Announcements:
Programmed by the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the Game Career Seminar, taking place Friday, February 22 from 10am-4pm at the Moscone Convention Center West, is a one-day program designed for students and individuals interested in learning how to build a career in the video game industry.
Attendees will network with industry professionals, meet with HR executives from leading game companies in the Career Pavilion, and most importantly, learn how to get their careers started in the videogame industry. Top game developers and industry experts will share their perspective and insights.
The Game Career Seminar is run alongside of some of the industry's most popular games-related events.
More information about previous Game Career Seminars can be found at http://www.gamecareerseminar.com.
Click play to view some of the highlights from the Game Career Seminar @ Austin GDC:
Thursday, February 21
Networking 201: Navigating Corporate Culture
5:30-6:30pm,
Around 90% of jobs in the games industry aren't even advertised. So how do you make the connections and impressions to find the right company and job for you? When you get that job, how do you go from being a new face to being someone everybody in the company knows and likes? Darius Kazemi breaks down tips and tricks to being a successful and helpful networker.
Darius Kazemi, Orbus Gameworks
Darius runs Orbus Gameworks, a startup that's building gameplay data metrics tools to help developers keep track of what their players are doing in-game. Before Orbus, Darius did gameplay metrics at Turbine Inc for MMORPGs including Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. He is also a technology officer for the IGDA Education SIG and a coordinator for the Boston IGDA Chapter. He writes about networking and how to break into the game industry on his blog, Tiny Subversions.
Friday, February 22
KEYNOTE
10:30-11:30am
From Grunt to God to Startup: Career Lessons From the Edge of Game Development by David Jaffee
With a career spanning a vehicular combat franchise, a breakthrough mythological action franchise, and his own indie startup, David Jaffe has experienced multiple industry perspectives. He has had to learn what was needed of him to excel and advance, and make the hard choices on how to split Solomon’s baby between design and production. After achieving a level of creative satisfaction with God of War, David began to consider the opportunity that many veteran developers face, the chance to be your own boss and create your own indie startup. Find out what was on his pros and cons list, as well as what blowback he got from the reality of running his own shop, as well as other insights from the edge of game development.
12-1pm TBD
LUNCH
1-2:30pm
All About Art
2:30-3:30pm
You want to be a game artist. Do you want to be a modeler or an animator or can you do both? Carey Chico discusses where we came from and where we need to be to lead the next generation of art within games.
Carey Chico, Pandemic
Carey has been in the game Industry for over 10 years and is currently Executive Art Director at Pandemic Studios. He got his start in 1996 as a Lead Animator on Planetfall at Activision. From there, he rose through the ranks to arrive in his current role.
He is now the Executive Art Director at Pandemic and is focused on more global and long term art and production-side interests. Titles to his credit include Battlezone 1 & 2, and Star Wars: The Clones Wars. Titles under his supervision include: Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Full Spectrum Warrior 1 & 2, Mercenaries 1 & 2 and Destroy All Humans 1 & 2.
Additionally, Carey remains active as a music composer for games, theater and film. With over 9 titles to his credit, some of his projects include the games: X-men: Mutant Academy, Civilization: Call to Power, and Battlezone 2, the recent horror film Boo and two recent theater projects: The Seventh Monarch and Twelve Angry Men.Darius runs Orbus Gameworks, a startup that's building gameplay data metrics tools to help developers keep track of what their players are doing in-game. Before Orbus, Darius did gameplay metrics at Turbine Inc for MMORPGs including Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. He is also a technology officer for the IGDA Education SIG, a committee member for the Boston Postmortem, and spends a good deal of his free time giving advice on how to break into the game industry.
Hottest Jobs at the Hottest Companies
4-5pm
Do you want to be competitive in the market? Just joined a game company and want to perfect your resume and move to the next level?
A panel of HR heads from Microsoft, Sony and EA discuss the hottest jobs at the hottest companies/studios and share insights on their ideal job candidates, what jobs are available, who is applying and who is getting the job.
Moderator: Jill Duffy
Panelists:
Jason Pankow, Staff Consultant, Microsoft
Sylvia A. Trammel, Sr. Recruiter, Sony Entertainment
Matthew Jeffrey, Head of Global Talent, EA
All GDC passes provide access to the Game Career Seminar. Click here to learn about available pass options.
Business/Mgmt Track
