Please take a look @ www.jordankwexler.com
I'll be attending the conference from Wednesday 03/01 to Saturday 03/04 and hope to meet and learn from a diversity of great developers.
The talks and seminars I am allowed admittance to is a bit limited with my Expo Pass, but there are a handful that caught my eye.
Location: Room 2002, West Hall
Speaker:
Ste Curran (Corridor of Uncertainty)
To make absolutely sure of something you double tap.
Double Tap is about guns, their effect on games and how that changes gamers (and the world). It's an intense, combative talk that asks the audience to reflect on the games they play and create. Are games really fixated with firearms? Is that a problem? Why is the double tap important? And why did lying face down in a bush make someone feel the most human they've ever felt inside a digital world?
Double Tap is about guns, their effect on games and how that changes gamers (and the world). It's an intense, combative talk that asks the audience to reflect on the games they play and create. Are games really fixated with firearms? Is that a problem? Why is the double tap important? And why did lying face down in a bush make someone feel the most human they've ever felt inside a digital world?
Location: Career Theater, North Hall
Career opportunities are abundant within the game industry; unfortunately, so are uncertainty events like layoffs and studio shutdowns. This session, delivered by a team that works "in the trenches" of career services and game development education, will give game developers at all levels of knowledge and expertise, from interns to senior developers, and artists to engineers, the knowledge and tools they need to create resumes and cover letters that will get their applications escalated up the hiring chain.
Location: Room 3020, West Hall
Speaker:
Mia Consalvo (Concordia University)
What does ethical player testing entail? Are there things that game developers should never do to or with game testers? How can they be sure that they are being fair to players by informing them of things that might happen to them during testing, particularly if developers don't want to reveal everything about their game in advance? This presentation makes the case for ethical play testing and offers developers a practical guide for implementing ethical player testing. It starts with an overview of the history of human subjects research, provides resources for more information, and then dives into what ethical player testing can look like, and how to implement your own best practices for player testing.
Location: Room 2005, West Hall
Speaker:
Mark Barrett (PopCap)
A low-cost, high-speed, guide to how a person with limited ability to code, design, draw, or pay for help, can still build a testable prototype in less than a month.
Location: Room 2005, West Hall
Speakers:
Tim Hargreaves (Intel), Michelle Flamm (Independent), Michelle Hill (2K Games), Josh Raab (Big Huge Games), Alyssa Hoey (Voltage Entertainment)
Getting an industry job is simple: get a degree, get an internship, get hired. Right? According to this cross discipline panel, reality is a little more complicated. Between achieving a history degree, prop making, the Royal Canadian Navy and failed projects and companies, learn about some of the paths less traveled in order to achieve the one true goal: gainful employment in the games industry. Hear the war stories of how they got here, and ask questions about how their different experiences shaped how they approach the industry. Sometimes they were lucky, sometimes they worked their hands to the bone, but they all succeeded in an unconventional fashion.
