SESSIONS
This year’s Nordic Game conference will focus on bridging the gaps in the new market reality. How do you originate great ideas with so much new territory to occupy? How do you grow from start-up to established game creator, or from local to global entertainment provider? How do you turn a great idea into a solid business and beyond? How do you decide which tools and platforms best suit your company and the games you make best? How do you make a living from your dream?
The Nordic Game 2010 conference program will address these important issues with a range of sessions, devided in to the following areas:
Tools & Tech
Entrepreneurship
Business Development
Media Convergence
The Future of Gaming
Indie Development
Sessions:
Are Social Games the new Black?
Join in and listen to four developers from different backgrounds, as they discuss the social games boom and how they think developers should or could work to get into the new space. With Martin Walfisz, Founder, Planeto (SE), Jarle Snertingdalen, Producer, Funcom (NO), and David Nisshagen, Game Director, Stardoll (SE). Moderated by Jonas Antonsson, CEO , Gogogic (IS).
No country for old games?
Few games have made a successful transition to social networks. Simply porting a game won´t do the trick. The casual games studio Muskedunder Interactive recently took a downloadable casual game to Facebook. The result was an overnight success. Icy Tower gained over 1.000.000 users in the first two months. The presentation will deliver insights on how to redesign a game for social networks without losing and even enhancing key success factors. What features to keep and which to avoid. Johan and Magnus will also deliver insights about the workflow associated with a service rather than a product. Presented by Magnus Alm, CEO, and Johan Peitz, Muskedunder Interactive (SE)
Online Game Design
The talk will present a technique called 'Slicing' of online game design & balancing which is important for any online game, wether its client based, browser game or Facebook game. The technique is the basis of most successful online games like World of Warcraft, but is rarely mentioned or written about. Take away: the audience should realize how important slicing is for their online worlds and economies and why it helps balancing their games.Requirements: Basic knowledge about World of Warcraft useful.
Presented by Teut Weidemann, Consultant, Online Entertainment (DE)
Freemium Games
How 100 users turned into 100 million
Although Bigpoint doesn't yet have the same recognition factor or graphics of World of Warcraft, it is still one of the largest online gaming platforms in the world. During this presentation, Nils Holger-Henning,will demonstrate how to transform a small company from Hamburg, Germany into one of the world’s largest and most profitable game portals using a free-to-play business model.
Presented by Nils Holger Henning, CCO, Bigpoint GmbH (DE)
Freemium games and the experience economy
Why are people willing to pay when they can play for free? This is a key question for every Freemium game. That is why Freemium game developers must understand the nature of the experience economy – where memories, feelings and emotions form an experience worth paying for, when players engage games. Presented by Jónas Antonsson, CEO, Gogogic (IS)
Game Design
Designing games for all
This presentation draws on almost twenty years of experiences from gaming together with a diversity of players within the field of rehabilitation. We have used ordinary commercial games as fun, training and interplay for younger and older persons with or without disabilities. By focusing on the accessibility of a game it is possible to reach a wider target group without making the game trivial or boring. We will show a range of examples on this and why some games today are possible for people with disabilities to play – and why some are not – with the hope that you can relate this to the game developments that you are involved in.
Presented by Håkan Larsson, Speech therapist, Furuboda Competence Centre & Per-Olof Hedvall, Dr., Furuboda Association (SE)
Alan Wake - Designing a Psychological Action Thriller
How did Remedy, known for their successful 'Max Payne' games, tackle the challenge of creating a new story-driven action title 'Alan Wake' along with stunning visuals, technology and style that would be true to company’s heritage and the description 'A Psychological Action Thriller'.
Presented by Saku Lehtinen, Art Director, Remedy (FI)
Case RedLynx Trials HD
RedLynx has during the past couple of years developed number of successful, digitally distributed games. This presentation focuses on RedLynx’s most recent big success, Trials HD (XBLA), and sheds light on how RedLynx creates game ideas that have potential to expand to number of platforms, and how those ideas are developed into great games, step by step. Presented by Tero Virtala, CEO, RedLynx (FI)
Mobile Gaming
Publishing Mobile Games in a Multi Platform Environment
Since I have last looked, there are currently 10 operating systems in Mobile Games and each operating system has its own fragmentation. In this talk I will provide some data and insights that will help developers and publishers in determining their short- and mid-term strategy.
Presented by Maarten Noyons, CEO, NCC (FR)
Launch of the EGDF White Paper on Mobile Games
Maarten Noyons, David MacQueen, Erik Robertson, Xavier Carillo Costa and Christian Lohr have been working on a White Paper on Mobile Game Development. This session will be used to present the white paper, to discuss its content and to determine next steps: lobbying to the EU? Build a bridge to the newly launched WAC? Presented by Maarten Noyons, CEO, NCC (FR)
Angry Birds: The path to iPhone success
Creation of a Mobile Game Winner: Angry Birds has been downloaded over four million times on App Store. The CEO of Rovio Mobile talks about how that was achieved. Presented by Mikael Hed, CEO, Rovio Mobile Ltd. (FI)
Tools & Tech
Building A Larger Galaxy, Mass Effect 2 OS Production Process
A talk about production methods and working with external teams for Mass Effect 2. Adrien will cover the sourcing pipeline, go over the reason why Bioware OS and how they work with their external teams to ensure quality and cost effectiveness. He will give examples of the kinds of work they send out to external teams, the QA process and ultimately how it fits within the larger scope of the project.
Presented by Adrien Cho, Producer, BioWare (US)
Making MAG: 8 Bits of Advice
Tackling the networking of a 256 player online shooter is just the beginning. From trying to find enough testers, to deploying complex builds, to animating and rendering 256 characters in under 33ms, MAG proved to be the largest challenge our studio has faced. Come see how we did it.
Presented by Jason Tartaglia, Technical Director, Zipper Interactive (US)
Precomputed Global Illumination
Global Illumination (GI) makes games look real and creates a feeling that objects and characters belong in the environment. By precomputing GI you can achieve the highest visual quality and at the same time get predictable performance on both high- and low-end platforms. This presentation will cover the main benefits/challenges when implementing aprecomputed GI solution into your pipeline. Presented by Niklas Harrysson and Mathias Wahlin, Illuminate labs (SE)
SCEE technical talk covering PlayStation Move and Stereoscopic 3D
Kish Hirani, Head of Developer Services and Neil Brown, Senior Engineer Developer Services at SCEE will be concentrating on the exciting new additions to the PlayStation3 for this talk at Nordic Game on Wednesday afternoon. They will start off covering PS Move motion controller and some of the SDK components available to help you create great games. The stereoscopic 3D gaming will include techniques developed across Sony, including global SCE R&D, SCE internal games development studios and Sony Pictures, and how to create a 3D version of your game for the PS3. Presented by Kish Hirani, SCEE (UK)
An In-Depth Technical Look at Vision Engine 8
Trinigy’s recently announced Vision Engine 8 is available this April. Join one of Trinigy’s founders as he provides an in-depth technical demonstration of this highly versatile game engine and its new browser plug-in WebVision, new post-processing framework, Lua remote debugger and more. For more info, visit: http://www.trinigy.net/news/events or email sales@trinigy.net. Presented by Fabian Roeken, Co-Founder, Trinigy
Optimize your development by going cross platform
Maximize the number of platforms that your game can be published on. By using ShiVa, you will be able to focus on content through a dedicated production pipeline where your workflow is optimized as well as customized, and this will make it easier to achieve high quality games in less time. Presented by Philip Belhassen, CEO, Stonetrip (FR)
Entrepreneurship
Five Lessons for Game Entrepreneurs
Kristian Segerstrale is vice president, general manager and co-founder Playfish, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing social games companies. Founded in 2007, Playfish was acquired by Electronic Arts in late 2009. As one of the key figures in the rapidly growing social gaming sector, Kristian will offer five important lessons for game entrepreneurs. The keynote will provide insight and learnings gleaned from Kristian’s experience as a co-founder of Glu Mobile, a leading publisher of mobile games, and Playfish, one of the most impactful and acclaimed companies in the gaming space today. Presented by Kristian Segerstråle, VP and GM of Playfish (UK)
Entrepreneurs’ Panel
Entrepreneurs discus the opportunities and practicalities of launching games enterprises. With David Gardner, Mikael Gummerus, CEO, Frosmo (FI), Ian Baverstock, Director, Kuju Entertainment (UK), and Íris Andrésdóttir, Producer, Gogogic ehf. (IS). Moderated by Fred Hasson, Director, Games Capital Ltd. (UK).
Financiers’ Panel
Financiers discus the opportunities and practicalities of launching games enterprises. With Eggert Claessen, Dr., Frumtak GP (IS), Siggi Koegl, CEO, Attaction (DE), Mats Johanssen, Spintop Ventures (SE), and Beni Cohen, Kalculus (FI). Moderated by Fred Hasson, Director, Games Capital Ltd. (UK).
Business Development
Biz Etiquette in Japan
The do's and don'ts of doing business in Japan - especially for game developers!
Presented by Tom Felices, Exec Dir, Glob. Rel., Nordic Game Program, and Harry Inaba, localisation expert from Japanese publisher Lukplus
Finding the right market
Who really wants your game? In this workshop, we will explore how to get your game or experience to the best audience on the best platform with the best timing. With Alyssa Padia Walles, President, Amplitude Consulting (US)
Fail to Succeed
While the thought of 'failing' is scary, it is in fact extremely liberating. How can we foster a tolerance for failure in terms of taking risks and experimenting? If we are failing, it means we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible. As the business evolves how does that effect the economic model of risk? Presented by Jason Della Rocca, Senior Consultant, Perimeter Partners (CA)
Video games in the Arab World
Despite the Arab World being an important consumer market, very little is known about its video games industry. After a brief intro to the region’s demographics and telecom/media landscape, this talk will delve into the Arab packaged and online games markets, revealing trends, challenges, success stories, future potential and ultimately, why you should care.
Presented by Samer Abbas, Sr. Research Analyst, Arab Advisors Group, and Stefan Lampinen, Founder, Speltjanst (SE)
Introduction to Publishing Games on the PlayStation®Store
This presentation will cover both PlayStation®Portable and PlayStation®3 publishing opportunities including the new PSP minis category on PlayStation®Store. The opportunity to distribute content on the PlayStation®Network has generated much interest from game studios around the world. The presentation will focus on the submission, marketing and release process of game content. This presentation will also give independant game developers insight into self-publishing opportunities on PlayStation® platforms.
Presented by George Bain, Account Manager, SCEE (UK)
Media Convergence
Super Superia?
Norweigian national TV channel NRK Super have launched the Superia project, a TV show as well as a PC game. 30,000 Norwegian kids are playing and watching - what’s the deal?
Presented by Nils Stokke, Head of NRK Children, NRK (NO)
Movie and games: Collision or convergence?
For more than 20 years now, many inside and outside the industry have predicted the convergence of both media. After going through the most notable differences between the two, we will look at past successes and failures of joint film/game projects and try to anticipate what could be done in the future for these to eventually converge and not simply coexist or even collide. Presented by Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Co-CEO, QUANTIC DREAM
Nordic cross media coorperation
Presented by Ene Katrine Rasmussen, Head of, MEDIA Desk Denmark
Defining cross-media
Panel with Charles Hunter, Director, Mudlark, Karin Ryding, Creative Director, Ozma Speldesign and more.
Battlefield Audio: Designing A World
This session will take you through some of the processes and design challenges the Dice audio team overcame in order to get audio of the war in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 penetrate the speakers of any home.The session will feature demos.
Presented by Stefan Strandberg, Audio Director, DICE EA
Taking surround sound to new heights; Latest Dolby technologies for Game Developers
An introduction to Dolby's latest innovations for game audio, featuring:Dolby Axon; High quality surround voice communication for online gaming, and Dolby Pro Logic IIz; adding height channels to the mix for a truly immersive experience.
Presented by Simon Arnold, Account Manager, Dolby Labs, Inc.
Do we really want to know how Elves and Dwarves have Sex?
Adult content for a grown up medium - Computer Games are not only kids stuff any more. How can game content grow up with the industry and the gamers? Presented by Tom Putzki, Founder & Owner, Tom Putzki Consulting (DE)
When game writers go off!
Dare you join the three grumpy men in a feisty rant? Dare you face some of the problems of the game industry and boldly discuss, where so few
have gone before? Last year's session was a full house, so don't miss out! Journalist Thomas Puha will talk about his frustrations at how everyone in the newspaper and academic world seem to think that videogames magazines aren't doing their jobs correctly. Tables will be turned here! People will be upset! Hosted by Thomas Puha, Creative Director, Pelaaja/H-Town, with Steve Dahlskog (Malmö University (SE), and Thomas Vigild (Politiken/IT-University (DK)
Deep Playability
This panel investigates the past, present and possible futures of play-testing at Ubisoft Massive and elsewhere. We will discuss what has, can, and should change at the point where development and testing practices converge with gaming community practices based on a joint project between Malmö University and Ubisoft Massive. Presented by Mikael Jakobsson, Dr., Malmö University (SE), and David Polfeldt, Managing Director, Ubisoft Massive (SE)
Don't Fear the Casual Revolution
With new consoles, with casual, social, browser, music, and mobile games, video games are finally reaching a broad audience. This should call for celebration, but many players and developers worry instead, thinking that video games are being dumbed down. In this talk I will argue that 'casual' players can be just as sophisticated as traditional players, and that they are an opportunity, not a threat, for creating new, great video games. Presented by Jesper Juul, Researcher, NYU Game Center
It's a Wrap Everybody!
The best sum up of Nordic Game ever! A panel consisting of the wittiest people found at the conference and the exclusive pre-conference Exec-meeting will together with the audience identify and dissect the most interesting trends and findings from two days of joyful Nordic Game conferencing! Presented by Tobias Sjögren, Lead Agent, DDM Agents
Where Unity is Going (and Why)
Unity Technologies has been at the forefront of several key shifts in the platform and opportunity landscape for game developers including pioneering use of the Unity Web Player dating back to 2006 and early support for the iPhone/iPod Touch ecosystem dating back to 2008. Attendees will come away from this talk with a better understanding of opportunities for game developers in the web and mobile spaces, and how developers using Unity will be positioned to seize them. Presented by Brett Seyler, VP Strategy, Unity Technologies
How To Make A Playstation 1 Game In 48 Hours
This talk will give the result of 5 years of experimental gamedevelopment at The Nordic Game Jam. Arranged for the 5th year in a row,the Nordic Game Jam is the world's biggest and most creative Game Jamwith nearly 300 participant in 2010. 300 peopleworking 48 hours is 600 man days of effort, or approximately 2 1/2 man years of crunch time - the amount of work needed for a PS1 title!* Come, hear about the game jam, and see some of the wondrous and experimental game designs created at the Nordic Game Jam during the last 5 years.
Presented by Gorm Lai, Director, Kotori Studios / IGDA; Dajana Dimovska, Cofounder & Producer, Copenhagen Game Productions; Jesper Taxbøl, Game Developer, Nordic Game Jam; Anders Højsted, Founder/CEO, Great Dane Games; Alexandra Mariner, Designer/Coordinator, Apex Grafix / Nordic Game Jam; Nevin Eronde, Audio Designer, Nevin Sound; David Mariner, Games Group Manager, NDS Interactive
LIMBO Puzzle Design
The presentation covers the process of designing puzzles for LIMBO. LIMBO is a puzzle-platformer which won two awards at the Independent Game festival 2010 and comes out this Summer on the Xbox LIVE Arcade. Jeppe explains the design principles using concrete examples from the game. The talk will focus on considerations in the areas of accesibility, difficulty, learning by dying, deadlocks, and fun. While the game is not yet commercially available, attendees can play a preview section throughout the conference. Presented by Jeppe Carlsen, Lead designer, Playdead (DK)
Post mortem: Max & the Magic Marker
Experiences and lessons learnt from developing and publishing the independent title Max & the Magic Marker. Presented by Rune Dittmer, CEO, Press Play (DK)
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Dustin Chodorowicz, Partner, Nordicity Limited
Fiscal support for the screen-based industries in the digital age: the Canadian experience
Presents experiences from Canada’s initiatives to strengthen the screen-based industries (film, television, games and other interactive, digital media), and describe the ideas behind the newly created Canadian cross-media fund.
Simon Niedenthal, Associate Professor, Malmö University
Deep Playability
This panel investigates the past, present and possible futures of play-testing at Ubisoft Massive and elsewhere. We will discuss what has, can, and should change at the point where development and testing practices converge with gaming community practices based on a joint project between Malmö University and Ubisoft Massive.
David Gardner, General Partner, London Venture Partners
Future Financing
To succeed an industry needs innovation, people and finance to move forward. I'm trying to help finance meet the games business.
