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Hit List Q&A: Treyarch head Mark Lamia
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Mark Lamia, head of Treyarch. At Treyarch, Mark Lamia leads a studio with more than 250 world-class developers who have created some of the biggest hits in gaming, including Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which continue to rank as two of the best-selling and most-played console games in history. Lamia is a 20-year veteran in the industry who worked his way up from the ground floor in both the development and studio-side publishing organizations within Activision. Prior to Treyarch, he worked with numerous development teams to create and oversee some of Activision's most successful games and franchises, including Call of Duty since its inception. At the 2015 D.I.C.E. Summit Lamia will be speaking on "Treyarch's Zombies: Following the Fun to Win Hearts ... and Brains." Treyarch broke the mold with their inclusion of Zombies in Call of Duty: World at War, creating a wholly new co-op experience for the Call of Duty franchise. Join Lamia as he explores the highly unorthodox development process behind Zombies, as well as the incredibly unique creative dialogue that the studio has with its global audience of Zombies fans.
Hit List Q&A: Nathan Vella, co-founder of Capy
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Nathan Vella, co-founder of Capybara Games. Nathan Vella is co-founder and president of Toronto-based independent game developer Capy (short for Capybara Games). Perhaps best known for collaborating on Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Capy also recently developed Super Time Force and has created many other games for consoles, handhelds, PC and mobile. Vella is presently working on Below, Capy's upcoming game about exploration, survival and discovery. At the upcoming D.I.C.E. 2015 Summit in February, Vella's will explore the rewards of collaboration, and he'll share key lessons on why and how it works best.
Hit List Q&A: Monument Valley designer Ken Wong
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Ken Wong, lead designer of Monument Valley. Ken Wong served as lead designer on ustwo's recent mobile hit Monument Valley. An Australian living in London, his previous work also includes the art direction of Alice: Madness Returns at Spicy Horse and his solo indie project, Hackycat. Wong will be presenting at the upcoming D.I.C.E. Europe conference in a session titled, "Games without gamers." He will discuss how core gamers have supported the games industry and pushed it into new territory for decades, but fresh opportunities and challenges await if designers try to attract new audiences. In creating Monument Valley ustwo sought to create a meaningful, rich experience for audiences beyond the 'gamer' by replacing tropes and overused patterns with a focus on user experience.
Hit List Q&A: Watch Dogs creative director Jonathan Morin
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Jonathan Morin, creative director of Watch Dogs. With over fifteen years in the industry and thirteen of them at Ubisoft Montreal, Jonathan has held various roles in Game Design, Level Design and Art on games such as Peter Jackson's King Kong and Far Cry 2. For the past couple years, Morin has worked as Creative Director on Watch Dogs. In university Morin studied Human Science, Computer Science and briefly considered a career in mathematics education but chose to apply these skills in an environment that would be a bit less predictable. At the upcoming D.I.C.E. Europe conference, Morin will be speaking in a session titled, "Mind the Gap - Igniting People's Sense of Wonder." Morin tends to see games like musical instruments built for players to blow our minds with their creativity. It's an apt analogy but bringing everyone in a development team to think this way is challenging. After all, every brain is different. Working on a game as big as Watch Dogs made Morin realize that no matter how big the game is, or how many people are involved, or in how many countries, often the biggest borders he faced are hidden in an inevitable "gap" between two minds. "Mind the Gap" is a session that explores the importance of listening to others and challenging your own creativity. In this session, Morin will look at how these perception gaps impacted every aspect of his reality: his interactions with executives, the team, marketing, press, and ultimately how players play. In the end, Morin feels the hardest borders to cross are the ones we create in our own minds.
Hit List Q&A: Rami Ismail of Ridiculous Fishing dev Vlambeer
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Rami Ismail of Ridiculous Fishing developer Vlambeer. Rami Ismail is the Business & Development Guy at Vlambeer, a Dutch independent game studio known best for Wasteland Kings, Ridiculous Fishing, Super Crate Box, LUFTRAUSERS, GUN GODZ and Serious Sam: The Random Encounter. At his upcoming 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit talk Rami will present on "No holding back: A look at independent game development during three years of Vlambeer." Rami discusses The Golden Age for independent development, running through the last five years as he learned of the independent gaming scene, founded Vlambeer with co-founder Jan Willem Nijman, and slowly worked his way into a central figure in independent gaming. He will discuss lessons learned and applicable to an ever-changing scene, the importance of technological democratization and the shift in the relation between developers, platforms, consumers and partners.
Hit List Q&A: Kabam Studios President Andrew Sheppard
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Andrew Sheppard, President of Kabam Studios. Andrew Sheppard is President of Kabam Studios, where he leads the company's game studios in San Francisco, Beijing and Vancouver. With more than a decade of gaming experience from companies such as EA and Outspark, Andrew has pioneered Kabam's unique approach of blending art and science to create mass-market commercial games and has overseen the strategy and development of seven Kabam games that gross more than $1 million per month, including the award-winning Kingdoms of Camelot, a $250 million franchise and games based on iconic Hollywood films such as The Hobbit, Fast & Furious 6 and The Godfather. At the 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit, Andrew will deliver a talk entitled "Unlearning history: Avoiding the cultural pitfalls of traditional entertainment." The recipe for success in today's dynamic industry has greatly changed. New platforms and business models are disrupting traditional methods. The road to success may be unlearning what you thought you were an expert on and having the humility to change direction. In his talk, Andrew will discuss the need to embrace and celebrate transition, in order to achieve creativity, success and prosperity in today's world.
Hit List Q&A: Journey composer Austin Wintory
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Austin Wintory, Grammy-nominated composer for games such as Journey, Monaco and The Banner Saga. Grammy-nominated and two-time BAFTA-winning composer Austin Wintory's diverse career has straddled the worlds of concert music, film, and video games. In 2012, Wintory's soundtrack for the hit PlayStation 3 game, Journey, became the first-ever Grammy-nominated video game score, also winning two British Academy Awards, a D.I.C.E. Award, a Spike TV VGA, and IGN's "Overall Music of the Year," along with five Game Audio Network Guild awards, and a host of others. Austin's score for flOw made him the youngest composer ever to receive a British Academy Award nomination. An orchestral version of this music has been performed at the Smithsonian Museum as a part of their "Art of Games" exhibit; flOw is currently on display at MoMA in New York City. In his upcoming 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit session titled "Music's Rising Tides," Wintory offers his effusively positive outlook on the future of music in general, particularly in games. He contends, through a look at both history and the rapidly changing present, that music's best days lie ahead, and that it is not a hindrance to progress that anyone can whip up a half-decent tune in about 5 minutes ... which he will do while on stage.
Hit List Q&A: Gone Home's Steve Gaynor
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Steve Gaynor, co-founder of 'Gone Home' developer The Fullbright Company. Steve Gaynor is co-founder of independent game studio The Fullbright Company. He was the writer and designer of the Company's critically lauded first game, Gone Home. Prior to this, he worked for a number of years as a designer on the BioShock franchise. At the 2014 DICE Summit, Steve will deliver a talk entitled Strangers in a Strange Time: "We live in a strange time. Is it a golden age, or a gold rush? The landscape is changing – because we're at the crest of the wave of first-generation indie success, and the indies that made those breakthrough games are now about to release their second titles. What does this mean for new indies now entering the field – and for the rest of the games industry?"
Hit List Q&A: EA founder Trip Hawkins
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Trip Hawkins, Founder of Electronic Arts and CEO of If You Can Company. Trip Hawkins is the Academy's 2005 Hall of Fame game recipient who founded and built Electronic Arts and played a key role in defining the PC industry. Co-Founder and CEO of If You Can Company, a maker of educational games, he also advises game and tech companies including Kixeye, NativeX and Extreme Reality 3D. He joined Apple to work with the founders when it had only 25 office workers and helped grow the company to 4,000 employees. He founded EA in 1982, introduced many fundamental strategies and business practices to the game industry and was the creative and production force behind EA Sports. For his upcoming 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit session he will speak on "Tipping Points," where he will illustrate how several tipping points are challenging the game industry to change and pointing the way toward a golden age for games.
Hit List Q&A: Major League Gaming CEO, Sundance DiGiovanni
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Sundance DiGiovanni, CEO of Major League Gaming. Sundance DiGiovanni, Co-Founder and CEO of Major League Gaming, is a seasoned executive, recognized thought leader in video game culture, and veteran creative director with more than 18 years of experience in the media, technology and video game industries. Sundance focuses on the global growth of competitive video gaming, expansion of MLG as a digital media property, and the its distribution platform MLG.tv that is bringing this burgeoning sport to an ever-growing community worldwide. The company operates MLG.tv, the #1 online broadcast network for professional level competitive gaming; the MLG Pro Circuit, the longest-running eSports league in North America; and MLG: Play, the largest cross platform online gaming tournament system with 8 million registered users across the globe. At the upcoming 2014 D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, Sundance will discuss the growth and evolution of eSports, the similarities with traditional sport, how eSports has become the go-to sport for many, and how free to play games are impacting the eSports space. He will also discuss the future of the eSports landscape and how new consoles, new games and a wider global audience will catapult eSports into the mainstream in the next 5 to 10 years.
Hit List Q&A: Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. Torsten Reil holds a BA in Biology from Oxford University and an MSc in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems from Sussex University. Prior to founding NaturalMotion, Torsten was researching for a PhD in Complex Systems at Oxford University's Zoology department, from which he spun off NaturalMotion. Torsten has been named amongst MIT's TR100 global top innovators, Next-Gen's 25 People in the Games Industry, Develop magazine's 25 Game Changers, and Game Developer Magazine's Power 50. At his upcoming D.I.C.E. Europe talk, Torsten will be speaking on "The Time To Take Risks Is Now." The game industry is currently presenting us with an opportunity of a lifetime. Old structures are broken up, audiences have swelled, and revenues for iOS and Android games companies are growing exponentially.
Hit List Q&A: Lorne Lanning, co-founder of Oddworld Inhabitants
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Lorne Lanning, co-founder of Oddworld Inhabitants. Lorne Lanning co-founded Oddworld Inhabitants with his partner, Sherry McKenna, in 1994. His Oddworld games, based in a universe where the dark side of globalization meets the consumer funny bone, have sold nearly 7 million units and garnered dozens of awards not only from the game industry, but also from the music, television, film, and animation industries - as well as illustration and design annuals. In 2008, Oddworld re-emerged as a self-published independent studio bringing its library of titles across various digitally distributed networks in over 20 languages. Their latest in-the-making game, a remake of Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, was showcased by Sony as an iconic representative of their support of the increasingly relevant self-published indie development communities. At the D.I.C.E. Europe conference, Lorne will be speaking on "Properties of the Apocalypse" where he will take attendees on a journey across the macro intent of his studio's design ambitions toward creating "trojan horse media." He will also discuss how and why Oddworld's character creations and story lines aimed to target an increasingly disillusioned audience.
Hit List Q&A: David Polfeldt, MD of Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: David Polfeldt, Managing Director of Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment. David Polfeldt has a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. He started his career as a writer and illustrator of obscure and hopelessly un-commercial comic books. After a few years as a poor artist, David's childhood interest in designing and making board games with his older brother proved to be an excellent entry point into the games industry. From humble beginnings with web based games and multimedia projects, David eventually founded a small studio which he operated as a Managing Director until he was recruited by Massive Entertainment's founder who needed a guy to "fix everything". Since joining Massive in 2005, David has been deeply involved in all the projects the studio has released: World In Conflict, Assassins Creed Revelations, Far Cry 3 and the newly announced The Division. At his upcoming D.I.C.E. Europe talk David will be speaking on "Swedish Dev Culture." After the enormously successful announcement of Tom Clancy's The Division at E3 this year, David was asked by several journalists why there are so many good Swedish game studios. He decided to explore if there is any truth behind the statement, and if Swedish developers have anything in common.
Hit List Q&A: Matthew Lee Johnston
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Matthew Lee Johnston. Matthew Lee Johnston is an eighteen-year veteran of the video game industry and in that time has contributed to over 50 shipped titles. His first project was Microsoft Golf 2.0, and his most recent was Plants Vs. Zombies 2.At the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit today, Matt will be moderating a panel titled, "Secret Sauce: Disruption on the Mobile Frontier." Joining him on the panel will be Halfbrick CMO Phil Larsen (Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride), Spry Fox CEO David Edery (Triple Town) and Backflip Studios CEO Julian Farrior (Dragonvale). This is a session where outspoken and independent developers, who have innovated in the mobile market, tell the big guys how they snuck up behind them and grabbed their earnings last year. We'll get behind-the-scenes access to the designs, principles, and methods that allowed these studios to disrupt the entire balance of the traditional video game marketplace in less than two years by dominating the mobile space with some great entertainment.
Hit List Q&A: Glen Schofield, co-founder of Sledgehammer Games
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Sledgehammer Games co-founder Glen Schofield. Glen Schofield is co-founder and studio head of Sledgehammer Games, co-developer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. A visionary in the video game business for more than 20 years, Glen started his career as an artist and art director for Absolute Entertainment. He also served as the general manager of EA's Visceral Games Studio and was the creator and executive producer of the award winning Dead Space. Glen is credited in over 50 games that together have grossed more than $3 billion in revenues.Art has been an important part of Glen's life from a young age. He started taking art lessons early on, eventually earning a BFA (he also holds an MBA) and began his professional career as a freelance illustrator before entering the world of video games. In his forthcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit session, Glen will discuss "The Art of Inspiration." He will speak about how he draws inspiration from anything and anywhere and how that has influenced his work as a game developer on a day-to-day basis.
Hit List Q&A: Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi. Outspoken entrepreneur, passionate video game developer, and the Person of the Year 2012 according to GamesIndustry International, Victor Kislyi is the man behind the blockbuster World of Tanks, the Massive Assault Series, and the upcoming World of Warplanes and World of Warships action MMO games.In 1998, Victor established Wargaming, eventually leading the company from its strategy gaming roots to its current position as a leading global interactive entertainment conglomerate with over 1,300 employees and 11 offices in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. Victor leads the team, setting design philosophy and strategy and boosting the company with his experience and enthusiasm. Under his expert care Wargaming is now working on four MMO games and building the Wargaming.net service - the epicenter of a battle-driven gaming universe that would unite all company's projects under a single multiplayer ecosystem.At his forthcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit session, Victor will speak on "The Evolution of Free-To-Play: From Tanks To Beyond." Without growth there is only stagnation. While "free-to play" has taken the gaming industry by storm, it's becoming more and more apparent that an evolution of the business model is necessary in order to truly adapt to the needs of gamers and consumers. He will walk D.I.C.E. attendees through his vision of the free-to-play market as it stands today, as well as his thoughts and ideas on how it must grow in the future in order to remain viable.
Hit List Q&A: Warren Spector, Creative Director and Founder of Junction Point
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Junction Point's Warren Spector. Warren Spector, veteran electronic game designer/producer, heads up video game developer Junction Point Studios, a division of Disney Interactive. Warren has worked in the game industry since 1983. After six years at Steve Jackson Games and TSR, creating pen-and-paper games, he joined computer game developer Origin Systems where he produced several games including Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Ultima Underworld 2: Labyrinth of Worlds, System Shock, Ultima VII: Part 2, Serpent Isle, Wings of Glory, Bad Blood, Ultima Worlds of Adventure: Martian Dreams, Cybermage and others.After seven years with Origin, Warren did a brief stint with LookingGlass Technologies before founding Ion Storm's Austin, Texas studio in 1997. At Ion Storm, he produced and directed the award-winning, genre-bending Deus Ex. He later oversaw development of Deus Ex: Invisible War, released in 2003, and Thief: Deadly Shadows, released in 2004. That year, he left Ion Storm to found Junction Point Studios, developing concepts for a variety of video game and motion picture partners before being acquired, in 2007, by The Walt Disney Company. There he directed Disney Epic Mickey, released in 2010. A sequel, Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, was released in November 2012.In his forthcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit session, Warren will be speaking on "Hey, You kids! Get Outta My Yard! or The Graying of Gaming.""Used to be, games were largely the domain of youngsters - kids played them and 'kids' (relatively speaking) made them," Spector says. "Nowadays, things are different. Gamers are everywhere, coming in all ages and genders, and developers have grown up, too. In this talk, I will address the impact of aging on gamers, on developers and on our medium. How does the graying of gaming affect Game Content, Player Commitment, Design Philosophy, Gaming Platforms, Mainstream Media Interactions and, generally speaking, The Future. This talk will be a personal look backwards and forwards that will, I hope, offer something for kids and adults, boys and girls, men and women, whatever their relationship may be with games as pastime, as art or as business."
Hit List Q&A: Supergiant Games studio director Amir Rao
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Supergiant's Amir Rao. Amir Rao is the Studio Director for Supergiant Games, the team behind the AIAS award-winning downloadable game Bastion, which was released on Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, Mac, Linux, Chrome and iOS. Prior to Supergiant Games, Amir worked at Electronic Arts Los Angeles as a designer on Command & Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3.At the upcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit Amir will be speaking on the topic, "Multiplatformism." Over the course of a year, Supergiant Games shipped its award-winning game Bastion on six different platforms with three fundamentally different user interface paradigms. This session covers the design tenets that emerged in translating Bastion from controller to keyboard to touch. The talk will explore Superigant Games' ethos behind picking platforms, while considering if the future of elegant design is truly interface agnostic.
Hit List Q&A: David Cage, founder of Quantic Dream
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Quantic Dream's David Cage. David Cage founded Quantic Dream in 1997, with the ambition of using interactivity as a new means of expression. He developed a creative vision based upon emotion, innovation and immersive storytelling. After his first video game Omikron featuring famous singer David Bowie, the game Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) received great critical acclaim and won several awards worldwide. In 2010, Heavy Rain, a dark thriller produced by Sony, met critical acclaim and commercial success, selling over 2.3 million units to date. Heavy Rain was the winner of three Interactive Achievement Awards in 2011 (now called the D.I.C.E. Awards) - Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering, Outstanding Innovation in Gaming, and Outstanding Achievement in Original Music CompositionIn 2012, Cage launched a new tech demo called KARA, featuring an android girl with an actress who delivered a stunning acting performance. Quantic Dream is currently in production of Beyond, a game written and directed by David Cage, starring actress Ellen Page. The game, produced by Sony exclusively on PlayStation 3, will be released in 2013.In his forthcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit session, Cage will be speaking on "The Peter Pan Syndrome: The Industry that Refused to Grow Up." In a significantly changing landscape dominated by franchises, where new devices with 89c games get more and more of consumers' attention, the video game industry is confronted with a massive challenge. A new console cycle is about to start, new business models and platforms appear while creativity and risk taking has never been lower.The game industry, having always refused to grow up, is now confronted with a new dilemma: evolve or stagnate. The first and most important revolution to start is about content. Based on his experience and fifteen years in the industry developing original content, David Cage will explain in a passionate, thought-provoking presentation (with a French accent) his vision for content in the future and why he believes it is the key to expanding our market and finally become a mature industry.
Hit List Q&A: Xavier Poix, Ubisoft Annecy, Montpellier and Paris managing director
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Ubisoft's Xavier Poix. Xavier Poix is Managing Director of Ubisoft's Annecy, Montpellier and Paris studios. Xavier joined Ubisoft in 1998 on the business side, becoming Sales Director for France before moving into production. He was Director of Ubisoft Montpellier and producer of the game for Peter Jackson's King Kong before taking his current role. Under Xavier's management, Ubisoft's French studios have become synonymous with launch titles for new platforms, such as Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Red Steel, and ZombiU. Their creative talent is at the origin of blockbuster brands (Raving Rabbids, Just Dance), critically acclaimed original IP (From Dust), and demonstrating that license-based titles and quality gaming experiences are not incompatible (The Adventures of TinTin, Michael Jackson The Experience). Having recently finished development on several Wii U launch titles as well as Assassin's Creed 3 multiplayer, the French studios are working on new titles, including Rayman Legends, and continue to infuse creativity and innovation into Ubisoft's brands.At his forthcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit session, he will be addressing the topic – "Developing the Future: leveraging new technology to change the way we play." Putting new tech in the hands of developers inevitably results in exciting new ideas. And when that tech is revolutionary, it can change paradigms and make us question the fundamentals of how we play. Building on the personal of experience of overseeing Ubisoft titles that offered audiences a new way of interacting with the game – and each other – this talk explores certain trends that could mark and potentially change our perspective of gaming in the near future.
