KEYNOTE

Clingman, Dustin (CEO, First5 Games)

A 14-year veteran of the Game Industry, Dustin has developed games for nearly every mobile platform. In 2002 he founded Zeitgeist Games, which was acquired in late 2008 by IMI Labs and relaunched as ZeeGee Games to focus on the growing Social Games market. In 2012 he founded his newest label, First5 Games to focus on creating games with the core mantra that they “Be understood in 5 Seconds and Loved in 5 minutes or less!” Presently, he is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Game Developers Association and a Lifetime member of the IGDA.

KEYNOTE

Caroll, Rob (Director of Publishing, Tapjoy)

Rob Carroll is the Director of Publishing for Tapjoy, where he runs their developers fund and manages the publishing activities for the company. In his role with Tapjoy, Rob advises game developers of all sizes in the best practices of monetization, game mechanics and viral distribution for their mobile and social games. In his time with Tapjoy, Rob has helped to launch over 120 games on iPhone and Android with developers all over the world.

Prior to joining the Tapjoy team, Rob worked in the real world as a designer and producer for Zynga and Hive7 on their social games and as a console game producer at LucasArts. Odds are you have played one of his titles, such as Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Street Racer, Pirates, YoVille, Knighthood, The Sindicate, Youtopia, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Star Wars: Elite Squadron and many others.

Adler, Louice (Concept Artist/Graphic Designer, Tripwire Interactive)

Born in Helsingborg, Sweden, Louice currently lives and works in Atlanta, GA as a Concept Artist and Graphic Designer for Tripwire Interactive. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Animation at Full Sail University, FL (Nov. 2008) and have taken classes in Fine Art and Graphic Design at James Cook University, Australia. Possessing a lively imagination and creativity ever since childhood, Louice quickly found her passion and inspiration to draw and create through Nintendo, 80-90s cartoons, Anime/Manga and Fantasy books. She plays video games and RPGs to this day and still loves to watch cartoons. Louice also has a healthy appetite for music and can often be found listening to it while working or relaxing.

Baden, Dan

Dr. Dan Baden is a family physician and has held numerous leadership positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He is also an avid gamer and a published game designer. He has an undergraduate degree in computer science and coordinates CDC’s games and innovation for public health Community of Practice. He is interested in the use of games to introduce or reinforce health concepts in the public. Most recently, he presented on the topic of Games and Innovation for Public Health at the 2011 Games for Health conference.

Becker, Robert S.

Robert S. Becker, PhD has helped organize the Serious Games track of the SIEGE conference for three years. When not volunteering for the Georgia Game Developers Association, he designs and produces online learning - in particular serious games and training simulations. Bob founded Becker Multimedia, Inc. in Atlanta in 1994 and moved his base to Chicago in 2011. He has worked for larger organizations in several verticals including health care and life sciences, financial services, retail, hospitality and telecommunications. Prior to corporate work Bob was a professor of English and scholar with a global research program in British and Irish literature and history. Earlier in 2011 he presented at the Games for Health Conference in Boston.

Bishop, Zach

Zach Bishop is an attorney with Wyrick Robbins in Raleigh, North Carolina. His practice is concentrated on technology and corporate transactions, including the licensing and distribution of intellectual property, business process and information technology outsourcing, technology acquisition and development, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, joint ventures and general corporate matters.  Zach's practice includes the representation of prominent video game and middleware developers on a full range of matters, and he frequently speaks at gaming industry conferences on legal issues facing gaming companies.  Prior to practicing law in North Carolina, Zach practiced in the Atlanta office of a large national law firm, and he is licensed to practice law in North Carolina and Georgia. Zach received his B.A. in Economics from Duke University and received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane University Law School. He was listed among North Carolina Super Lawyers "Rising Stars" in 2009 and 2010.

Boyd, Greg

Bradford, Asante

Asante Bradford is the Digital Entertainment Liaison for the Georgia Film, Music and Video division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Asante will help promote the growth of the video game industry as well as identify initiatives that will help grow businesses for the state of Georgia in video game development, film & music. He will also help educate potential prospects and clients information about the Georgia Entertainment Industry Incentives Act.

Bridges, Bill

Bill Bridges is an MMO game designer at CCP NA | White Wolf. He is the co-creator of the "Fading Suns" science fiction game universe, and is the lead designer of the award-winning Storytelling system rules for all of White Wolf's World of Darkness games. He designed and developed the award-winning games "Mage: The Awakening" and "Promethean: The Created", and developed "Werewolf: the Apocalypse". His novels include "The Silver Crown" and "Last Battle". He has also written for Chaosium, and helped develop Last Unicorn's "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" roleplaying games. He co-wrote the scripts for Viacom's interactive horror movie "Dracula Unleashed", Interplay's "Starfleet Academy", and contributed to world design for Segasoft's "Emperor of the Fading Suns". He is an advisor for the Mythic Imagination Institute and co-chairs the content committee for Atlanta's Mythic Journeys conferences.

Bridges, John (Concept Artist, Xaviant)

Bryant, Colman (Level Designer, Hi-Rez Studios)

Buscaglia, Thomas

The Game Attorney

Tom Buscaglia, The Game Attorney, is a principal in the law firm The Game Attorney PC, with offices in the Seattle, Washington, area. Tom has assisted game developers since 1991 with all aspects of business and legal matters. Tom wrote the chapter entitled “Effective Developer Agreements” for the book, The Secrets of the Game Business and has written numerous articles, including Game Developer Magazine and the Game Law series of articles and an Expert Blog on Gamasutra.com. Tom is a perennial presenter at numerous conferences such as the Game Developer Conference and PAX where he speaks on the game industry business and legal matters. Tom Chairs the International Game Developers Association Charitable Foundation and served on the IGDA Board of Directors from 2005 - 2011. As FaTe[F8S] Tom is founder and Supreme Warlord of FaTe’s Minions, an online gaming "clan" that has been competing online since January, 1998. So, in addition to his deep professional knowledge base, he has a gamer's appreciation and understanding of the game industry. Tom’s firm web site is www.GameAttorney.com.

Canei, Matt

Matt Canei is a 3D Artist at Hi-Rez Studios. He creates mostly Environment Art for Smite but has also worked on Global Agenda and Tribes: Ascend. Matt graduated in 2010 with a B.F.A in Interactive Design and Game Development from Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia. Outside of the game realm, He is an avid practitioner of Wing Chun. Interests include: games, rocking out, martial arts, beer and rocking out.

Cannon, Tanya

Tanya is very active in the Game and Simulation Programming program development process and specifically in teaching the software engineering for game devel¬opment course ensuring that DeVry students get a well round background in quality game development best practices based on established software engineering principles to complement their extensive technical and program¬ming skills. Tanya has spent 19 years in corporate working as a system analyst, project leader and information system consultant in the IT industry for General Elec¬tric Company, PaineWebber Brokerage Firm and MetLife Insurance Company before coming to DeVry University as a Professor in the College of Engineering and Information Sciences. She has taken her many years of experience in industry into education where she has found her passion. In her 11 year career at DeVry University she has received several awards demonstrating excellence in and outside of the classroom. She holds a BS degree from the State University of NY at Albany and a MBA and Masters in Project Management from DeVry University, Keller Graduate School of Management. One of the highlights of this year is the opportunity to meet and get the autograph of Toru Iwatani, the creator of her favorite game, PACMAN.

Cashman, Bill (Solutions Design Manager, Peak 10)

Bill Cashman has been active in the IT industry for 18 years, attaining numerous certifications from many difference areas in the industry including Cisco, Novell, Microsoft, Oracle and VMware. Prior to Peak 10, Bill worked for businesses such as Craig/is and Bank of America as well as starting several ventures of his own. Since his arrival at Peak 10 in 2006, he has been instrumental in architecting and implementing the Virtualized Services division of Peak 10's Managed Services department. As Virtualized Services Manager, Bill grew the division into a successful business unit within Peak 10 and established Peak 10 as a VMware VIP Enterprise partner. Currently, as Solutions Design Manager, Bill engages directly with customers, helping them to design and implement solutions that scale with their changing business needs.

Cavallari, Benjamin (Academic Relationship Consultant, Warner Brothers Games/Turbine Inc.)

Benjamin is an Academic Relationships Consultant between the Games industry and GameDev/Comp.Sci programs at Colleges and Universities. He design-builds advanced curriculum, integrates industry people into faculty, and advises employee prospects to keep all sides current and the pipeline for integration and collaboration fresh. Benjamin has built seminar series for Warner Bros. Games with Harvard/MIT and has consulted with top 10 Game Dev. schools including Becker College, Champlain College and with individuals from WPI, DigiPen, USC, Brown, Tufts, SCAD, and many more. Prior to consulting for the games industry, Benjamin taught beside GameDev faculty at Champlain College (Burlington, VT) as well as Duquesne University and other institutes of higher education.

Chad, Eric (Patent Attorney, Merchant & Gould)

Eric practices general intellectual property law with an emphasis on all forms of intellectual property litigation including cases involving patents, trademarks and trade dress, copyrights, trade secrets, misappropriation of rights of publicity, false advertising, and unfair competition. Eric has been involved in all aspects complex intellectual property disputes from pre-filing investigations through post-trial briefing and appellate work. Eric has also represented clients before the Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trials and Appeals Board. Though Eric's technical education is based in the biological sciences, he has litigated cases involving a wide range of technologies, including HVAC equipment, computer hardware and software, sporting goods, pharmaceuticals, and hunting equipment. Eric also works with the Children's Law Center of Minnesota to represent children who have been or are in danger of being removed from their homes. In addition to his practice at Merchant & Gould, Eric currently teaches the University of Minnesota Law School's Intellectual Property Moot Court class and coaches the IP Moot Court competition team.

Collins, Jared

Jared is the Quality Assurance Manager at Cartoon Network (Animation Digital Platforms). He has over 10 years experience working with a wide range of products on multiple platforms. He is currently overseeing all of the digital games, media and content for CartoonNetwork.com. He has a bachelors in business administration. His favorite product to work on was his first MMO Anarchy Online. Jared enjoys watching cartoons and playing video games all day.

Cunningham, Delminquoe (Professor, Art Institute of Atlanta; Owner, Phoenix Inceptions Media)

Delminquoe Cunningham is a professional freelance artist with international and continental ties as a media artist and animator. While attending The Art Institute of Atlanta for his B.F.A, Delminquoe not only excelled as a student but also learned that he had a passion for teaching. He pressed forward as he created and molded his own company Phoenix Inceptions Media and later returned to The Art Institute of Atlanta – Decatur to continue his teaching endeavors as a professor in multiple areas of media and design. Teaching is and learning continue to be a focus for Delminquoe As he continues his Phd in international business . Delminquoe’s love for technology motivated him to work in broadcasting in which he held the esteemed position of general manager for two internet radio stations: Radio Sandy Springs and WGSR Atlanta. His talents have flowed throughout the city of Atlanta and neighboring local communities in the culinary world as he partnered into local restaurants Lamplighter Café and Sweet Lowdown by establishing himself as the lead marketing consultant and designer for both restaurants. In addition to Delminquoe’s growing list of passions which include photography, audio and video production, and animation, Delminquoe has also offered his talents and keen eye to the motion picture and gaming worlds by working as a freelance artist for various entertainment and gaming organizations such as Acclaim Entertainment, Crater and NBC Universal.

Dangerfield, Scarlett (Human Resources, CCP Games)

Mrs. Dangerfield joined CCP in 2010, and is responsible for supporting the achievement of business goals, through partnering with managers to translate the HR and business strategies into tactical, practical and applied HR operational activities. She brings to CCP 9 years of human resources and recruiting experience from Science and Technology giants such as SAIC, Booz Allen & Hamilton, and Comtech.

DeLeon, Chris (Game Designer)

Chris has completed an average of 4 freeware games every year since 1998, served as a professional game designer for both Electronic Arts and Will Wright's Stupid Fun Club, and served as an establishing member of a game company later sold to PopCap. Additional background includes 219 daily experimental gameplay prototypes, teaching game creation, and developing roughly a dozen iOS applications including Topple, #2 Top Paid app in late 2008, and feelforit, an IndieCade 2010 finalist. He has been a speaker at GDC, IndieCade, UC Berkeley, SF Academy of Art, Carnegie Mellon MOSAIC, IGDA/GGDA events, SIEGE, and also presented his work at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as part of the UCLA Game Art Festival. In January 2012 Chris was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Entertainment.

Dolce, Nick

Evans, Eric (Sr. Technical Artist, Hi-Rez Studios)

A considerable number of moons ago, Eric landed his first "real" job in the industry as a Character Artist/Jack-of-All-Trades at Kaneva LLC (an Atlanta-based, virtual world/social networking company). A few years into this gig, Eric seized upon an internal opportunity, making the fateful decision to pursue a career as a technical artist. Never looking back, Eric has since assisted in the design of asset pipelines, provided technical support for art teams and often managed to make himself useful using various white magicks such as MAXScript, Lua, Python and AHK scripting. At present, Eric serves as a Sr. Technical Artist for Hi-Rez Studios, rigging characters, wrangling assets and generally harnessing the power of technology for good.

Gholson, Zane

Zane Gholson is currently a software engineer for Research Network Inc developing game-based military simulations and live to virtual bridging technologies. While participating at RNI, Zane has experienced development inside Unity3d, Adobe Air and (his personal favorite) Unreal. His first contributions to the game industry at American Book Company in 2010 developing mobile K-12th grade educational games and applications. After that, he began to work for Eyes Wide Games on "Top Gear: Speed World," a Flash game for Facebook. In his spare time, Zane has been working on mobile games for Android and iPhone via Unity and Flash. He attends the annual DeVry game industry advisory board meetings to help inform future game and software developers.

Gillham, Tony (Producer, Rising Storm)

Started modding Red Orchestra: Ostfront 1941-45 with Carpathian Crosses team in 2007. Responsible for getting Darkest Hour mod for Red Orchestra ready for Steam release. Currently Producer of Rising Storm Pacific Theater mod for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad, preparing for retail release 2013.

Gordon, Glen

Glen is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft based in Atlanta. He brings resources and free training to developer communities in the southeast.

Greenberg, Andrew

Andrew Greenberg, best known for designing computer games and roleplaying games, is lead developer on the upcoming Haunted House Tycoon PC/Mac game and the Fading Suns: Noble Armada mobile and tablet game. Andrew co-created the “Fading Suns” roleplaying and computer games and was the original developer of White Wolf’s “Vampire: The Masquerade.” He has credits on more than 50 White Wolf products and more than 20 HDI books. He has also worked on products with other roleplaying game companies, including “Star Trek Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.” His computer game credits include Dracula Unleashed, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Warhammer 40K: Final Liberation, Merchant Prince II, Mall Tycoon, Dungeon Lords, The Virtual World of Kaneva, Railroad Tycoon Mobile and the Global Agenda MMO. A fellow with the Mythic Imagination Institute, Andrew is also the organizer of the Southeast Interactive Entertainment and Games Expo (SIEGE).

Groegler, Chris (Senior Sound Designer, Ubisoft / Red Storm Entertainment)

Chris Groegler is a Senior Sound Designer at Ubisoft/Red Storm Entertainment. He recently shipped Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for Xbox 360 and PS3 in the position of Audio Lead for Multiplayer. Chris joined Red Storm in 2004 and has worked on such titles as Ghost Recon 2 for Xbox, GRAW1 and GRAW2 for Xbox 360, as well as Rainbow Six: Lockdown for PS2 and PC. He started his career in game development in 1994 and has over 25 published titles to his credit. Chris enjoys field recording and has traveled to many places to gather sounds including Europe, Japan, Canada, Central America, and many places in the US. Chris stays busy by having a part-time job with CanesVision and Wolfpack TV where he works with The Carolina Hurricanes hockey team as well as NC State football and basketball programs. He also works as a sound editor and re-recording mixer for different NC based documentary film makers.

Hamilton, Lincoln (Co-founder, Blue Mammoth Games)

Lincoln is the co-founder of Blue Mammoth Games, an independent MMO company that created Dungeon Blitz, a side scrolling action MMO for your browser. Before Blue Mammoth, he started and sold his first web business, Arena Junkies, in 2008. His expertise is in MMO server achitecture, networking, and gameplay. He has been in the game industry for five years, working at Cryptic Studios and CCP.

Hanish, Nathan

Nathan Hanish is a software engineer with 12 years of experience in the computer games and related industries. He holds both a Bachelor and Master of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and an MBA (Management of Technology) also from UAHuntsville. His industry credits include 4 years as client programmer on the Wish MMO project with (now defunct) Mutable Realms as well as credits on both James Bond: From Russia With Love and The Godfather: The Game from Electronic Arts, and management and development of the Virtual Training System for DoD training/virtual-reality/marketing. He is currently an online game client developer (java+opengl) for Bit Trap Studios. He coordinates meetings for the Huntsville Chapter of the IGDA (Independant Game Developers Association). Nathan is also an Eagle Scout, and a National Merit Scholar.

Hassett, Rob

Rob is an attorney with the law firm of Casey Gilson P.C. in Atlanta, GA.  He practices in the areas of technology, entertainment and corporate law.  He frequently represents companies that are licensing, selling or acquiring intellectual property.
Rob is a founding board member of the recently formed Intellectual Property Law Section of the Atlanta Bar Association .  Rob is the co-author of Volume 5 on Internet and Interactive Media Law of LexisNexis’ 10 volume treatise on Entertainment Law Contracts.  For 1998-1999 he was Co-Chair and for 1999-2001 was Chair of the Subcommittee on Policies for Managing Generic Top Level Domains of the Special Committee on Trademarks and the Internet of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association.  He teaches Information Security Law in the Professional Education Program at Georgia Tech.  Rob has served on the Boards of SERIS and IMAGE.  Rob was the Chairman and co-founder of the 1995 Atlanta Interactive Media Expo.  He has written numerous articles which have been published concerning software, entertainment, internet, copyright, and trademark law. He has also given numerous presentations in these areas. He has, from time to time, appeared on television programs to discuss issues relating to Internet law.  Rob has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” in the Georgia edition of Law and Policy Magazine most years since it was started in 2004.  Rob has also been named as a “Fellow” by the highly selective Knights of the Bar.   Rob graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering. While attending Georgia Tech, he was a co-op for the Georgia Power Company. He attended law school at the University of Georgia where he was a member of the editorial board of the Law Review and graduated cum laude.

Hatch, Adam

Adam Hatch is the Lead Level Designer at Tripwire Interactive. In 2003 Adam was originally involved in the Make Something Unreal Contest modification, Red Orchestra, that in 2005 spun off the creation of Tripwire Interactive and the retail release of Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. Before Tripwire Interactive was started Adam parted ways and worked in the Serious Games industry for 3 years, before rejoining the Tripwire team in 2008. Adam has since then worked on the retail release (2009) of Killing Floor and Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad, due for release in 2011.  Adam is self-taught and has been working professionally in the games industry for nearly 5 years.

Herring, Randy (Owner, Asgard Studios)

Randy Herring is a Scrum Master and Developer with 30 years of software development experience including agile project management, programming, designing software, documenting and promoting software, creating user documentation and web site content. He has experience in helping companies in a variety of industries develop their products and services. Randy Herring is the owner and a programmer for Asgard Studios.

Herring, Raymond

I am the Game Designer, 3D Artist and Technical Artist for Asgard Studios. I have been involved with digital art for over 7 years. My tool set includes Photoshop, Modo and Zbrush.

Higgenbotham, James

I got my start…well 22 years ago when I picked up my first game controller to start playing video games. I have been covering the video game industry for almost 7 years. (Focus on Nintendo) I have covered events from E3, Comic Cons, Round Tables, and Siege. Helped kick start Pure Nintendo magazine. Which is a digital and physical magazine and sadly now the only Nintendo Magazine in North America.

Hubbell, Ken (Sr. Mgr. Learning Tech, Ingersoll Rand plc.)

Jacobson, Dov (Owner, Games That Work)

Dov Jacobson joined the game industry in 1979, developing online games for Time Warner, art games for NY galleries, and coin-op games for - well, the Mafia. Later, as head of Turner Interactive in the 90's, he was responsible for several briefly celebrated mainstream titles. He recently served on the game development faculty of NYU. His boutique studio, GamesThatWork is a hub of Atlanta game talent. The studio creates specialty games for entertainment, learning, promotion and research. GamesThatWork has won recent serious game development competitions held by DARPA and IARPA and is now executing on those visions. At SIEGE 2012, the studio will debut "Brush Off", a lively game for six year-olds produced for the National Institute of Health.

Jacobson, Jesse (Lead Technologist, Games That Work)

Jesse Jacobson has worked in the game industry since 1998. He has been worked on a variety of titles from the children's game "I See Sue" (the first CD-ROM distributed game to be written in Flash), to the "Vanilla Coke Mystery Game" (web-delivered flash content), to military simulations in a proprietary 3D engine. Along the way he has developed a natural language scripting format (ConvX), systems for using swarm intelligence to emulate creativity, and "soul-vision" AI. He co-authored "Flash and XML: A Developer's Guide" and has presented a ConvX implementation at conferences. He is currently Lead Technologist at GamesThatWork.

Johnson, Timothy (Lead Developer, No, You Shut Up Games)

Knaack, Nathan (Level Designer, CCP)

Since joining CCP Games in 2009, Nathan Knaack has held a variety of roles, including content writing, level design, and live events for EVE Online and level design for Dust 514 and World of Darkness Online. Before that, he was a writer and level designer for Global Agenda, the debut title from Hi-Rez Studios. Originally from Detroit, he currently lives in Atlanta and works out of CCP’s new studio in Decatur. He spends his free time playing games, riding his motorcycle, and writing short autobiographical summaries.

Knapp, Ben

Ben is a Senior Character Artist at Hi-Rez Studios in Alpharetta, GA. He is currently responsible for creating character art on Tribes Ascend and Smite.

Konsynski, Benn R.

Benn R. Konsynski is the George S. Craft Professor of Business Administration for Decision & Information Analysis. He arrived at the Goizueta Business School in 1993 following seven years on the faculty at the Harvard Business School where he taught in the MBA program and several executive programs. Prior to arriving at the Harvard Business School, he was a professor at the University of Arizona, where he was co-founder of the university's multi-million dollar group decision support laboratory. He was named Hewlett Fellow at the Carter Center in 1995. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University. Professor Konsynski specializes in issues of digital commerce and information technology in relationships across organizations.

Kopelman, Mitchell (Partner In Charge, Habif, Arogeti, & Wynne)

Mitchell is the partner in charge of Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, LLP’s tax practice as well as the technology and life sciences group, leading 80 full-time professionals. He has been a partner since 1990 with HA&W, which is the largest Georgia-based tax, accounting and consulting firm. Mitchell works with the majority of Georgia’s gaming companies as well as companies in the software, clean tech, financial technology (FinTech), health care IT (HCIT), processing, life sciences (biotech and medical device), and manufacturing industries. Mitchell is regarded as one of the preeminent thought leaders on R&D, Jobs, and Retraining tax credits and incentives at the Federal and State level. In addition, he has a particular expertise with the Gaming Tax Credit. He has worked with more than 100 companies this year alone to enable their successful monetization of R&D tax credits. Within the technology and business community, he is regularly called on to speak on the topic of monetizing tax credits and incentives.

Kunz, Adam (Co-founder/COO, Mowgli)

Adam graduated from the University of Georgia in 2002 with a degree in digital media and over the next several years ran operations for two Atlanta-based companies. In 2008, Adam started his own company specializing in digital media and social media integration. In 2010, Adam paired up with one of his current business partners, Marshall Seese, to develop a business plan for Mowgli. Mowgli is a company based around a simple concept - connecting people through social creation. Adam and Marshall then teamed up with Mike VanBeneden to put together an unparalleled team of designers and developers. Since then, Mowgli has had two successful rounds of fundraising with Adam serving as the company's Chief Operating Officer. This position has combined five of Adam's biggest passions - technology, music, design, social media and video games.

LaReau, Britt (Art & Audio Director, Xaviant)

Larkins, Mick

Joining Hi-Rez Studios shortly after its formation in 2005, Mick Larkins has contributed as a senior game programmer to Tribes: Ascend and Global Agenda. He has three published books on the Maya graphics software application, has produced tracks for Harmonix’s Rock Band Network, and has served as an adjunct professor at Savannah College of Art and Design. Mick holds a Master of Fine Arts from Clemson University and a BS in Computer Science from Furman University.

Lightner, Kenneth (Senior Programmer, CCP Games)

Ken Lightner has over 20 years of experience writing, designing, and programming games. Working now as a Senior Programmer at CCP Games North America, he has been the CTO of Blue Heat Games, and a founder of Holistic Design where he worked as a third party developer for leading publishers like S.S.I., Take Two Interactive, Microprose, and Segasoft. His numerous PC credits include Best Buy top ten selling Mall Tycoon, Final Liberation - Epic Warhammer 40K, Emperor of the Fading Suns, and strategy game of the year, Machiavelli the Prince. He helped Blue Heat Games develop titles as diverse as MLB 2008, Snoop Dog Boxing, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon Mobile, Jimmy Neutron Mobile Adventures, and Two Scoop Twist. Ken also has credits in the paper game industry including the Noble Armada miniature game and the Real Life Roleplaying line at Holistic. His fiction work appeared in the horror anthology, Book of All Flesh, by Eden Studios. He currently spends days working on the upcoming World of Darkness MMO and evenings building yet more radio control airplanes!

Lindsey, Tim

Tim Lindsey Design Director Tim Lindsey began his carrier working on X-sports titles for Sony in 1997. Since then he has held roles as an Environment Artist, Technical Artist, Level Designer, Designer, and Director during his nearly 15 year tenure. Tim’s most notable work was on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion where he was responsible for the Oblivion Planes. Before joining Xaviant Tim worked with CCP as the Level Design Director where he contributed to the World of Darkness MMO and multiple EVE Online expansions. As the Design Director at Xaviant, Tim spends the majority of his time creating a vision, working with developers on simple methods for achieving that vision, and orchestrating efforts between Art, Design, and Engineering.

Lipinski, Craig

As Producer for Xaviant, Craig carries forward the vision for the game, coordinates efforts among the design, creative, and engineering teams, and oversees the Development Methodology employed by the studio.

Lovette, Cliff (General Counsel, Macquarium)

Mr. Lovette has 20+ years experience in the Atlanta Entertainment Industry, including as Sr. VP of LaFace Records, Production Counsel for Fathom Studios (CGI feature film Company), General Counsel of Definition6 (makers of True Blood mini-movie FB app for HBO), and adviser to Entertainment Arts Research.

Lowe, Clinton (Chairman, GGDA, Co-creator, SIEGE)

Mr. Lowe is CEO of C. Allen Lowe & Associates, LLC, an executive consulting and venture catalyst firm. Mr. Lowe has assisted 20+ game studios with business strategy and management issues. His financial plans have been used to seek or sell over $120 million in assets and equity.   He improved the speed and cost-efficiency of the graphic art pipelines of World Touch Gaming and BBMF/Menue Americas by integrating offshore labor and well-defined communication protocols.  Mr. Lowe works extensively in the casino gaming sector. He currently serves as co-founder and CTO of Totem Technologies, Inc., producer of Native Lands Lottery serving Native American tribes.   Mr. Lowe currently serves as COO of Visioneering Games, Inc. and an advisory board member to Drowning Monkeys, LLC.  He is co-founder and chairman of Georgia Game Developers Association, Inc.  Mr. Lowe is a life-time member of IGDA and was IGDA Atlanta Chapter Coordinator from 2004-2007. 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/clintonalowe

Luh, Walter (CEO/Founder, Corona SDK)

Walter Luh is Founder, CEO and creator of Corona SDK, the marquee product of software development company, Corona Labs. In a previous life, Walter was Lead Architect for Adobe Flash Lite, a mobile runtime that has shipped on over a billion devices. During that time, he led the engineering team, pioneered advanced mobile graphics, and jump-started key strategic relationships. Prior to Flash, Walter shipped several industry-standard products for creative professionals including Adobe Illustrator and Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Walter holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Swarthmore College, and a master's in computer science from Stanford University.

Massingale, Adam (Lead Game Developer, Research Network Incorporated)

Adam started his career contributing to a Half-Life 2 Deathmatch mod while obtaining his bachelor’s degree in game programming. He landed his first game industry position designing and programming web and mobile K-12th grade educational games and applications. When not at his day job, Adam also contributes on game related projects with friends. In addition to side projects, Adam tutors aspiring game developers and attends universities industry advisory board meetings. Adam is currently a lead game developer at Research Network Incorporated developing game- based military trainers and live to virtual bridging technologies. At RNI, Adam works inside of the industry's leading game engines such as Unreal 3, CryEngine3, and his personal favorite Unity.

McCarter, Beverly (Principal, Human Mosaic Systems, LLC)

McLain, Ellen

Ellen McLain is an opera singer and voice actress, best known as the voice of GLaDOS(Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) from Valve's hit games Portal and Portal 2. In the hit Portal series GLaDOS is the artificial intelligence antagonist leading you(the character) through the game. Ellen has also voiced some other recognized characters such as the announcer in Team Fortress 2, and the voice of the Combine overwatch for the Half-Life 2 series. Ellen is married to John Patrick Lowrie who is a published Sci-Fi writer as well as fellow voice actor for many video games. Ellen's website can be found at www.EllenMcLain.net Twitter: @EllenMcLain

McMain, Michael

Grand Architect, Project Humanity (Chief Executive Officer) Michael brings extensive management experience in IT and gaming companies to Xaviant. He began his career in gaming in 2001 at RealTime Gaming, a leading platform for online casino games. After just two years, Michael rose from software engineer to CEO. In this position he not only helped the company turn a significant corner in market position; he was instrumental in building an organization in Costa Rica to handle the software development tasks for the platform. In 2008, with the Costa Rica operation up and running, Michael turned his attention to his passion for video games, and formed Xaviant.

Menard, Michelle

Menhorn, Jack (Composer & Sound Designer)

Jack Menhorn is a sound designer, implementer and composer that has been making music and sounds for games for over 7 years. He has worked on a wide variety of indie games, including The Haunted: Hell's-Reach which won Epic Game's Make Something Unreal Contest as well as inMomentum and Hack Slash Loot which are all available on Steam. Jack is also the Editor in Chief of DesigningSound.org which is a well-known resource for film and game sound designers, field recordists and he is also QA Lead at Villain LLC, an iOS developer in North Carolina. Jack most recently worked on Offworld, a Unity3D iOS game in which he did all of the SFX and audio implementation as well as additional music.

Merritt, Brad

As Lead Game Designer for Cartoon Network’s Games Studio, Brad Merritt has designed and directed dozens of games for CartoonNetwork.com and AdultSwim.com. While working in the web design industry, Brad started creating Flash games in 1999. He lives with his wife in Atlanta, where he is the organizer of the Atlanta Game Developer Meetup and has served as a guest instructor at the Art Institute of Atlanta.

Mihill, Thomas

Mr. Mihill’s practice encompasses a wide range of complex business disputes, with an emphasis on intellectual property. Mr. Mihill has represented individuals and corporations in both bringing and defending against trademark and copyright infringement claims, trade secret violations, and cybersquatting actions. In the area of video games and virtual worlds, Mr. Mihill has counseled and represented game developers and publishers in intellectual property and business matters.

Mr. Mihill has tried cases and represented clients at the state and federal level, in Georgia and nationwide. 

Mr. Mihill is a member of the IGDA and GGDA, as well as the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, the State Bar of Georgia, the Atlanta Bar Association, and the Cobb County Bar Association.

Morales, Hugo (Cinematic Animator, CCP)

In 1995, I started my career as a traditional animator. By 2002 I had transitioned to 3D working at a start up game company in Quebec, Canada. Although my background is film animation, I would always return to game studios such as EA and Microids to work on in-game and cinematic animations. After a few years working in the unstable film industry, I decided to go back to video games as a cinematic animator at Bioware Corp. I came to CCP in 2010.

Munk, Bill (Art Director, Tripwire Interactive)

Muraski, Mark (Lead Sound Designer, Xaviant)

Mark Muraski is the Lead Sound Designer at Xaviant LLC. Mark joined Xaviant in May of this year to oversee the audio work on their upcoming title. Prior to working at Xaviant, Mark worked at High Voltage in Chicago Illinois as a Senior Sound Designer. Mark has shipped over 12 titles across multiple platforms including PS2, Wii, 3DS, Xbox 360, and PC. As the owner of Fuse Studios in Rockford, Il. Mark worked with clients including Cheap Trick, Comedy Central, ESPN’s Monday Night Football, and Cory Chisel. He has composed/ produced music for film and TV including Dawson’s Creek and Sony Pictures. Mark stays busy building custom guitar pedals and amplifiers in his spare time.

Mytrohovich, Jessica (Sr. Accountant, Habif, Arogeti, &amp Wynne)

Jessica is a senior accountant with the Audit Group of Habif, Arogeti & Wynne. Jessica specializes in compilation and review procedures and bookkeeping services and is very actively involved with the firm’s technology and gaming practice. Jessica earned a Bachelor of Science degree and Masters degree in Accounting from Kennesaw State University. Jessica serves as Treasurer of the Georgia Game Developers Association.

Nicholson, Chris (Composer &amp Sound Designer)

For the past 9 years Chris Nicholson has worked professionally as a Composer and Sound Designer. He has had placements with some of the industry leaders in entertainment such as CNN, ESPN2, FOX SPORTS NET, TURNER STUDIOS, CARTOON NETWORK, ADULT SWIM, FUSION TV and TETON GRAVITY RESEARCH. Game credits include titles such as CLONE WARS: PATH OF THE JEDI, BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD - DYNAMIC DOUBLE TEAM, BOOMBLASTICA and CARTOON NETWORK TKO to name a few. Chris also shares his craft through teaching Pro Tools HD, Electronic Music Production and Post Production at the Atlanta Institute of Music.

Patel, Shovaen (Programmer, Robot Entertainment)

Pink, Harrison (Game Designer, Telltale Games)

Harrison Pink is an award-winning game designer currently employed at Telltale Games in San Rafael, most recently working on The Walking Dead series. Harrison has designed and developed games for many different audiences, from child to adult. He is passionate about the immersive nature of the experience, and cites the Myst video game series as his inspiration (often and frequently!). Harrison always has more than a few board game ideas rattling around in his head, or half-prototyped on note cards scattered around his house.

Pitstick, Katelyn (Level Designer, Hi-Rez Studios)

Pope, Chris

Chris Pope (dubbed SpacePope by Sierra/Space Quest/SpaceVenture fans) is an internet personality, producer, social media mogul, podcaster and co-founder of Guys From Andromeda LLC. Most recently, Chris played a key role in helping Guys From Andromeda LLC get crowd funding through Kickstarter by taking the reigns to generate excitement around the return of the Two Guys From Andromeda. This was in regards to their new game idea SpaceVenture. After the successful funding of SpaceVenture, he now works with his partners, Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe (Original creators of the Space Quest Series from Sierra) in making the new game become a reality. Prior to being apart of Guys From Andromeda LLC, Chris first gained internet notability in 2001 when "The Day Report" announced his breaking of the Arcade Pac-Man Turbo world record as recorded by chief scoreboard record keeper Walter Day with Twin Galaxies. In 2008 he launched Tech Jives LLC, a social media and podcast production company. Pope created multiple live interview-based podcasts, including some of the first to do live interviews with celebrity film and voice actors, such as Robert Clotworthy (Voice of Jim Raynor), Rob Paulsen (Voice of Raphael, Yakko Warner, and Pinky), Jen Taylor (Voice of Cortana).

Posey, Burton (Co-Founder, Addo Games)

Posey, Rebecca (Co-Founder, Addo Games)

Powell, Kevin (3D Artist/Level Designer, Hi-Rez Studios)

Preston, Jon

Dr. Preston is the coordinator for the Center of Applied Gaming and Media Arts (CAGMA) and coordinator of the Computer Game Design and Development degree and Associate Professor, School of Computing and Software Engineering at Southern Polytechnic State University. In the past four years, Dr. Preston has hosted seven game jam weekends (three of which were part of the Global Game Jam) totaling over 100 games developed by more than 700 participants. Dr. Preston also serves on the Academic Committee of the Georgia Game Developers Association and is currently the College Fair Coordinator for the 2012 Southeastern Interactive Entertainment and Games Expo. Dr. Preston’s industry experience includes system development for a mobile platform and media company and 3D game development tutorials.

Rickwood, Chris (Composer, Rickwood Music)

Chris Rickwood is an award winning composer known for creating dramatic musical scores for video games, film, and television.  Rickwood’s work can be heard worldwide on a variety of mediums for clients such as Activision, THQ, Microsoft, Cartoon Network, Capcom, and Nintendo.  He began his career by composing intense orchestral cues for several game titles including Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, Evil Dead: Hail to the King, BloodRayne, and Maximo: Ghosts to Glory.  Since then, Rickwood has composed over 20 scores for Cartoon Network New Media, contributed music and sound for several PC games including Age of Empires Online, Tribes: Ascend, and Orcs Must Die!, and experimented with other gaming mediums such as mobile phones and video poker machines.  In 2006, Rickwood was invited to the team of composers hired to produce the new Monday Night Football theme for ESPN and later composed the theme for EA Sports Madden NFL 12.  More of his music was released on Associated Production Music’s Endgame music library and has been placed in television broadcasts for ABC Family, G4TV, Comedy Central, and Fox.  Currently, Rickwood is working on several projects including Hi-Rez Studio’s Smite and other next generation games.

Rogers, Gordon (Entrepreneur)

Gordon is an economist, entrepreneur and angel investor. After working as a financial analyst, in 1988 he established a business (Meliora Systems, Inc.) that created one of the pioneering products in the corporate e-learning & talent management field (Ingenium). He guided the growth of the company from a start-up to IPO through a merger in 1998 with Paul Allen's company, Asymetrix Learning Systems (ASYM). This exit event yielded a 12X return for initial investors in the business. See http://bit.ly/gi9hQ.  After leaving ASYM/CLKS/SUMT in 2000, he spent the next several years investing in and serving on the advisory boards of various tech startups in the e-learning and online coaching sectors. He now focuses primarily on helping early stage ventures in the the digital media and edutainment sectors raise capital and create strategic partnerships. He is President of Atlanta Technology Angels (www.angelatlanta.com), and a member of Angel Lounge (http://www.startuplounge.com/tag/angellounge/), the MIT Enterprise Forum, and the Atlanta CEO Council. He is also Managing Director of Vernon Bridge Ventures, an early stage capital/advisory firm. He serves on the boards of Rapid LD and Good Egg Studios. He has extensive experience serving on boards of non-profit organizations (YMCA of Greater Atlanta, Interfaith Outreach Home, Teacher Support Network, The Lionheart School). He recently completed his first triathlon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Rosman, Ken (Consultant, Visionary Vanguards)

Ken Rosman has spent equal parts of his past 18 years in the video game industry on both the developer and publisher sides of the business, working at companies including Looking Glass Studios, Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Black Isle Studios, Vivendi Universal Games, Sierra Entertainment and Radical Entertainment. Ken's most recent position saw him overseeing the development of PROTOTYPE 2 while managing the operations of Radical Entertainment in Vancouver BC for Activision|Blizzard.

Quinones, Carlos (Co-Founder, Secret Library)

Quintiliani, Andrew (Character Artist, Tripwire Interactive)

Saulter, Joseph

Sawyer, Ben

Ben Sawyer is the co-founder of Digitalmill, a games consulting firm based in Portland, Maine. Since beginning his career in game development over ten years ago, Sawyer has pioneered major initiatives in the field of serious games and has become a nationally recognized leader within the games community.

In 2004, Sawyer co-founded the Games for Health project, an initiative which has built the primary social and professional networks of the health games industry. Through on-line resources and regular regional and national events, Games for Health connects health professionals, researchers, and game developers in order to advance the development of health games and game technologies. The Games for Health project receives major funding from the Pioneer Portfolio, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

As a game developer, Sawyer has worked on over two dozen major serious game projects. In 2000, Sawyer began producing the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's university simulation game, "Virtual U," which was an award finalist at that year’s Independent Games Festival.

Currently he is working with the Yale School of Medicine and Schell Games on a new game to help kids at-risk for HIV acquisition.

Scali, Leland (Lead Environment Artist, Tripwire Interactive)

Schreiber, Ian

Ian Schreiber has been in the game industry since the year 2000, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on five published titles, two serious game simulations, and several other things he can’t talk about. As an educator, Ian has taught game design and development courses at Ohio University, Columbus State Community College, and Savannah College of Art and Design. He has co-authored two books, "Challenges for Game Designers" and "Breaking Into the Game Industry".

Silverio, Joelle (Game Designer, CCP Games)

Joelle Silverio is a video game designer with CCP Games, the creators of EVE Online. She is currently working on the upcoming World of Darkness, an MMORPG based on the Vampire: the Masquerade roleplaying game. Before joining CCP, Joelle worked on the first-person shooters Global Agenda and Tribes: Ascend. Joelle volunteers her time mentoring students who are entering the video game industry.

Simpson, James

James Simpson has been dreaming of writing games since he first touched his Atari 400. He began his career in gaming by studying C/C++ programming as part of B.S. in computer information systems at DeVry University. James followed this up by teaching himself a variety of 3D art tools, and has just recently finished his second Bachelor Degree from Art Institute of Atlanta in Game Art and Design. As part of this he has been working with Autodesk’s Maya and 3D Max programs and a variety of engines such as Unreal 2004, Unreal 3, C4, and Unity. His first published game with WildTangent was called “Invasion: The Last Stand” followed by a series of contract projects with various gaming studios such as Cartoon Network, Shifting Suns, The Game Creators, Vortex Games. At the moment he owns the game company “Cellbloc Studios”, contracting to create various casual games as well as working on a kid MMO called Bobbers World.

Skemp, Ethan

Ethan Skemp is a Content Designer for Xaviant. He has over thirteen years of credits in the tabletop roleplaying game industry, working as an editor, line developer and writer. He’s worked on or developed books for over a dozen game lines inside and outside the World of Darkness, in particular working as a line developer on Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Werewolf: The Forsaken, and Changeling: The Lost. He previously worked as a content designer on the World of Darkness MMO for CCP NA; his current project is Xaviant’s forthcoming game Lichdom. He spends his free time playing games with his wife and cabal of friends, looking after his neurotic dogs, and designing worlds on a bet.

Smith, Jeffrey, MS, CUXP (IBM)

Sorensen, Blake (Patent Attorney, Merchant & Gould)

Blake Sorensen is a registered patent attorney in the Atlanta office of Merchant & Gould with experience in intellectual property licensing, drafting and prosecuting patent applications, writing patent opinions, and trademark registration. Prior to joining the firm's electronics and computer law practice group, Mr. Sorensen amassed seven years of industry experience in user interface design, statistical analysis software development, online computer game development and management, and embedded systems development. He is a member of the Intellectual Property and Science and Technology Sections of the American Bar Association and serves on the Virtual Worlds and Multi-User Online Games, Open Source Software, and Information Security committees.

Stanley, Michael (Game Designer/Artist, Addo Games)

Thomas, Deborah (Founder/President, SillyMonkey LLC)

Treadway, Brandon

Brandon Treadway is a full time Software Engineer doing java programming for Liaison Technologies and a Contract Game Programmer in the Atlanta Area. He graduated from UGA in 2007 with a BS in Computer Science. Mr. Treadway completed his Masters in Computer Science in 2010. He is currently working on 3 Contracts all involving Unity 3D. He has been using Unity 3D for about 4 years and has become a proficient programmer using C#. Mr. Treadway has developed games for game jams built for the Web, PC and Mac platforms. One of his current contracts is writing an educational game for the iPad. He has a wide range of skills using Unity 3D and would love to talk about the Engine from a programmer stand point.

Vilen, Teemu

Teemu Vilen joined CCP in 2007, and works as the Content Director on the World of Darkness Online project in Atlanta. His prior decade of work ranges from other massive virtual worlds to stock exchange mergers and online news media.

Vinson, Chuk

Wagner, Matte (Sound Designer, Ubisoft / Red Storm Entertainment)

Matte Wagner is currently working at Ubisoft/Red Storm Entertainment as a Sound Designer. He recently worked on the adversarial portion of "Ghost Recon: Future Soldier" for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2006, Matte worked as a touring musician and freelance sound designer for smaller indie titles until being hired at RSE in 2011. He is now working as a Sound Designer for an unannounced multiplatform title, is leading development on his own mobile game, and collaborates with Raleigh based filmmaker Turquoise Films doing location sound and mixing.

Warren, Rob (Music Composer, Rob Warren Music & Sound)

Rob Warren is a music composer and 2012 Telly Award winning sound designer for games, film, and television. Some of Rob’s credits include Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Warhammer Online, Outlaw Golf, Dragon Tales, You Don’t Know Jack, NHL ’13, Dance Dance Revolution, Essential Sounds III loop library for Sony Acid, NCAA Football, and Madden NFL to name just a few. Rob also composed music for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and was the lead music producer for Disney’s Phineas & Ferb Live Tour in 2011. His music compositions for the Deer Avenger game were used by Microsoft to demonstrate the capabilities of its Direct Music Producer tool for the Xbox in 2004. Rob worked for EA sports from 2005 – 2012 and is currently owner of Rob Warren Music and Sound.

Webb, Eddy

Eddy Webb (with a “y,” thank you) is an award-winning writer and game designer. Hired on with CCP in late 2007, he has worked on a variety of role-playing games, including acting as Lead Developer for Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. Today he designs content for the upcoming World of Darkness MMO. He lives a sitcom life with his wife, his roommate, a supervillain cat, and an affably stupid pug.

Williams, Michael (CEO/Founder, Oomba, Inc.)

Wilson, Alan (Vice President, Tripwire Interactive)

Alan has worked in Oil, Defence and Finance sectors over a 30-year "serious" career, before moving over to the games industry. Alan has also been a military historian, mixing that with game design over the same period. This led to the “Red Orchestra” mod in 2003. When the team won the MSU contest, Alan supported the creation of Tripwire Interactive LLC along with the other key players in the original team. Alan worked on the design, budgeting and planning of the development of “Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45”, as well as focussing on raising the required funding for the company to develop the game completely independently. RO scored in the top 10% on Metacritic for 2006 (81) and has now sold over 600,000 units on PC worldwide. Tripwire launched the hit co-op zombie shooter, Killing Floor in 2009, which went to #1 on Steam and Red Orchestra 2: “Heroes of Stalingrad” in 2011. KF has now sold over 1.3m units on PC. Tripwire has pioneered selling games digitally, alongside traditional retail routes to market, with great success. Additionally, Tripwire has got involved with other independent developers, publishing Zeno Clash, The Ball and Dwarfs!?, as well as mentoring and advising startups."

Woomer, Matt (Co-founder, Blue Mammoth Games)

Matt Woomer is co-founder of Blue Mammoth Games, an Atlanta based game developer. Their first launched title was Dungeon Blitz, a browser-based action MMO. Matt has been programming massively multiplayer online games for ten years. Matt served as lead graphics programmer on City of Heroes at Cryptic Studios, a senior programmer at Hi-Rez Studios, and a consulting programmer at CCP Atlanta. Matt is teased by fellow programmers because his degree is in American History.