AGDS 2006: Speakers
Noah Falstein - CEO, The Inspiracy
Noah Falstein got his start in the computer game industry in 1980 with a job at Milton Bradley's Advanced Research Division. Since then he has contributed to over 40 games, including several bestselling and critical hits. Among his best known games are the Arcade classic Sinistar from Williams Electronics (1983), PHM Pegasus from Lucasfilm Games (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade from Lucasfilm Games (1989), and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, LucasArts Entertainment (1992).
As one of the first ten employees at each of Lucasfilm Games (LucasArts), The 3DO Company, and at Dreamworks Interactive, Falstein has taken a leading role in launching major game companies. He has worked as a programmer, project leader, producer, executive producer, and creative director.
Currently, Falstein runs The Inspiracy, a game design consulting firm established in 1996. The Inspiracy has provided game design and production experience to companies as diverse as Disney Interactive, Dreamworks Interactive, Totally Games, Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog, Sega, Mattel, Intel, and Shell Oil.
In recent years he has been working increasingly in the Serious Games field as a designer and producer on projects that use game techniques and technology for purposes other than entertainment. This work includes medical, corporate, and military simulations and training titles. Falstein is also on the advisory boards for the Serious Games Summit and the Games for Health conference, and since 2002 has been writing the design column in Game Developer Magazine.
Ian Livingstone - Product Acquisitions Director
Ian Livingstone is the Product Acquisitions Director at Eidos and a leading pioneer of interactive entertainment. In 1975 he founded Games Workshop Ltd and launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe and the Games Workshop retail chain. In 1977 he launched White Dwarf, the UK's first interactive games magazine, and was its editor for 5 years. In 1982, he wrote the first in the series of Fighting Fantasy interactive gamebooks that sold over 15 million copies in 23 languages, including his own best-selling Deathtrap Dungeon.
He has written more than 20 books and has also invented many board games including Legend of Zagor, Boom Town, Automania, Judge Dredd and Battlecars. In 1992 he became Deputy Chairman of computer games company Domark. In 1995 he was instrumental in the merger and flotation of Domark with technology company Eidos and was appointed Executive Chairman of the Board of the new interactive entity Eidos plc, a position he served until 2002.
At Eidos - one of the UK's leading developers and publishers of video games - he has helped to secure many of the company's major franchises including Tomb Raider, Championship Manager and Hitman. In 2002 he was awarded the BAFTA Special Award for his outstanding contribution to the interactive entertainment industry.
In 2003 he was appointed Creative Industries advisor to the British Council. In 2004 he was made a Creative Industries Luminary for London. In 2004 he was appointed Non-Executive Chairman of Bright Things plc. In 2005 he was appointed Chair of the Computer Games Skills Forum.
Feargus Urquhart - CEO, Obsidian Entertainment, Inc.
As the President and CEO of Obsidian Entertainment, Feargus Urquhart, manages the business operations of the company and oversees the company's development efforts. Previous to founding Obsidian Entertainment in 2003, Feargus founded Black Isle Studios as an internal development studio of Interplay Entertainment in 1996 after working at Interplay Entertainment in various positions starting in 1991 as playtester. Through the management of both externally and internally developed products, Black Isle Studios earned retail revenue in excess of $375M in his seven years of leading the division.
Feargus' name can be found in the credits of over fifty published products including the Baldur's Gate series, the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series, the Fallout series in which he filled the role of Lead Designer on Fallout 2, the Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment.
Thanit Anantasomboon - Scenario/Script Writer/Project Manager, StudioGU
Mr. Thanit is one of Thailand's first professional game designers, who started out working at CyberPlanet Interactive Co.,Ltd. and later at Planet G Co.,Ltd as freelance Game Designer where he was responsible for designing a number of games. He later moved to work as a full-time Game Designer and later as an Application Designer at Debuz Co. Ltd. He was responsible for a number of projects there including over 15 mobile phone titles, designing "Taenon", a turn-based shooting MMOG project, before currently before being assigned to the Debuz's latest MMORPG project called "Project ONE(Online Never Ending)".
In his free time, he founded and is working in the "StudioGU" team, which is a combination of 8 independent developers who are working in the Visual Novel niche market. They are currently in the later stages of development of the project, "Angel's Tale: An extraordinary love story".
Felix Bohmann - Lead Programmer, 10TACLE STUDIOS ASIA
Felix currently works as Lead Programmer for 10TACLE STUDIOS ASIA, overseeing the development of PC and Console titles. He started working in the games industry in 1999, starting with a Dreamcast game, followed by titles for PC, Playstation, Playstation2, Xbox, and PocketPC.
Before joining 10TACLE STUDIOS in Singapore, he founded Inverse Entertainment in Germany and for six years held the position of Technical Director, managing the development of various in-house technologies used in multiplayer network games. When he is not in the office, Felix is known to be working on productions for the multinational computer arts group called Farbrausch.
John Buchanan- Professor, Entertainment Technology Center of Carnegie Mellon University
In 1998 John worked at Radical entertainment for 5 months then joined Electronic Arts as head of the research group. His role as head of the research group then extended to Director, Advanced Technology (acting CTO). During John’s tenure at EA, he grew very fond of visiting the Entertainment Technology Center in Pittsburg and liked the basic premise of the program so much that in 2006 he joined the teaching faculty of the ETC. Currently John is the CS Pacific Rim professor for the ETC.
John is interested in the development of tools for rapid exploration of interactive world ideas. He believes that current prototyping tools are too far down the production pipeline and that more focus should be paid to pre-production tools for the industry.
Alexander Calero - Manager, Interactive Graphics Unit, Glyph Studios.
Alexander Calero is in charge of the interactive graphics unit of Glyph Studios Inc. He took up computer science at the University of the Philippines and has been involved in computer graphics and animation for more than ten years. Prior to working at Glyph Studios he was head of research and development in a 3d animation company based in Manila where his main field of study was motion capture and facial animation. An accomplished software developer he has also developed several software systems related to the field of motion capture and digital puppetry.
Kristine Coco - Senior Associate Producer, Midway Studios-Austin
Kristine is a Sr. Associate Producer at Midway Studios–Austin, where she heads up Midway’s Central Outsourcing Group. She is responsible for finding vendors, and maintaining internal best practices for next-gen projects utilizing outsourcing. She works with vendors in the US, China, India and Ukraine.
Prior to joining Midway, Kristine worked at Ion Storm where she was an Associate Producer on Thief: Deadly Shadows.
Andrew Davison - Lecturer, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand
Andrew Davison received his Ph.D. from Imperial College in London in 1989. He was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne for six years before moving to Prince of Songkla University in Thailand in 1996. He has also taught in Bangkok, Khon Kaen, and Hanoi. His research interests include scripting languages, logic programming, visualization, and teaching methodologies. This latter topic led to an interest in teaching games programming in 1999.
His O'Reilly book, Killer Game Programming in Java, was published in 2005, accompanied by a website at http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg/. The book covers 2D, 3D, and network programming using Java, with most emphasis on using Java 3D. The website has over 20 additional chapters, on topics such as mobile 3D, JOGL, and non-standard input devices.
Joe Dever
Joe Dever is an award-winning British fantasist and game designer. Originally a musician, Dever became the first British winner of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Championship of America in 1982.
He created the fictional world of Magnamund as a setting for his Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. In 1984 he released the first book of the Lone Wolf series of young-adult gamebooks, and the series has since sold over 9 million copies worldwide.
From 1996 onwards, Dever has been involved in the production of several successful computer and console games. He has also contributed to a Dungeons & Dragons-style role playing game for Lone Wolf, and he is currently Lead Designer of a Lone Wolf computer game scheduled for release early in 2008, being developed in Singapore.
Tim Donley - Designer, Bottlerocket Entertainment
Tim Donley has worked in the games industry for nearly 11 years. His jobs have included animator, modeler, texture artist, concept artist, script programming, game design and producing. A few of the games he has worked on include Planescape Torment (PC), Icewind Dale 1 and 2 (PC), Red Asphalt (PS1), Rise of the Kasai (PS2), Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC), Xiaolin Showdown (PS2, Xbox, PSP). He has been very lucky to work with some incredibly diverse and creative people from all sides of the industry and held many different positions giving him a broad view of all the disciplines involved in making games. One of the things he is most interested in is the team interactions which lead to great games.
Prior to games he worked at Mattel designing toys. His education was a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design at California State University Long Beach. He is working in the design group at Bottlerocket Entertainment near San Diego, California.
Tracy Fullerton - Professor in Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinema-Television
Tracy Fullerton is a game designer, educator and writer with fifteen years of professional experience. She is currently Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinema-Television where she serves as Co-Director of the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab. Tracy is the author of "Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping and Playtesting Games", a design textbook in use at game programs worldwide.
Prior to joining the USC faculty, she was President and founder of the interactive television game developer, Spiderdance, Inc. Tracy was a founding member of the New York design firm R/GA Interactive. As a producer and creative director she created games and interactive products for clients including Sony, Intel, Microsoft, AdAge, Ticketmaster, Compaq, and Warner Bros. among many others.
Additionally, Tracy was Creative Director at the interactive film studio Interfilm, where she wrote and co-directed the "cinematic game" Ride for Your Life, starring Adam West and Matthew Lillard.
Tracy's work has received numerous industry honors including best Family/Board Game from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, ID Magazine's Interactive Design Review, Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual, several New Media Invision awards, iMix Best of Show, the Digital Coast Innovation Award, IBC's Nombre D'Or, and Time Magazine's Best of the Web. In December 2001, she was featured in the Hollywood Reporter's "Women in Entertainment Power 100" issue.
Jamie Fristrom - Technical Director, Torpex Games
Prior to Torpex, Jamie was most recently a technical director and designer on "Spider-Man 2", his biggest claim to fame being that he invented its dynamic, physical swinging system. Other games he's worked on include "Spider-Man 1" for PS2, XBox, and GameCube, "Tony Hawk" for the Dreamcast, "Die By The Sword" for the PC, and the "Magic Candle" series of RPGs.
Jamie wrote the "Manager in A Strange Land" column for Gamasutra and holds the world record for writing game development post-mortems in Gamasutra and *Game Developer* magazine. He has also spent some time on game engineering and management consulting, and this is where he's seen the myriad ways in which preproduction can fail.
Paul Gadi - VP Technology and Technical Director, Anino Mobile
Paul is the Technical Director and Lead Game Designer for Call of the Land, an action-RPG developed for most J2ME-enabled handsets (Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Sagem, Siemens, etc). Technologies used were in-house development tools, J2ME and JBuilder.
Paul was also Project Manager and Technical Director for Black Ops, a turn-based J2ME strategy game. The game was developed for Nokia Series 40, Nokia Series 60, Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola handsets. Also lead development in porting the game to Chinese. Technologies used were an in-house editor, J2ME, ANT/ANTENNA and JBuilder.
Abdool Gafoor - Lead Engineer, EA Singapore
Abdool has more than 6 years of experience in the industry, having worked with 2 start-ups before joining EA Singapore last year. He started off with Realistix Labs, before moving on to Valens where he worked on Spiderman-2: The Movie for the N-Gage. His areas of predilection include, but are not limited to Network and Tools Programming. He currently serves as Lead Engineer EA Singapore's localization team.
Jaffri Ibrahim - Vice President, Malaysian Debt Ventures
Jaffri Ibrahim is the Vice President, Business & Technology Advisory (BTA) Division of Malaysia Debt Ventures Berhad (MDV).
The BTA Division provides guidance to MDV and clients by providing insights into the latest trends and breakthrough technologies The team also assists in anticipating potential pitfalls and maximizing opportunities in the ICT and High Growth markets. BTA provides regular technology updates through the monthly newsletter, and MDV's Business & Technology Speakers' Series.
In his career, Jaffri has often been associated with companies in their start-up stages be it local start-ups to multinational companies establishing a new line of business/service in Malaysia. Jaffri began by helping initiate a locally-conceptualised 24-by-7 telephone-based information service for Klang Valley called Dataphone Sdn Bhd in 1986. After a short stint at Projek-Lebuhraya Utara-Selatan in 1988, he joined Oracle Corporation Malaysia in 1990 where he later became Managing Consultant for the professional services organisation. He later assumed the role of Head of MSC Business Unit at Oracle.
Jaffri was also senior manager of Arthur Andersen's Business Consulting division in 1998 and later Senior Manager of Technology Consulting and Technology Integration Services at Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young in 2002. He has also had a stint teaching, on a part-time basis, Engineering Applied Sciences to first-year Engineering students at KPP/ITM - State University of New York in 1987.
Jaffri obtained his B.Sc. from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA where he majored in Computer Science and minored in Business Studies.
Siddarth Jain - Chief Creative Director Playware Studios Asia Pte Ltd
A creative media veteran with over a decade of experience in broadcast and digital media production with more than half of that time, leading up to now, dedicated to game development. He has developed game engines, development pipeline tools and technology and released more than a dozen game titles ranging from concealed learning applications, MMP games to budget and casual games.
Siddharth works with the development team at Playware Studios Asia, Singapore's premier independent game development facility. They are currently working on casual games, games for learning, high fidelity racing simulations and a 3D multiplayer squad based tactical game. Besides Singapore, Playware draws its team from India, United States, China, South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia and develops games for International markets such as Europe, Japan, United States, India, China and South East Asia.
A hard-core RTS gamer himself, Siddharth won several professional gaming competitions before retiring his mouse from tournaments. Though he indulges in an occasional online challenge he now leads a life on the other side of the game industry (where the focus is on making the other guy win and enjoy himself).
Sarah Fay Krom - Director, Ideaforia
Sarah Fay Krom is teaching Interactive Storytelling at the Communications and New Media Programme of NUS. She is a Founding Partner and Director at Ideaforia Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based company specializing in Creative Media Consulting and Production, where she is focused on Interactive Storytelling and Games for Education. Before starting Ideaforia, she was the founding Director of the Game Lab at Nanyang Technological University. At the Game Lab her focus was to explore how creative concepts drive innovation in related technologies, advancing game media and initiating new arenas in Game Design, Theory and Practice. By developing the synergy between R&D and creative ideas and design, she emphasized the stimulation of future interactive media experiences.
Prior to the Game Lab, Sarah worked as an independent Designer/Director as well as a fulltime member of game development teams. Her concentration has been creative and artistic direction and production, with a particular emphasis on proprietary technologies, in games for entertainment and education. Ms. Krom's list of clients includes, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, Nokia/Sony Activision, Nickelodeon, Hasbro, Mattell, Backbone Entertainment, Wildbrain Studios, Xerox, @Home, Cisco Systems, CH2M HILL and the University of Pittsburgh. In the academic world she spent three years as faculty in the animation program at DeAnza College in California where she designed, developed and taught a range of courses for 2D and 3D animation. Ms. Krom is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S.A.
Chris Legaspi - Level Artist, Bottlerocket Entertainment
Chris is one of the hardest working Artists in games. Drawing from a rich background in traditional drawing and painting, and in-depth studies of human anatomy, Chris breathes life and unparalleled dynamism into his game characters. Chris is also well known for his versatility and breadth of style, technique and the ability to add a sensational "flair" to his characters.
Chris began his formal training at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts in Central Florida. His drive to make an impact in games landed him in Los Angeles, California where he has mentored with renowned Artists and Illustrators from the Film Industry, Video games and Fine Arts. He has studied under Californian artists such as Rhaban Canas, Carlo Arelleno, Sergio Sanchez and Steve Huston.
Chris is currently working full time as a Concept Artist, 3D Modeler, Texture Artist and all around problem solver at BottleRocket Entertainment in beautiful Del Mar, California. He is also vigorously building his portfolio of Fine Art drawings and paintings for upcoming local shows. In his spare time, you can find him tirelessly figure drawing from live model workshops or sketching at his favorite coffee shops.
Altair Martinez - Project Manager/Senior Programmer, PixelStream Corporation
Altair Martinez is a project manager and senior programmer at Pixelstream Corporation, a game development company that specializes is 3D game engine development and other cutting edge 3D technologies for PCs, mobiles, and consoles. He is currently involved with the development of the Pixelstream Graphics Engine (PIXEGE) prototype and several online 3D projects. He created a very useful parsing tool called PS2VUTOC that translates native PS2 VU assembly codes to native C. He is a recipient of the prestigious Monbukagakusho scholarship where he made cutting edge research on advanced global illumination algorithms like real-time photon mapping in Chuo University Tokyo. He holds a BS in Mathematics and an MS in Computer Science.
Alexander Nareyek - Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore
Alexander Nareyek holds an assistant professorship at the National University of Singapore, where he directs the interactive intelligence Labs (ii Labs). He received his diploma and Ph.D. from the TU Berlin/Germany, held positions at GMD-FIRST/Germany, Carnegie Mellon University/USA, and the Cork Constraint Computation Centre/Ireland, and served as CEO and CTO for Digital Drama Studios/Czech Republic.
He is one of the leading figures in the field of game AI and serves on numerous academic and industrial committees. For the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), he is responsible for matters regarding artificial intelligence, and serves as chairperson of the IGDA's Artificial Intelligence Interface Standards Committee.
Chris Natsuume - Creative Director, Boomzap Pte. Ltd
Christopher Natsuume is a 12 year game industry veteran, with experience in design and production on PC, Xbox, Playstation 2, PC, and casual downloadable entertainment. His products have shipped millions of copies and won numerous industry awards. Recent experiences include serving as lead producer for the international hit Far Cry from Crytek and most recently becoming Creative Director and Cofounder of Singaporean developer, Boomzap Pte. Ltd. Singapore, the leading downloadable casual game developer in Southeast Asia.
Chris is overjoyed to be returning to the AGDS, this time to speak on working with publishers efficiently and effectively. Relevant experience for this lecture includes pitching concepts to almost every major publisher in the industry and working on numerous AAA projects published by companies including Sony, Disney, Encore, Infogrames, Interactive Magic, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and others.
Chris holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and has recently completed a MBA at the University of Washington, Seattle. Chris is extremely proud to be a supporter of Singaporean game development, and an active employer of some of the best talent in Southeast Asia.
Ng Kian Bee - Deputy Director, NYP Games, ex-Polyphonic studios
Kian Bee is a veteran games developer with several AAA titles under his belt. He worked on the Gran Turismo series and most recently Tourist Trophy, released last year. His work was showcased at Siggraph and he has written articles and a book, as well as offered his advice and consultancy to companies venturing into video games in the Asia Pacific region. He currently lends his expertise in the development of games education and projects for the industry in Singapore as a Deputy Director with a local institution. He holds an MBA and a degree in computer engineering.
Trey Ratcliff - CEO, John Galt Games LLC
Trey Ratcliff has a broad wealth of experience as an executive in technology companies. Currently he is heading John Galt Games, which is building online games that are played in over 30 countries around the world. Most recently, JGG has acquired a studio in Malaysia, which will serve as the hub for all design, development, and distribution. The studio is actively expanding to be the SE Asia nexus for the best people combined with the best work environment to create great unique games to be enjoyed around the world.
Prior to this, Mr. Ratcliff founded and ran Individual Network, a media company where he still remains as a director with almost a dozen patents. Mr. Ratcliff started his career with Andersen Consulting where he gained extensive experience implementing technical systems in various industries including broadcast/cable television, telecommunication, health care, energy, and supply-chain management. A notable project was at Turner Broadcasting where his team built a series of customized advertising management software applications for CNN, TNT, TBS, and other Turner networks. Other significant projects of interest include several e-commerce solutions for various clients such as Level 3 Communications, i2 Technologies, Texas Utilities, and some nuclear power plants that have still not melted down. Similarly, he has spent time consulting for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has had some of his work inducted into the Smithsonian Institution. Software-wise, he has vast experience in building distributed object-oriented application architectures and in advanced mathematical algorithms. He graduated from Southern Methodist University where he studied Computer Science and Math.
J.E. Sawyer - Lead Designer, Obsidian Entertainment Inc.
J.E. Sawyer began his gaming career at Interplay Entertainment as the webmaster for Black Isle Studios' Planescape: Torment. A life-long tabletop and computer gamer, Josh quickly moved into game development as a junior designer on the original Icewind Dale. Since then, he has worked on Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, Icewind Dale II, and recently as the lead designer on Neverwinter Nights 2.
Bullitt Sesariza - Studio Head, Matahari Studios Indonesia
Bullitt Sesariza is studio head of Matahari Studios, a leading game development company in Indonesia. He started working in the computer graphics field in 1993, in graphics design and architectural presentation. He graduated from the School of Architecture and worked as a full time artist in 1996. He began his career in the game industry as a 3D artist in 1999 and became a lead artist, directing a number of console art production teams in 2001. He was promoted into a management role after 5 years in the game industry. Today, he is responsible on managing the day to day operation in Matahari Studios.
Marlina Sugama - Studio Head, Altermyth Studio, Game Developer Indonesia
Marlina Sugama is one of Indonesia's video game industry pioneers, as the studio head of Altermyth Studio and lead game designer of the first Indonesian 3D multiplayer turn-based strategy game called INSPIRIT Arena. She received her Bachelor and Master Economic Degree from Universitas Pelita Harapan, and served as the game developer department chief in APMI (asosiasi penyelenggara multimedia Indonesia), a government funded association for multimedia and content.
Altermyth Studio is member of IGDA (International Game Developer Association) Jakarta Chapter.
Raymond Wong Wai Pong - General Manager, KOEI Entertainment Singapore Pte Ltd
Raymond joined KOEI in 2004 and established the Singapore office, KOEI Entertainment Singapore Pte Ltd. As the GM of one of KOEI’s first development studio outside of Japan, he manages the operations and oversees the project resources. KOEI Entertainment Singapore is currently developing Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online, a MMORPG slated for release next year. Prior to joining KOEI, he worked in the info-communications industry for more than 8 years, having been involved in a variety of roles from product development and support, business planning and development, and also founded his own technology company. Having worked and lived in the U.S., Europe and Asia, Raymond has always been fascinated by the cross-cultural work environment.
Steven Yong - Lead Designer & Founder of GamesTotal.com
Stephen Yong is an avid strategy gamer who have started playing games at an early age. With over 10 years experience specializing in clustered web application and database system, he started working on Massive Online Games in 2002 and eventually quit his full time job, drop out of his MBA and founded Gamestotal.com . To differentiate from other online games in the market; the games he created are free, web based, under the strategy game genre and relies heavily on its player community.