Talks

Are retro games truly lost to time? Lindsay Barnett and James Deighan are at the forefront of a massive revival: the return of the Backyard Sports franchise. Once beloved, it faded into a loss so complete that the source code was destroyed, leaving only the IP rights in a form so hard to find that Lindsay, now CEO of Playground Productions, had to hire a literal private investigator to track them down on her mission to create gaming experiences worthy of her students at Chicago Public Schools. IP rights in hand, she found James Deighan and his unique company Mega…

Desirée Rincón is a woman of many talents: leader, military veteran, video game program manager, social media manager, graphic designer - but at her core, always a gamer and community organizer. Her resilience has also been tested in a way few people ever face, and she continues to choose community and hope even in the face of repeated adversity. As we explore her story, you see how she repeatedly uses video gaming to connect communities - military units, orphaned military children, disabled gamers, and out of work game developers. And that's not getting into the magic of her service dog…

Cheryl Platz is honored to be joining the ranks of this spring's cohort of Stanford HCI Seminar presenters, invited to share her take on the Motivators of Play and other topics related to the intersection of user experience and game design with Stanford's advanced human-computer interaction community. As Cheryl has just completed teaching this semester's session of her original game development MBA class "What Makes Us Play," which she teaches as adjunct faculty for Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, she will also be sharing insights as an educator from three years of teaching this material as it has evolved from…

has been named one of this year's 50 Hungama Game Changers in the Gaming cohort in recognition of her ground-breaking work on her books The Game Development Strategy Guide and Design Beyond Devices, her game dev podcast Enduring Play, and her continued contributions as a game developer, content creator, and video game academic. A jury-curated award administered by Hungama Digital Media, this award recognizes women across the fields of music, video, and gaming annually. From the official press release: The intersection of culture and commerce is where the most transformative stories live and this year’s Hungama Game Changers embody that…

If you're looking to start or grow a thriving community of game developers, you're probably going to want to take a page from the notebook of Seattle Indies Executive Director Tim Cullings. From his time in indie and AAA gaming to his time running the biggest indie game development organization in North America, Tim is a passionate organizer who constantly organizes organizers, trying to bring energy to the people educating the next generation of game developers, people creating the next generation of studios, and people who just need some support with a nasty bug in their engine. This conversation dives…

Cheryl Platz, author of the new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, is thrilled to be speaking at her first Game Developers Conference as a part of the popular Spreadsheets microtalk series, returning for a second year. In this series, a collection of talented game designers from across the industry bring you practical, tactical tips for applying a game designer's favorite tool - spreadsheets - to improve your daily work. Last year's inaugural Spreadsheets microtalks were a breakout hit, and Cheryl is honored to join the lineup this year. Cheryl's spreadsheet microtalk, "Localization Magic,"…