| The Venue: All-Suite Hotel & Casino |
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Current Trends and Directions in
Electronic Game Development
The exploding popularity of electronic games is being propelled beyond the boundaries of the entertainment field into multiple domains and disciplines. This medium combined with broader market reach, evolving networked interactions, growth in game technologies has created new expectations for game potential. Come explore emergent areas in the field. Presenters will cover the broad array of current trends – from accessible game engines to rapid prototyping to project management issues to higher education. | Track Organizer: |
| Attendees will: | BENEFITS: |
| Game development is a field that is currently attracting a lot of interest, especially in the corporate sphere as a means to draw young people into the field of engineering, programming and software engineering (IBM and Microsoft as examples). It is a popular media draw. Speakers are game development professionals from around the globe with unique perspectives. |
Who Should Attend: This track is designed for professionals interested in current trends and future directions in game development. |
| Agenda |
| 9:00 - 10:00am "Games – Today and Tomorrow" Ann DeMarle, Director of the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College |
| 10:00-11:00am "What Educational Games Can Learn from Entertainment" Scot Osterweil, Creative Director, The Education Arcade/MIT |
| 11:00-11:15am Break |
| 11:15-12:30pm Fast Forward: Round Table Discussion on Future Trends in Game Development Roundtable Discussion: Davey Jackson, Senta Jacobsen, Scot Osterweil, Martin Walker and Ann DeMarle as moderator |
| 12:30 - 1:30pm Lunch |
| 1:30-2:30pm "Stuffing an Octopus into A String Bag – The Art of Managing a Game Team" Senta Jacobsen, Senior Development Director for Mirror’s Edge at DICE, Stockholm, Sweden |
| 2:40-3:50pm "What to do with all those wonderful CPU cycles? The future of gaming on new generation hardware." Martin Walker, CTO at A2M in Montreal, Canada |
| 3:50-4:00pm Break |
| 4:00-4:45pm "Game Engines: Making Game Development Accessible" Davey Jackson, Garage Games |
| Presenters |
| Ann DeMarle, Director of the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College Bio: Ann DeMarle is the director of the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College. In 2006, she became the first recipient of the Roger H. Perry Endowed Chair, established to support initiatives promoting innovation, change, and entrepreneurship at the College. Formerly the founding director of both the Electronic Game and the Multimedia and Graphic Design degree programs, DeMarle used the endowment to create an on-campus center dedicated to emergent media. Key to its mission is an approach that brings the media and technology expertise of Champlain students together with organizations looking to explore and create new solutions. Through partnerships, the Center has been exploring the impact of game technologies and emergent media on learning, communication and decision-making. Much of DeMarle’s work has involved the integration of education and technology. In 2004, DeMarle was recognized as an Apple Computer Distinguished Educators. She is the founding director of the Governor's Institute of Vermont in Information Technology for outstanding high school students. Currently she is a volunteer on the IEEE Computer Society Education Advisory Board. Session: "Games – Today and Tomorrow" Abstract: In electronic games, to “level-up” means to enter a new, more difficult stage of game play. As Moore’s Law comes to an end in 2012, we will enter a new paradigm with 3D chips, self-organizing nanotechnology, and Artificial Intelligence capable of mirroring the human brain. It is in this technological context that the electronic game world exists. It has created a Renaissance world–one of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary possibilities–technology, art and communications working together towards a common goal. As an opening overview, this presentation will present a context for the questions for the day. |
| Davey Jackson, GarageGames Bio: Davey joined GarageGames in 2005 with a background in marketing and customer relations. As the Director of Academic Outreach, Davey is primarily responsible for coordinating GarageGames education, serious games and academic research efforts. During his time at GarageGames, Davey has helped hundreds of educators learn about the "Indie" games market and game development tools. An avid gamer, Jackson started playing computer games on an Apple IIC at age 5. Utilizing educational games throughout his K-12 schooling helped Jackson to overcome learning disabilities. Session: "Game Engines: Making Game Development Accessible" Abstract: In this session, Davey Jackson will speak about how digital distribution affecting video games, and how to prepare students for the rapidly growing games industry. Davey will give a brief overview of GarageGames' game engines, and discuss how teachers are currently using game engines in the classroom. Davey will also discuss the history of GarageGames, from its roots as a small, internet-based, game technology provider, to its growth as a revolutionary web publishing company on the new InstantAction.com platform. |
| Senta Jacobsen, Senior Development Director for Mirror’s Edge at DICE, Stockholm, Sweden Bio: Senta Jakobsen is currently the Senior Development Director for Mirror’s Edge at DICE, Stockholm, Sweden. Prior to joining DICE she worked for Radical Entertainment in Vancouver, Canada. During her six year tenure she started as a programmer in the research department and ended up as a game team project manager. She is passionate about creating and developing game teams that consistently deliver games to the right quality: on time, on budget and without killing the people involved. Session: "Stuffing an Octopus into A String Bag – The Art of Managing a Game Team" Abstract: Using her work on the Takedown team at EA Dice, as examples, Senta will be discussing the process of organizing and managing a game team from concept discovery to final. |
| Scot Osterweil, Creative Director, The Education Arcade/MIT Bio: Scot Osterweil is Creative Director of MIT’s Education Arcade, and leads the design of a number of games about math, literacy, science, history and language learning. Before coming to MIT, Scot was the Senior Designer at TERC, where he designed Zoombinis’ Island Odyssey, winner of the 2003 Bologna New Media Prize, and the latest game in the Zoombinis line of products. Scot is the creator of the Zoombinis, and co-designed the multi-award winning Zoombinis’ Logical Journey, and its first sequel, Zoombinis’ Mountain Rescue. Scot is the also the designer of the TERCworks games Switchback, and Yoiks! Scot's other software designs include work on the educational products InspireData, Tabletop and Tabletop Jr., and The Nature of Science. At TERC he participated in research projects on the role of computer games in learning, and the use of video in data collection. Previously, he worked in Public Television. Session: "What Educational Games Can Learn from Entertainment" Abstract: Suddenly, the idea of games for learning is hot again, and plenty of lip service is being paid to the concept. This renewed interest is certainly welcome, but it is essential that educators understand when games are the appropriate tool for the job, and what makes them succeed or fail. |
| Francis Picard, Senior Manager, EA Montreal Bio: Francis Picard is Development Director at EA Mobile Montreal. He has been working in the mobile gaming industry since 2003 when he joined Hexacto, a multi-platform game production company. After being acquired by JAMDAT Mobile in 2003, it merged with Electronic Arts in 2006 and now employs over 250 people. The studio is responsible for many of today’s most popular mobile games such as Tetris, Bejeweled, SimCity Societies and skate., the 2007 AIAS Award winner for Cellular Game of the Year. Throughout the evolution of the studio, Francis has played many roles in both engineering and management, giving him firsthand experience in almost all activities related to the production of a mobile game. Session: "The Big business of Small games: Insights into mobile game development" Abstract: With more than one billion mobile phones sold this year, this is the most ubiquitous software platform in the world. This session will give an overview of mobile game development, its current and future challenges. |
| Martin Walker, CTO at A2M in Montreal, Canada Bio: Martin Walker, CTO at A2M, has been involved in commercial software development in Montreal since the mid 80’s. He has spent most of his career in the multimedia arena, working for companies like Matrox Electronics, Softimage and others. He has been a key player in building tools and environments for video productions including special effects and 3D computer graphics. His venture in the gaming industry has evolved into the creation of A2M’s multiplatform game engine and the elaboration of an optimized production pipeline to produce good quality console video games fast. Session: "The Search for Implied Intelligence: Making Believable Characters" Abstract: We've all heard about the amazing graphics we can get from the new generation of game consoles and graphics chips. But games are not just about pretty pictures. They are all about the immersive nature of gameplay experiences which include great visuals, sounds and believable characters. The author proposes a combination of commercially available software and academic research to synthesize implied intelligence. With game consoles gaining more CPU cycles and correspondingly not as much memory, it is suggested that synthesis rather than sampling is the promise of the future. It is time for character intelligence in games to catch up with graphics. |
| ** Don't wait to register! Seating will be limited to maximize the quality of your experience. | |
The Technology Summit series is designed to provide development & strategy executives, CTOs, CIOs, senior-level managers and leaders in technology with an opportunity to come together in small groups to learn about the very latest issues, information, strategies and advances impacting today's high-technology business. If you have any questions, please contact us: TechSummit@computer.org | Series Organizer: |
This IEEE Computer Society Technology Summit series event is being held
in conjunction with the Computer Society's 'Board of Governors' meetings week.