. His monologues about game design and culture have been variously described as “life-changing” and “an hour of nothing”. He is also well known as eloquent, humorous and entertaining part of opening and closing ceremonies of Reboot Develop that way being a perfect counterweight for overly emotional Damir, head of Reboot team.

John Austin
Pontoco
Founder / Project Director
John Austin is the founder of Pontoco and creator of The Last Clockwinder. He has been making games for nearly 17 years and in the past has worked at Funomena, Google Brain, Microsoft, and others. He currently directs projects at Pontoco, seeking to build thoughtful experiences that enrich the lives of people across the world.

Jonathan Dower
Supercell
Game Lead + Game Artist
Jonathan has been in the game industry for 12 years. He is a 2D/3D art generalist who has worked in both new games and live. Jonathan spent two years as the Game Lead and Artist on Clash Royale when it was first launched globally. Among other aspects of the game development, he worked on character concept and design, UI/UX and gameplay. Currently he is part of a new team working on an open world game.

Anya Combs
BackerKit
Game Consultant
Anya Combs has been in the games industry for over a decade wearing many hats. She got her start as the Developer Relations person at AddictingGames.com where she helped find many of your favorite flash games, had a semi-brief stint at Nickelodeon, eventually finding her way to Kickstarter where she was the Director of Games for a number of years. She currently works in tabletop games at BackerKit and consults with game creators looking to run crowdfunding projects, build their communities, and market their games. When not entrenched in the world of games, Anya is a freelance musician in NYC, playing saxophone all over the tri-state area.

Benjamin Hayhoe
Lost in Cult
Company Director/Director of Projects
Benjamin Hayhoe is the Director of Projects at Lost In Cult, the independent publishing house and design studio that quickly rose to success in 2020 with the hit video game culture journal, [lock-on], swiftly followed by the historical gaming compendium, A Handheld History, and the upcoming Sable: Design Works and Citizen Sleeper: Design Works. Above all else, Lost In Cult leads with a powerful design ethos, utilizing bespoke artwork and passionate writers to produce beautiful dedications to gaming that respect both the creators and their fans. Lost In Cult’s new record label and physical music publishing arm, Lost In Cult Records, launches in 2023.

Luka Colic
COLIC DOROTIC
Co-Founder / Partner
Luka is a founding partner at COLIC DOROTIC, a Croatian law firm focusing on creative and digital industries. Over the last twelve years, he has advised clients from a myriad of industries in some of the largest corporate and M&A transactions in the region. Luka’s special interest is legal design, which is an effort to apply psychology, technology and design to create more humancentric legal stuff. Luka always appreciates a good meal and occasionally appreciates a good DJ set.

Ivan Trancik
SuperScale
CEO
Entrepreneur, game growth-hacker, gamer and now CEO of SuperScale. After co-founding an e-commerce real-time analytics platform (Exponea acquired by Bloomreach in 2021), in 2016 Ivan founded SuperScale – an all-in-one growth solution for mobile games and blockchain apps. SuperScale has been one of the fastest-growing startups in the CE region and is now present in the UK and in the US.

Gordon Van Dyke
Raw Fury
Chief Games Officer
With almost 20 years in the games industry, Gordon Van Dyke has worked on AAA to Indie. He has experienced everything from the highs of super hits to the lows and the ‘how do we pivot’ of super flops. He has developed and published games and everything else in between. Described as a Swiss Army Knife of the games industry, his skills and coolness under pressure have enabled Gordon to excel as Co-Founder and Chief Games Officer of Raw Fury, a pillar of Indie Games Publishing.

Thomas Van Bouwel
Indie Game Developer
XR developer
Thomas Van Bouwel is a Brussels based XR developer who’s been working in the field since 2016. Coming from a background in architecture, his work has spanned from enterprise XR applications to games.
In 2020 he released Cubism, a deceptively simple VR puzzle game about assembling colorful blocks into geometric shapes. Currently he’s developing Laser Dance, a room scale AR game about turning any room into a laser obstacle course.

Roope Kangas
Supercell
Server Engineer
Roope has worked in mobile gaming for over 15 years, since the early days of J2ME. For the past six years Roope has been working on new games at Supercell. Roope is a server wizard, having launched and run multiple games at Supercell. Roope has been busy building a new ambitious server stack for making it easier to run and maintain future games, whilst also making some pretty cool C64 demos on the side.

Tobias Kopka
Curatomic / Reboot Develop
Curator, Connector, Coach
Program Director, Curator and Coach in the games industry, helping people to explore, speak & connect for more than 12 years. Based on his leadership experience on the program direction of game developer events like Reboot, Ludicious, Quo Vadis, devcom and Respawn, he created the curators network Curatomic, supporting events with program and concept work. Creative collaboration on Art, Dance & VR projects with Anna-Carolin Weber. Pro-bono projects include the European Game Showcase at GDC and #ArtOfCoding, which brought the Demoscene as the first digital culture ever onto the lists of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage in Germany, Poland, and Finland.

Sean F. Kane
Frankfurt KurnitPartner / Co-Chair of Interactive Entertainment Group
Sean F. Kane is Co-Chair of the Interactive Entertainment Group at Frankfurt Kurnit, where he represents a variety of companies in the video game and social media industries. Mr. Kane’s clients often are on the cutting-edge of media, content and technology creation where rapid innovation is leading to the birth of new products, companies and industries. He has considerable experience negotiating video game licenses and developer and publisher agreements, and in protecting the intellectual property rights of video games and related social media applications, including trademark and copyright protection, clearance and enforcement. Recognized by The Legal 500 and Irish Legal 100, Mr. Kane has also been included in The National Law Journal’s Trailblazers list for Sports/Gaming/Entertainment Law, and Variety magazine’s Dealmakers Elite New York list and Legal Impact Report.

Ashley Blake
Andromeda Entertainment
COO
Ashley “ashleyriott” Blake is the Chief Operating Officer for Andromeda Entertainment, global publisher of transformative VR content since 2019, and a finalist for Innovative VR Company of the Year at the 6th International VR Awards. After using VR to recover from spine surgery in the spring of 2018, she became convinced the future of healthcare, education, socialization, gaming, and everything was in-headset and decided to take a leave of absence from her fourteen-year career in retail pharmacy to pursue virtual reality. She has steered the community, communications, & marketing ships for over a dozen made-for-VR IPs & has helped teams successfully launch & maintain experiences on major VR platforms worldwide, including Meta, Steam, Viveport, Springboard, YVR, Pico, Huawei, NOLO, iQIYI, & PlayStation VR.

Gorast Cvetkovski
MAGDAPresident
Gorast is organizer of e-Sport and gaming events and tournaments. He is co-founder of GG.MK live gaming talk-show and co-founder and president of Macedonian Game Developers Association – MAGDA. Experienced Graphic and Web Designed and Developer. Professional Actor.

Christian Fonnesbech
Leverage
Head of IP Development
Christian Fonnesbech is Head of IP Development at Leverage, developing lasting IPs and brands for clients such as Bandai Namco Entertainment, Supermassive and Plaion. Christian and his crew focus on the artistic roots of an IP and how they translate into building global brands. Before founding Leverage, Christian was Head of IP Development at Nordisk Games (Egmont), Narrative Director at Deck 13 and Head of Artistic Research at the Centre For Interactive Media Arts in Norway. In his earlier career, Christian was a video game entrepreneur, producing and directing 35+ game projects for entertainment, advertising and learning.

Dave Gilbert
Wadjet Eye Games
Founder / CEO
Dave has been interested in adventure games ever since 1986, when his mother made the mistake of buying him a copy of Infocom’s Wishbringer. Fifteen years later, he discovered the Adventure Game Studio engine and began making his own. In 2006, he decided that making games was too much fun to do anything else for a living, and formed Wadjet Eye Games to do just that. In the 17 years since, Wadjet Eye has developed and/or published over 15 games including the Blackwell series, Unavowed, Technobabylon, and most recently Hob’s Barrow.

Kate Edwards
Geogrify / SetJetters
CEO / Co-Founder
Kate Edwards is the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which innovated content culturalization, as well as the CXO and Co-Founder of SetJetters, an app focused on connecting tourist to global filming locations. She is also the former Executive Director of the IGDA from 2012 to 2017 and the Global Game Jam from 2019 to 2022. In addition to serving in several board and advisory roles, she is a geographer, writer, and corporate strategist. Following 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted for EA/BioWare, Google, Amazon, Facebook, LEGO, Ubisoft, and many other companies. As an award-winning 29+ year veteran of the game industry, in 2021 she was included in the Forbes’ “50 Over 50” Vision List as one of 50 veteran women selected from a wide variety of industries, and in the same year was inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame.

Rok Mioc
Outfit7 Group
Game Designer
Rok believes that the key ingredient to creating games that truly resonate with people is to live life to the fullest and incorporate these life experiences into his everyday work. As a game designer at Outfit7, he is currently working on a major update of the Talking Tom 2 game. In his work, he is fueled by the joy of seeing people enjoy the products he creates. A part of the company since 2021, he worked on My Talking Tom Friends and is currently working on a completely new TTF game that is still in production phase and his ambition is to create a game that will be a next new hit.

Johan Toresson
Raw Fury
Chief Say That Again Officer
From selling nail polish and rat poison to fish mongering and food delivery, Johan went from odd jobs to an odd career in games. From running a premium games festival in Karlshamn, Sweden, to running scouting for Raw Fury, there’s few places along the way that doesn’t come with bad idea and a good story.

Andrew Paul
Supercell
Game Tech Engineer
Andrew is a veteran game developer with 17 years of experience. He started his career on console games, but later switched to mobile platforms. He loves working on the core technology that powers games. Sometimes he dabbles in gameplay programming, but he always returns to his passion for tech. He has been part of the Supercell team for four years and is currently developing an ambitious new game.

Hank Howie
Modulate
Games Industry Evangelist
Hank Howie is a 30-year veteran of the games industry. He shipped his first game in 1992 as the Producer and Designer of Konami’s J.R.R. Tolkien Riders of Rohan game. Hank was a founding member and President of Blue Fang Games, the studio that created the best-selling Zoo Tycoon franchise, which was published in partnership with Microsoft Corp., as well as World of Zoo, published by THQ. Hank subsequently served as VP Global Business Development and COO at Disruptor Beam, signing iconic franchises such as Star Trek, The Walking Dead and Conan to game development deals. Hank is currently the Game Industry Evangelist for Modulate, the company behind ToxMod, the AI-powered voice chat moderation solution helping to make voice chat in games safer and more welcoming for everyone.

Marie Mejerwall
Game Advisor & Stage Host_
Marie Mejerwall is a long-term veteran within game design, and has led creative teams at more than six game studios around the world whilst working on award-winning franchises Dead Rising, Deus Ex, RollerCoaster Tycoon and the Batman Arkham series. Having worked at several AAA studios such as Capcom, Ubisoft, Eidos and Warner Bros, Marie has developed a deep understanding of game design and what it takes to create a successful game. Today, she freelances as a game advisor, helping studios to sharpen their creative vision and to accomplish their goals & dreams. She is also a renowned speaker, and hosts events and conferences onstage.

Tomislav Gojevic
Fury Studios
Head of Studio
Tomislav Gojevic is the head of Fury Studios in Zagreb, a subsidiary of Raw Fury, an indie video game publisher based in Sweden. He has over 8 years of experience in the games industry, working on various genres and platforms as a game producer and head of studio. Fury Studios focuses on creating games with passion and personality while maintaining a fine balance between work and personal life. He loves to explore new ideas and challenge conventions in his daily work.

Rok Kos
Slovenia GamesPresident
Rok is a programmer who started solving problems for fun first and then at competitions. With time, he discovered his passion for gaming and the game industry. Also interested in Maths, Machine Learning and Data Analysis.

Pavol Buday
PixelAnt Games
Businnes Development Manager
After more than a decade playing games and spending way too much reviewing them, Pavol started paying attention to individuals and teams helping them to connect and find the correct audience and partners by organizing meetups, public events and conferences in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Canada (Reboot Develop, Fest Anca and Game Days to name a few). Pavol co-founded Slovak Game Developers Association, was instrumental in setting up a public fund, is creator and curator for Game Conference Guide, your events calendar and currently is developing business at PixelAnt Games a Sumo Digital Studio. He likes Gunpla.

Richard James Cook
Wargaming Inc.
Video Producer
Richard James Cook is a long-time developer, producer, and editor for gaming and film. Over a widely varied career, his work has lead him to tutelage under industry icons Warren Spector and Richard Garriott, as well as work on films like Surviving Indie (Devolver Digital Films), and games like Dusk (New Blood Interactive). He has also spent ample time creating various forms of media for companies like Marvel, Disney, Google, and more – constantly looking for opportunities to tell compelling stories in all forms of video and gaming media.

Johanna Pirker
Game Lab Graz
Lab Director
Dr. Johanna Pirker is a computer scientist leading the Game Lab Graz focusing on game and VR development, research, and education and is an active and strong voice of the local dev community. In 2011/12 she started researching and developing VR experiences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the moment, she is Prof. for game development at the Graz University of Technology and researches games with a focus on AI, HCI, data analysis, and VR technologies. Johanna was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of science professionals for her innovations in immersive technologies.

Jakov Denona
Paradox Development Studios
Build Engineer
Jakov Denona is an experienced Build Engineer who is currently working at Paradox Development studios. His background comes from many years of fiddling with computers, helping people maintain their server infrastructure leading up to helping game developers deliver successful games. Jakov works on build systems that helped in production of many titles such as Victoria 3, Crusader Kings 3, Stellaris, Hearts of Iron 4, Serious Sam 4.

Renaud Charpentier
Tower Five
CEO & Game Director
Renaud has been a video games creator for the last 25 years, serving as game designer & game director for companies like Ubisoft and Sega before co-founding Tower Five in 2017. He contributed to international licenses like Rayman, Splinter Cell, Total War or XIII but also worked on Indie games like Lornsword. His expertise and interest covers the wider definition of game design: from creative direction to player’s experience through the various tools and techniques to bring them to life.

BANGS
Supercell
Coder
Bangs has been making games for 17 years, working in Console and Mobile, as a gameplay coder. From Black Rock Studio (Pure, Split/Second), to being a founder at Boss Alien (CSR Racing), to Supercell (Clash Royale + New Games). Games are his passion, when he’s not making games, he’s playing games! Bangs has been at Supercell for 7 years, and currently working on a very ambitious new game.

Martijn van Zwieten
Videogame Business Consultant
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Martijn is an independent business consultant and coach to the videogame industry. His main focus is on helping ambitious leaders build better videogame companies. He’s worked in the games industry in various positions over 12+ years, ranging from PR and marketing to bizdev and operations. As a consultant, he combines this practical experience with his MBA degree to help ambitious leaders overcome the challenges of running and growing a company in the videogames industry.

Damjan Mravunac
Croteam
Composer
With over two decades of experience, Damjan has made a name for himself as one of the most versatile composers within the games industry. By creating mellow tunes for The Talos Principle and contrasting them with hardcore riffs in Serious Sam, Damjan has enhanced the flavor of each in-game world. His expertise stretches beyond making music and into sound design, which allowed him to help shape unforgettable experiences for millions of players around the world.

Etienne Beaulieu
Panache Digital Games
Director of User Experience
Etienne Beaulieu is a graphic and motion designer, UI/UX specialist and now Director of User Experience at Panache Digital Games with over 13 years of experience in game making. After working a few successful years creating visual identities in branding, Etienne jumped on the opportunity to make games. The career change has allowed him to work at various companies such as EA, Eidos and BHVR, on some high-profile games like Thief, Star Citizen and Need For Speed. Etienne has been part of the Panache Digital Games team since the early days.

Seoirse Dunbar
Adventure Games Podcast
Creator / Host
Seoirse Dunbar is the creator and host of the Adventure Games Podcast which was created in 2019 and is now in its fifth season. Over the last 5 seasons Seoirse has interviewed developers of both classic and modern adventure narrative games such as Charles Cecil, Tony Warriner, Roberta and Ken Williams, Al Lowe, David Fox, Dave Gilbert and Francisco Gonzalez. Seoirse also sponsored AdventureX 2022 through the podcast and he has interviewed developers at events such as Narrascope in Boston and Wordplay in Toronto.

Elena Lobova
GDBAY
Co-Founder / CBDO
Elena is a games industry professional with 12 years of experience. In 2011-2016, she managed a game development outsourcing company iLogos as COO and later as CEO, and helped it grow from 40 to 300+ employees. In 2017, Elena started her own consulting business ACHIEVERS HUB that helped indie game developers find mentors, get feedback on their games, raise funds and sign publishing deals. In 2021, ACHIEVERS HUB became a part of GDBAY, a global networking platform for games industry professionals and an organizer of the biggest international online game pitching event Global Games Pitch. While being a citizen of the world who travels more than stays home, Elena is passionate about spreading the word about her home country, Ukraine, and the Ukrainian game development community.

Callum Underwood
IndieBI
Co-Founder
Callum is the co-founder of IndieBI and advisor to a24 and NetEase. Callum was CEO and founder of Robot Teddy, acquired by Thunderful in 2021, and has previously worked for Kowloon Nights, Raw Fury, Oculus, and more. He once managed business for Among Us, Gang Beasts, and SUPERHOT. He is committed to supporting independent developers around the world & promoting excellence in games.

Ante Vrdelja
Big Blue Bubble
Head of Business Development
Ante is a business developer and a marketing strategist at Big Blue Bubble, one of Canada’s best-known studios and home of My Singing Monsters. He is always looking for licensing deals, partnerships, cross-promotions, and new markets and platforms, further expanding the franchise loved by more than 100 million players worldwide. Ante is also a lobbyist, a video game journalist, a founder of the Croatian Developers Association, and in his previous roles, a marketing director and a consultant for many regional games. In 2023, he started a Reboot Games Industry VIP Motorcycle Club – DM him if you ride!

Dan Pearson
remote control productions
Communications Manager
Grown on the sunny slopes of Suffolk in the vintage year of 1980, Dan spent 11 years maturing gently as a consumer and B2B journalist at Eurogamer and GI.biz before crossing the divide to work at Square Enix. Biz dev and marketing Stints at Purewal & Partners and Genvid completed the barrel ageing process, and he is now served daily as the Communications Manager at rcp in Munich. Oaky yet refreshing with undertones of spice and berries.

Damir Durovic
Reboot
CEO
Through 25 years of combined experience in running huge games industry events, games media and working within marketing/PR in the industry Damir has seen empires rise and fall, and through all those years has finally grown an awesome beard. For last 11 years together with an incredible and small but super agile team has been running REBOOT brand consisting of both media and events sub-labels, featuring among others one of the biggest consumer game shows in Europe while also throughout a full decade of its existence building the world famous Reboot Develop Blue and Red, two games industry conferences that have redefined the worldwide games industry event landscape while conceptualizing the true meaning of the boutique games industry conferences. Damir also has vast experience in consulting on both marketing and PR matters within the industry as well as taking part in various M&A efforts worldwide. He is an avid extreme hiking challenges fanatic.