Game Education Summit - Texas

[Tami]

DISNEY INTERACTIVE STUDIOS' WARREN SPECTOR AND MARK MEYERS TO KEYNOTE FIRST GAME EDUCATION SUMMIT AT SMU IN JUNE

DALLAS, TX – MAY 1, 2008 – Organizers of the first Game Education Summit on the campus of Southern Methodist University, June 10-12, have announced that the Keynote address on June 11th will be delivered by Disney Interactive Studios executives Warren Spector, Vice President and Creative Director, Junction Point Studios, and Mark Meyers, Vice President, North America Production. The June 10th Keynote will be presented by Colleen McCreary, Global Director of Strategic Education and Outreach Initiatives for Electronic Arts.

The purpose of the summit is for educators to hear from industry leaders what skill sets will be required to meet the needs of an $18 billion entertainment sector and a growing serious games industry.

Warren Spector has worked in the game industry for more than 20 years. After creating pen-and-paper games with Steve Jackson Games and TSR, Spector produced award-winning games at Origin Systems including Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Underworld 2: Labyrinth of Worlds, System Shock, Wings of Glory, Bad Blood, Cybermage and many more. Spector then went to Looking Glass Studios, followed by Ion Storm, founding the company’s Austin studio in 1997. There, he directed the development of the genre-bending, award-winning game, Deus Ex. He later oversaw development of Ion Storm’s Deus Ex: Invisible War, released in December 2003, and Thief: Deadly Shadows, released in June 2004. He left Ion Storm in November 2004 to found Junction Point Studios, Inc., which was acquired by Disney Interactive Studios in 2007.

Mark Meyers joined Disney Interactive Studios in 2005 and now serves as Vice President of North America Production, responsible for internal and external game development. Meyers manages Disney Interactive Studios’ four North American production studios including Avalanche Software and Fall Line Studio both in Salt Lake City , UT ; Propaganda Games in Vancouver , British Columbia ; and Junction Point Studios in Austin , TX . He is building a development organization scaled for growth within the internal organization and through key relationships with external development partners. Prior to Disney, Meyers was the Studio Director of Red Zone Interactive and Co-Director of 989 Sports both for Sony Computer Entertainment. He originally entered the interactive entertainment industry with Midway Games as a hardware engineer working with the most influential veterans of coin-operated game field, developing coin-op games such as “Mortal Kombat,” “NFL Blitz” and “Crusin’” for the platform.

In addition to the keynotes, conference sessions will cover topics such as teaching methodologies, starting a game development program, core curriculum topics, research collaboration and increasing diversity. Speakers from Activision, Arizona State University , Carnegie Mellon, Electronic Arts, Dell, Emergent Game Technologies, Full Sail, Gearbox Software, Indiana University , Microsoft, Midway Games, Mumbo Jumbo, RIT, SONY, THQ, University of Central Florida , University of Wisconsin , USC, and UT Dallas will ensure a lively and informative event.

The Game Education Summit is a GamePath Event. Registration for the event is priced at $245 until May 15th – a $105 discount. Visit www.gameeducationsummit.com for more information. GamePath LLC is an Austin, Texas-based independent conference and trade show production company which also organizes the Independent Game Conference series.