Search Results

Jose is a Technical Sound Designer and Audio Programmer with over 10 years of experience in the game industry. He currently works as a Senior Audio Designer at Teravision Games. Jose has worked on a variety of projects including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Mayhem and Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game, taking on everything from sound design and implementation to solving complex audio challenges. He is also the founder of LOUD Game Audio, a company dedicated to providing high-quality audio services for game studios. His company has worked with teams like Maleiwa, Blazing Soft, and Killa Soft, offering sound design, music composition, and implementation using tools like FMOD, Wwise, and direct integration into game engines like Unity and Unreal. In addition to development, he is passionate about sharing knowledge. Jose has spoken at conferences in 4 different countries, created educational content for aspiring sound designers, and in 2023, he was honored to be selected as part of The Game Awards' Future Class, a recognition for creators driving the future of the industry forward.

Pablo Barea leads the Audiovisual Department at the Trade Commission of the Embassy of Spain in Los Angeles. In the video game space, Spain operates under the brand Games From Spain: an initiative to increase awareness of the Spanish video game industry; and connect studios with publishers, investors, and media from all over the globe.

Jona Bechtolt is the game and creative director of Blippo+, an alien cable TV simulator and one of the most celebrated indie games of 2025. Named to "Best Games of the Year" lists by Polygon, Kotaku, The A.V. Club, and The Guardian, Blippo+ went on to earn four nominations at the Independent Games Festival — the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, and the Nuovo Award — and took home the Herman Melville Award for Best Writing at the 15th annual New York Game Awards.

Bechtolt is also a Grammy-nominated artist and producer, and the founder of the conceptual pop group YACHT. Over two decades, YACHT’s output has spanned nine studio albums, a documentary feature, and several large-scale public art installations, all driven by Bechtolt’s fascination with subverting technology.

From unplayable compact discs to vintage clip art, he explores the intersection of play, performance, and the weird margins of media history. Most recently, his video installation TV Dinner was featured in 99CENT, a sprawling group exhibition that transformed a former 99 Cents Only store in Los Angeles.

Justin Bell is a storyteller with a palette made of music and sound, and a canvas made of pixels. Driven to express humanity through art, Justin is a Composer, Audio Director, and Sound Designer with 18 years of in-depth experience in every aspect of game audio development across a diverse range of genres. Born on October 22, 1977 in Oakland, CA, Justin is best known for writing and producing the scores for the critically acclaimed RPGs Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds. Each year, RPG fans worldwide stream his music millions of times to accompany them on their adventures. This widespread appreciation is deeply humbling for Justin. Each chapter of Justin’s career has been a stepping stone. He currently serves as an Audio Director at Santa Monica Studio, the developer of God of War. From 2021 to 2023, he was a Supervising Sound Designer on the PlayStation Studios Sound team, where he had the honor of working on projects such as Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarök. Prior to that, he was the Audio Director and Composer at Obsidian Entertainment from 2013 to 2021, working on beloved games like Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Grounded. He earned a B.A. in Music Composition from UCLA in 2007 and an A.A. in Music from Los Angeles Valley Community College in 2004, where he studied classical guitar and composition.

Dave has over 15 years of experience in consumer electronics focusing on audio applications like MEMS microphones, voice assistants, noise suppression, and codecs. He is the Audio / Voice Director for Surfaceink which provides expertise in electrical architecture, acoustics, and tuning 3rd party DSP architectures.

Chase Bethea, a distinguished freelance Composer/Technical Music Designer for video games, has clinched prestigious awards like NYX and Global Music, alongside a nomination from VGMO (Video Game Music Online). He has been working professionally in the industry for over a decade and has shipped over 25 games thus far. He is known in the industry as one of the most prolific and omnipresent composers in the video game industry today (according to IlIO) and the Swiss Army knife of video game composition. In his beginning career, Chase worked as an intern at Mobotory Games in 2011 while simultaneously going to school for his AA in Music Theory and Composition. He graduated with his AA from Audio Engineering from Los Angeles Recording School , his AA in Music Theory and Composition from Moorpark College and his BM in Media Composition from California State Northridge all with Honors. Chase has received many accolades throughout his career. In 2010, he won Best Music in Motion Graphic and Poetry Award. In 2013, Chase's score from the successful flash Horror game, I Can't Escape (developed by Fancy Fish Games) received an honorable mention in the Indie Game Magazine. His second soundtrack for the game Cubic Climber earned a Noteworthy on Destructoid.com. In 2016, Chase was nominated for the 2015 Annual Game Music Awards – Artists of the Year – Independent Composer by VGMO (Video Game Music Online) in the entire industry. In 2021, he won an award for the AGROUND soundtrack from the NYX Game Awards. In 2023, Chase Bethea won another NYX Award for the remarkable video game score, On the Peril of Parrotsand garnered two Global Music awards, one for the same score and the other recognizing his excellence as a composer. Two of these pieces are featured in NYC Jam Sessions VGM Real Book Vol. II. In March 2024, Chase was honoured with one of the industry's most prestigious awards: the Excellence in Artistry Award from the Black in Gaming Foundation. This recognition serves as a testament to his consistent dedication and remarkable contributions to video game music within the industry. In 2025, NYX Game Awards honoured Chase Bethea with his 2nd prestigious Gold Winner award in the Game Audio & Radio – Original Game Soundtrack category for his outstanding work on the video game Aground Zero. Chase has also scored Aztec Ride, a highly addictive fun mobile game that shipped on Google Play in October 2020 and was nominated for a Pocket Gamer Mobile Award. His music has been featured on multiple podcasts such as NEXT LEVEL PLAY (on Sling TV/ ESR TV Gaming Network), Pixelated Audio, Level with Emily, Sound of Play, Shure: LOUDER, Everybody's Talking at Once, Games X Music, Super Gamer Podcast and Audio Modeling's MIDI Talk. Much of his discography can be heard on many streaming platforms such as Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Deezer, Tidal, iHeart Radio, Bandcamp and more. Chase was selected to perform live at Indiecade (2019) and from 2020-2021 streamed on IndieCade's Twitch channel weekly bringing his show Game Audio Life to that platform. Chase's music was also performed live by the Virtual Video Game Orchestra at MAGWest 2022 /2023 / 2024 as well as the Helix Collective in 2023 / 2024. More of Chase's accomplishments include being Game Revolution's first team streamer as well as first Game Audio professional to be featured on a Gaming Website for his Behind the Scene composing series. He used to be a co-host of Game Audio Hour for three years. Chase was the first minority American Video Game Composer to be featured in the Museum of Making Music MIDI at 40 exhibit at the NAMM Museum in San Diego [2023 -2024]. In 2024, Chase made history as the first video game composer to join the prestigious Mogami Cable roster, further solidifying his impact in the industry. He is the first minority American video game composer to write an article on adaptive music in games for Recording Magazine—the first article on video game music published in the magazine in 20 years [2024]. His work and insights have also been featured in the books Global Histories of Video Game Music Technology [2024] by Karen M. Cook, William Gibbons, and Fanny Rebillard, as well as The Theory and Practice of Writing Music for Games [2024] by Steve Horowitz and Scott Looney. In addition, Chase was the IASIG (Interactive Audio Special Interest Group) Chair (2022-2024). In 2024, Chase was celebrated for U.K. Black History Month featured on October 4th among some of the greatest icons in history. This year's Black History Month calendar showcases legends like Herbie Hancock, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday, Queen Latifah, and many more. The calendar has previously highlighted monumental figures such as Quincy Jones, Duke Ellington, Lord Kitchener, Isaac Hayes Lauryn Hill, James Brown, Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and others who have shaped music and culture. As a video game composer, Chase has brought his special signature sound to big libraries and has worked with written demos for Spitfire, Reason Studios and Soundiron, curated selections for Native Instruments Sounds.com, been added to the artist roster of the legendary, ILIO and Q Up Arts . Chase has also collaborated with Shure Microphones and Mojave Audio, further expanding his influence in the industry. In addition, he has made two article debuts on the website of the music gear conglomerate, Sweetwater. Chase also contributed music to the 2023 Set 10 Team Fight Tactic Remix Rumble Soundtrack and scored The THING (Remastered) Trailer by Nightdive Studios.

Writer/Director Kal-El Bogdanove has crafted dozens of the world's most popular AAA videogames, including Steam record-breaker Helldivers 2, global smash Honkai Star Rail, Horizon Forbidden West, MultiVersus, Diablo 4, Diablo Immortal, Overwatch 2, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Convergence, the BAFTA-winning Fallout 4, and more. Kal-El was the creator and showrunner for The Walt Disney Company's entire suite of interactive audio, a whopping 2000+ pages of fully-voiced content across Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar, earning Disney $30 million first year net in this previously unexplored space, and generating an incalculable number of guest impressions. Bogdanove also created Dug In Real Life, the most successful viral video in TWDC history, with 28 million views in 24 hours. Together with his business partner Adrienne Arno, Bogdanove wrote Exoprimal for Capcom, and an unannounced AAA title for Warner Bros. Arno and Bogdanove also partnered with horror legends John Carpenter and Sandy King to create Terraformed, an eight-part graphic sci-fi miniseries, and The Haloperidol Files, a psychological mystery.

Alexander Brandon is a game audio veteran with thirty years of experience and over one hundred titles to his credit, among them the soundtracks for such hits as “Unreal” and “Deus Ex”, and more recently music, sound and voice for such games as “Stormgate”, “Wasteland 3, Oddworld: Soulstorm, Aven Colony, Wasteland 2”, “Alpha Protocol”, the “Neverwinter Nights” series, “Bejeweled 3”, Skyrim, and “DC Universe Online”. Alex has skills in music composition, sound design, voice acting, voice direction, audio direction and game audio technology. He has written the award winning book “Audio For Games: Planning, Process and Production and written columns for Game Developer and Mix magazines. He has also lectured at UCLA Extension, Texas State University and Berklee School of Music. He now owns his own audio production house in Seattle, Washington, “Funky Rustic”, and distributes music through Bandcamp, releasing an album every now and again.

Jeffrey is a Sonic Sorcerer who multiclassed from Bard. He creates music, sound effects, and everything else under the sonic sun. Known across the internet as Pumodi, he's been working in the Games & Film industry for time immemorial. Aside from audio he loves playing Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Drumline, Curling, Sumo Wrestling, cooking, and conquering the world with my twins.

Jac Carlsson is a Gameplay Designer at DICE, where he leads the Firefight sub‑team within the Combat Experience team on Battlefield 6. Specializing in "Game Feel," Jac focuses on the responsiveness and physicality of aiming, firing, and the overall audiovisual feedback loop that defines immersive gunplay and FPS gameplay fundamentals. Before game development, Jac spent over 15 years as an international ballet and contemporary dancer, choreographer, and creative consultant in the music, arts and events industry. He was nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative and has received multiple grants recognizing his contributions to the performing arts. Jac holds formal training in dance, choreography, and game design, and is fluent in both Swedish and English.

Todd Castillo is a senior sound designer and composer with over a decade of experience in the game industry. He began his career in 2015 working at Hex Entertainment and Six Foot as an in-house composer and sound designer. He went on to contribute to multiple titles at MobilityWare before founding his own audio company in 2020, working with studios like Mythical Games on Blankos Block Party. In 2023, he joined Blizzard Entertainment full-time as a senior sound designer on Diablo Immortal, where he leads the sound design and voice over pipeline. His work on Diablo Immortal helped earn a 2024 G.A.N.G. Award for Best Audio in a Casual or Social Game.

Leveraging over 20 years of Tencent's expertise in media technology, I specialize in real-time audio and video systems that power large-scale interactive experiences across gaming, live streaming, and real-time communication scenarios. My work focuses on building and optimizing solutions on top of the GME and TRTC engines, with an emphasis on low-latency delivery, weak-network resilience, and performance optimization at scale to enable reliable, immersive real-time interactions.

Merle Chen, Lead of Group 3 at TiMi Audio Lab, specializes in shooter game audio with 15+ years of experience. Has shipped titles including Jade Dynasty: War, Against Fire, CrossFire Mobile, Contra: Return, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Delta Force. Established cross-studio technical standards for FPS audio and currently leads R&D on multi-platform AAA audio pipelines.

Isaac Cohen ( Cabbibo ) is a Game Developer / Artist who is doing their best to make math dance! They have made games ranging from audio visual music blogs to interactive story books to VR pillow forts, viz for concerts and more! They have collaborated with artists like SOPHIE, Olafur Elliason, Jonsi and Oneohtrix Point Never. They have participated in AiR programs at Dynamicland, Google, Adobe, and Unity. Their work focuses on physical embodiment, induced synthesia, and failing to describe the sublime.

Krystal Cooper is a technical production leader with 15+ years of experience architecting scalable systems across AAA games, XR, VFX, Animation and AI platforms.She entered game production in 2016 through the development of social impact games, applying systems engineering principles to interactive storytelling and community-driven design. Since then, she has led multidisciplinary teams across engine development, real-time rendering, audio systems, and immersive XR production. Her work spans Rhythm & Hues, Apple, Industrial Light & Magic, Disney, Unity Technologies and Adobe. As Founder of Diversity in Gaming and CEO of Optical Creatures Game Studio, she focuses on building sustainable, technically rigorous studios and inclusive production cultures. In parallel, she serves as an adjunct professor at Rochester Institute of Technology mentoring the next generation of technical creators at the intersection of systems architecture and interactive media.

Adele Cutting is a BAFTA award-winning audio director, with 25+ years' experience in games as an Audio Director, Casting and Voice/Performance Director, Sound Designer, Music Editor and Producer. In 2011, Adele founded audio production company, Soundcuts Ltd, a team which produces 'all things audio' across games (all formats), TV, installations and audio drama. Before Soundcuts, Adele spent 15 years at EA, working her way up the ranks from Junior Sound Designer to Senior Audio Director, working on blockbuster titles such as the Harry Potter franchise (on which she wore both audio and voice director hats), plus well-known cult classics Populous the Beginning and Theme Park World. Recent titles Adele has worked on include: Ghost Town (Fireproof Games - Voice Director), Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (Rocksteady Games - Voice Director), MoCo and Brawl Stars (Supercell - Voice Director), Koreaboo (Audible - Director and Producer), The Quarry (Supermassive Games - Audio Director), As Dusk Falls (Interior Night - Audio Manager) and Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Ubisoft - Lead Voice Director). Adele is a member of the GDC Advisory Board, Develop Advisory Board and the BAFTA Games Committee, she regularly sits on juries for various sound awards (BAFTA, MAS and the Game Audio Network Guild) and also speaks at Universities and Game Industry events. She was nominated for 'Outstanding Contribution' at the Women in Games' awards 2025.

David Daubitz is a Narrative Lead, Headwriter and creative with over 15 years of experience across games, TV, audio, and interactive formats. He has worked with studios like Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, RTL Disney and Audible, and specializes in building story systems that scale across media without losing emotional depth or coherence.

Grey Davenport is the Technical Sound Designer at Sucker Punch Productions, He's been working in game audio for the last 9 years at various studios in the greater Seattle area. He is motivated by solving problems and developing tools for his audio teams to use. His favorite sound is the Sly Cooper footstep when approaching enemies in stealth mode.

I am a Content Creator and Developer Evangelist in Arm's performance tools team, where I help to show developers how to make more efficient mobile games using Arm's profiling and analysis tools. I started my career in the games industry as a composer and asset publisher, before moving into content creation after writing articles about my work on audio systems in Unity. Before joining Arm in 2025, I spent 5 years teaching game development basics on YouTube, where I specialized in making C# scripting easier for new developers. Passionate about challenging best practice with real research, I aim to bring my deep-dive approach to content creation to my work at Arm in an effort to make performance optimization easier, and more accessible, to developers of all skill levels.

Monet Gardiner is a Sound Designer with 12+ years of experience in video games, film, television, music, and multimedia. As a Sound Design graduate from Savannah College of Art and Design, Monet has worked with 343 Industries at Microsoft on Halo Infinite and Electronic Arts on NBA Live 19 and NBA Live 20. Noteworthy achievements include Production Mixer & Supervisor on Emmy award-winning live sitcom "The BUZZ", multiple MPSE Golden Reel Nominations for Sound Editing, and Dialogue Designer on 2023 BAFTA Best Audio and EE Game of the Year "God of War:Ragnarok". Recently in addition to her work on God of War: Ragnarok, Monet has been working on titles such as The Last of Us 2 Remastered and Death Stranding 2 as a Dialogue Designer with Sony Interactive Entertainment PlayStation. Monet's impact continues to reverberate through the industry through her commitment to giving back to the game audio community by fostering diversity and inclusion as a proactive board member of the Game Audio Diversity Alliance, a non-profit charity which aims to provide career advancement opportunities for underrepresented voices through education, mentoring, and financial support.

Alyssa has been in the VO industry for over a decade, working in many different facets including casting, audio engineering, directing, and coordinating. She began her career as a VO Talent Agent at VOX Inc., where she signed and developed hundreds of adult and youth talent. In 2019, through industry connections, she interviewed for a position as an Associate VO Producer at Riot Games. Alyssa became a full-time VO Producer in 2020, and was promoted to Senior VO Producer in 2023. Alyssa’s expertise in voiceover, combined with her passion for acting and casting, has given her the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects at Riot. She is deeply committed to authentic, thoughtful casting and to creating a process where talent feel respected, supported, and set up to do their best work. In addition to her day-to-day VO Producer responsibilities, Alyssa is also dedicated to involving voice talent in live activations such as panels, esports matches, meet & greets, and fan signings, helping strengthen the connection between performers and players. Originally from New Jersey, Alyssa has lived in Los Angeles since 2012. She holds a B.A. in Television, Radio, and Film and a B.A. in Psychology from Syracuse University. She is a huge movie buff, music lover, and theatre nerd.

Carin Gilfry is an award-winning voice actor who has voiced thousands of commercials, documentaries, video games, instructional videos, IVR systems, eLearning programs, audiobooks, and more. Her past and current clients include FedEx, Citibank, Adobe, Estée Lauder, CVS, Pfizer, Nickelodeon, Nintendo, and Disney, among many. Carin was named Female Voiceover Artist of the Year at the 2024 One Voice Conference USA Awards. Carin is a master of multiple genres of voiceover. Her video game credits include roles in Starfield, Saints Row, Call of the Dragon, Voice of Cards III - Beasts of Burden, and Warframe. She is also the narrator of two acclaimed true crime shows on the Oxygen Network; Final Moments (produced by Dick Wolf) and Sleeping With Death. As the vice-president of the National Association of Voice Actors, Carin is also a community leader and advocate for the rights of creators. In 2019, Carin co-founded the VOcation Conference, a conference dedicated to teaching voice actors how to run their small businesses. Carin Gilfry began her career as a singer. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from USC Thornton School of Music and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.

Morla Gorrondona has been working in video games as an actor (voice/performance capture/creatures) for over 15 years on award-winning titles such as Destiny and Destiny 2. Moss: Book 1 and Book 2, God of War: Ragnarok, The Last of Us 2, The Death Stranding, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, 4, Cold War and 7, Spider Man 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn and New West.

She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, NAVA, IESD, founding member of the Game Audio Network Guild Voice Actor Coalition (GVAC) and founding co-chair of the GANG Awards Dialog Committee.

After Gubman’s first game in 2006 (Pirates of the Burning Sea), he went on to score over 1200 video games helping to establish the sound of many iconic downloadable, mobile, and casual titles while maintaining a solid career composing for various media projects. Gubman’s work can be heard in projects for notable clients like Disney (Tokyo Disneyland, Disney Anaheim, WDW), Zynga, HyperGryph, Blizzard (Overwatch 2, Hearthstone), Sony, Dream, King, Atari, Warner Brothers Games, GameHouse, NBC Today, and Warner-Chappell. He is most known for his pop-broadway style songwriting for the games HEARTHSTONE and ARKNIGHTS, and most recently took over as composer for SKY CHILDREN OF LIGHT (thatgamecompany). In casual and mobile, top selling match-3 title ROYAL MATCH helped them redefine the quality standards for this genre. His speed, creativity, and memorable melodic voice that brings unique branding to the projects he works on - he is passionate about all the projects that he touches, and delivers AAA quality no matter the project scope. Co-Owned with Alex Cox, Moonwalk Audio prides themselves on creating top quality sound while offering opportunities to folks from all race, class, and gender identity. As an arranger and orchestrator, Adam has worked on additional music and orchestration for various TV and Film projects, including Sausage Party, Galavant, Ride Along 2, Smurfs: Lost Village, Baywatch, and he provided orchestration for EDM superstar BT’s album ‘Electronic Opus’. His award winning production work on Greatest Showman (This Is Me) granted him a triple platinum record. Online streams have yielded over 100 million views. Gubman is also known for re-branding the NBC Today Show theme with Warner-Chappell Music Group, and has done numerous licensing and custom audio packages for TV News programs all over the world. Orchestration clients have included collaborations with Alan Menken, Chris Lennertz, Austin Wintory, Tom Salta, Pasek and Paul, BT, Warner-Chappell, Disney, and many more. An avid songwriter, Adam is a composer for Disney Parks, and writes, arranges, orchestrates, and produces music for parades and entertainment. He has shipped over two dozen shows and attractions for Disney Imagineering and Tokyo Disney, including the Baymax Happy Ride that opened in 2021, Star Wars Galaxy Edge, and the Star Wars Hotel project. He also recently scored the Manta Coaster for Sea World Dubai, which opened summer 2023. Adam’s musical ideology can be wrapped up in the slogan “Imagine the Sound of Your World”. His passion is finding the music culture in the games he works on, and he strives to give every project it’s own identity and musical thumbprint that includes source and songs.

Nick Hartman is an Audio Producer and Communications Manager working within the wonderful world of game audio. He currently serves with the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), where he supports the Guild’s efforts to foster community and celebrate excellence in interactive audio. Having worked with clients including SEGA, Firaxis Games, Riot Games, Wizards of the Coast, and more, Nick is passionate about supporting the creative ventures of the gaming industry while cultivating welcoming spaces where talent can thrive.

A multiple award-winning composer, Jason Hayes is well known for his long-standingrelationship with Blizzard Entertainment, contributing music to their games set in thepopular worlds of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. He was the original lead composer ofWorld of Warcraft, the most successful massively multiplayer online game of all time.Jason's music has been performed by symphony orchestras all over the world in variousconcerts including the show Video Games Live, which debuted at the Hollywood Bowlwith the LA Philharmonic, and continues to tour internationally. He's also been a featuredspeaker for UCLA, USC, the Film Music Network, ASCAP, the Society of Composers andLyricists, the Game Developers Conference, and the Pacific Northwest Film ScoringProgram. Currently he lives in Orange County, California and is the Studio Audio Director ofAnother Axiom Inc.

Specializing in sound design, composition and voiceover, Kurt Heiden is a game audio veteran who worked on classic Interplay games including Bard's Tale II, Bard's Tale III, Bard's Tale IV, Dragon Wars, Battle Chess and Neuromancer. At 7th Level, Kurt won a Software Publisher's Association award for Best Sound Design & Music for his sound design work on Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail. He also has worked on game titles from Ion Storm, Old Sküül Games and Sierra's Return to Krondor. Kurt's day job is in marketing and from 2004 to 2021 he served as Chair of the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (www.iasig.org), serving all members of the game audio industry.

Critically acclaimed as One of the foremost figures in the field, Composer Steven Horowitz is the current chair of the IASIG and teacher at San Francisco State University. Horowitz is also a long standing Audio Director at Nickelodeon/Parmount where he has worked on scoring hundreds of beloved video games as well as garnering him Webby, Kid Screen and BDA awards. Well known for his original score to the Academy Award nominated film Super Size Me, he is also the author of two books, The Essential Guide to Game Audio: The Theory and Practice of Sound for Games, and The Theory And Practice Of Music For Games.

Ryan is a two-time BAFTA-nominated composer and sound designer, currently living in Seattle, Washington. He's written for award winning games like West of Loathing, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, and Wizard With a Gun. When he is not making audio, Ryan is likely preparing talks and online content geared toward helping newcomers get started in a career in the game industry. At events like PAX West, PAX South, and GDC, he's given talks designed to help people start or further their work in games, with an emphasis on emotional and mental health.

Katelyn Isaacson is an American sound designer, composer, and vocalist based in Paris, France. She was on the audio team at ArenaNet where she worked on season 4 of Guild Wars 2's Living World before relocating to France to be the studio sound designer at Ubisoft Nadeo for Trackmania. Now freelance, she's sound designing, composing, translating, and directing VO for various European indie studios. As a vocalist, Katelyn started singing in her first choir at the age of 9 and never stopped. Classically trained at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, she enjoys singing in a variety of genres. She sang backup for Elton John at the 2013 Emmy Awards, in the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra World Tour, and on video games such as Tap My Katamari and Elsinore. She's currently singing soprano in l'Ensemble Vocal Syllepse and Soli Tutti, for a number of lyricists and composers, and regularly performs in cover bands and as a backup singer.

Experienced Audio Director with over 12 years experience at DICE specializing in immersive sound design and audio direction for AAA titles. A Battlefield and Battlefront veteran. Winner of AIAS, G.A.N.G, MPSE, Develop and other awards.

After a few years as Sound Designer, Raphael worked as Music Designer and Supervisor at Ubisoft Montpellier for 5 years. Raphael worked on Beyond Good and Evil 2, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Since going freelance two years ago, he now shares his time between Sandfall Interactive as Lead Audio and Music Designer, and Fractal Edge Music as Composer.

Michael Jones is an award winning senior sound designer with 23 years experience producing music and sound design for videogames. Ranging from early 2000s mobile, handhelds, and Plug 'n Play TV games, to AAA blockbusters like Call of Duty: Vanguard, Marathon, and Doublefine's Keeper. Michael has left his mark on over 80 shipped video game titles. He also runs a local non-profit (Bitforest) that serves the local game dev community in Eugene, OR. When he's not making audio for games for money, he can be found making audio for games for free or mentoring aspiring game audio producers and game devs.

Damian Kastbauer has been part of the audio community at GDC since 2006 and has helped shaped some of the ways that people access the smorgasbord of opportunities through the week. Co-Host of the Morning Audio Community Meetup, author of the yearly Guide to Game Audio GDC, and sometime coordinator (and participant) in the Audio Community Karaoke, community is the through-line that runs through his involvement.

Kadet Kuhne is the Assoc. Audio Director at Firaxis Games for Civilization VII, with over 20 years experience in sound for games, film, and media art. Kadet has worked as an AR/VR Audio Lead at Meta, Sound Director at Illumix, Senior Sound Designer at Anki, Audio Lead at Telltale Games, and for various companies such as Electronic Arts, Konami, and Skybound contributing to 30+ games across full production cycles. Kadet holds a Master's in Music Composition from CalArts, and taught game and film audio courses at University of California San Diego, California College of the Arts, and Art Institute of CA - SF.

Mathieu Lavoie is an award-winning composer, entrepreneur, and educator. Holding a doctorate in composition, he co-founded Vibe Avenue, a leading studio in sound design and composition for visual media, with FX Dupas in 2013. Vibe Avenue became Side Montreal in 2023 upon acquisition by Side (formerly the PTW Family of Brands). Currently the Senior Director of Music & Sound at Side, Mathieu has composed music and designed audio for dozens of video games and films, including D&D Dark Alliance, Star Trek Fleet Command, Omensight, Livelock, Lakewood Plaza Turbo, and Ultimate Chicken Horse. A specialist in hybrid orchestral music, Mathieu's style is difficult to define in absolute terms, having worked on projects that blend genres such as heavy metal, retro synths, EDM, jazz, funk, and world music. His arsenal of instruments includes over a hundred flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments, which he regularly uses to enhance his compositions. Though no longer a university professor, Mathieu taught for more than 15 years at both Université du Québec à Montréal and Université de Montréal.

President and Founder of XEODesign Nicole Lazzaro has 30+ years in Player Experience Design and over a decade in XR. Lazzaro's model "The 4 Keys to Fun" has influenced millions of designers on games such as WOW, Halo, and Assassin's Creed. Lazzaro has helped create emotion-driven experiences for giants like Disney, EA, DICE, Meta, and Ubisoft on Myst, The Matrix, Diner Dash, TRIPP, Flow Immersive, and more. From advising LucasArts on Star Wars and Will Wright on The Sims 2, to designing the first iPhone game and being the first to measure facial emotions in games, Lazzaro continues to innovate. In the XR Hall of Fame (for XR Design Language and Spatial Audio Innovation), no one understands XR design better than Nicole. Lazzaro can be spotted on the keynote stage at MWC, AWE, GamesBeat, and GDC. Currently developing (design & code) "Follow the White Rabbit Tales" an episodic XR Mystery Adventure about a Magician whose magic one day suddenly works. Now soft launched on Apple Vision Pro she is fundraising to bring it to new platforms. Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicolelazzaro.bsky.social

Luka Lebanidze leads the Games Division at POSTRED, where he builds long-term partnerships with studios and supports audio teams with scalable, artist-led production. His work spans audio co-development, business development, and creative supervision, aligning artistic vision with sustainable production systems.

Under his leadership, POSTRED has contributed to titles including Path of Exile II, Wuthering Waves, Naruto Mobile, Delta Force, and Roco Kingdom.

POSTRED is an audio co-development partner known for performance-driven sound design and cinematic worldbuilding. With a team of 20+ sound designers and dedicated creature, Foley, and implementation specialists, the studio focuses on original performance and collaborative pipelines that support large-scale game production.

Crystal Lee is a Game Audio Artist who loves getting her hands dirty, whether it's in a DAW or an IDE. She has worked on I Expect You to Die 3, Party Versus, the educational game Happy Atoms, and various undisclosed R&D and location-based projects. And yes, she would like to see a photo of your pet.

Mason Lieberman is an award-winning composer, audio director, and producer known for his contributions to the gaming and anime zeitgeist. He prides himself on being a problem-solver whose biggest passion is always to connect people through music. Beginning his professional journey as a freelance composer, he got his start composing on anime series like Rooster Teeth's RWBY and Beyblade Burst Evolution, amongst many others. His music has enhanced the heroics of franchises like Spider-Man, Mobile Suit Gundam, Ultraman, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, while lending epic gravitas to titles like Overwatch 2, League of Legends: Wild Rift, PUBG Mobile, Apex Legends Mobile, Teamfight Tactics, EVO, DC Metal Force, Omega Strikers, Unico, Eden, Game for Peace, Mobile Legends Bang Bang, Devil Engine, Soundfall, Bread & Fred, and many others. As a cellist, guitarist, and vocalist, Mason has had the great pleasure of working with a wide variety of film and gaming franchises, with personal favorites including Pokémon, Death Stranding 2, Kaiju #8, Stars Wars: Visions, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. franchise, Riot Games' League of Legends, Guild Wars 2, AMC's The Walking Dead, Made in Abyss, Arknights, Tower of God, Warhammer: Vermintide, the Grammy-nominated Stray Gods, Sega's Sin Chronicle, Hell's Kitchen, and God Eater. As a public speaker, Mason Lieberman has addressed passionate audiences on subjects related to film scoring, anime music production, video game scoring, and music theory. He has lectured academically at acclaimed academic programs like Harvard University, UCLA, Musicians Institute and Berklee College of Music, industry-leading conferences like NAMM, SXSW, GDC, and GameSoundCon, and many others. He is a member of faculty at the University of Southern California, where he lectures on video game audio for the School of Cinematic Arts' Interactive Media and Games department. He is also a member of faculty at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches in the Screen Scoring program on subjects surrounding video game scoring, film scoring, and the business of being a composer in the modern media landscape. In 2019, he partnered with Asia Pacific government officials as an international ambassador to Australia representing the video-game music industry. He was thrilled to present the official Cowboy Bebop charity single, 'The Real Folk Blues', in collaboration with Funimation, Sunrise, featuring special guest artists like Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, Steve Blum, and many, many more. This original arrangement hit #6 on Billboard global Digital song sales chart, as well as #1 on rock charts in Japan. In 2021, he shared the 'Best Score' award at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards with the rest of the team of 'Tower of God'. He also received the 2020 GANG award for Best Casual or Social Game Audio for his contributions to Tencent's wildly-popular 'Game for Peace' soundtrack. He was honored to be a part of the Forbes 30 under 30, Gaming category for the 2022 list. In 2023, he won the Hollywood Music in Media award for Best Game Score - Mobile for his work as a composer and music director for Game for Peace. For six years, Mason served as a senior composer and game audio supervisor for Tencent. In this position, he had the indescribable honor of working with many of the best audio professionals in the industry on a daily basis. Today, Mason is the Music and Audio Director at Interleave, one of the most highly-regarded music and audio companies in the world. He leads a team of expert audio veterans on a path that has intersected with many of the top franchises of all time. Mason endorses Kiesel Guitars, NS Design, and Auralex Acoustics.

Paul is an award-winning executive and creative leader whose career spans the globe, establishing him as a leading figure in innovation and advocacy within the games and interactive entertainment industry. As the President of Arrival, Paul is the driving force behind the company’s global operations, fueling strategy, content development, and creative pipelines across teams in Los Angeles, Seattle, and the UK.   Prior to leading Arrival, Paul served as SVP Interactive Worldwide at Formosa Group and was Senior Audio Director at Xbox Game Studios. He has managed extensive AAA teams and pipelines for industry giants including Activision, EA, SEGA, Ubisoft, PlayStation Studios, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, 2K Games, Nintendo of America, Harmonix, and many more.     His portfolio includes credits on some of the industry’s most successful properties, including the God of War franchise, The Last of Us franchise, Halo, Call of Duty, Genshin Impact, Resident Evil, Fortnite, Borderlands 3, Sunset Overdrive, Forza Motorsport 5, Iron Man 2, and BioShock 2. Paul and his teams have achieved global recognition, winning multiple MPSE Golden Reel Awards, DICE Awards, G.A.N.G. Awards, SXSW Awards, BAFTA Awards, and Golden Joystick Awards. In 2023, Paul was honored with the prestigious Game Audio Network Guild Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Conference.   A passionate advocate for the industry, Paul served a six-year term as President of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.)—the world’s largest organization of game audio professionals. As an active member of the Board of Directors, he helped originate the industry-first Program Partnership Initiative, the Guild Scholarship Award, and the worldwide advisor network. He was also a founding member of G.A.N.G. 's Pro Branches, including the Interactive Entertainment Sound Developers (IESD) and the Voice Actor Coalition (GVAC).   Paul is also a patent holder, having co-invented a first-of-its-kind Pre-Cognitive Interactive Music System with Microsoft colleague Robert Ridihalgh. An active speaker, he has conducted master classes and panels at MIT, Yale University, Berklee College of Music, Georgia Tech, SIGGRAPH, GDC, and the GRAMMY Soundtables.   Paul holds a BM and MM with summa/highest distinction from the world-renowned New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. A jazz and classical musician of twenty-five years, he has performed and recorded with legends such as Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie, Clark Terry, George Russell, Cecil McBee, and Bob Moses.

Rachel Manzelli is a Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Modulate. Her work focuses on leading the technical direction & development of audio-native, cost-effective machine learning models that support Modulate's Platform, ToxMod, and other product lines. Rachel holds almost a decade of machine learning research experience, alongside several peer-reviewed publications at the intersection of machine learning and audio. Her work has previously been featured at top venues such as NeurIPS, ICML and ISMIR. Rachel is passionate about creating spaces for researchers to share ideas; she loves to help organize audio-related events at major machine learning conferences, including workshops at NeurIPS ("Machine Learning for Audio" in 2023) and ICML ("AI Heard That!" in 2025, "Machine Learning for Audio Synthesis" in 2022). She regularly brings Modulate's researchers to machine learning conferences & events to share and discover cutting edge research. Before Modulate, Rachel worked at Macro (acq.) as a machine learning engineer, where she developed audio source separation models used in remote coworking spaces. She earned her B.S. in Computer Engineering from Boston University in 2019.

DJ Meadows is a sound designer and Foley artist whose career has taken him through paths less traveled. After relocating to Los Angeles in 2021 to focus on linear sound design (Film/TV/Ad), he would later join Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2022 as a Technical Director, building live event infrastructure and coordinating productions with artists including Metro Boomin', Imagine Dragons, and Olivia Rodrigo. In 2023, he was Introduced to game audio through the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), finally finding a place of belonging and creative fulfillment, and has been actively exploring the space through various Game Jams, meet-ups, volunteer opportunities, and small indie projects. In 2025, he founded HNDCRFTD LLC to partner with creatives and game developers to bring their stories to life through sound. Outside of work, you can find DJ creating immersive soundscapes for his side project, Flagons N Dragons, which helps elevate the D&D experience for folks of all skill sets. He's also passionate about finding any reason to bring folks together for an obscure presentation night and is committed to making sound design more accessible to people from non-traditional backgrounds.

Caio Jiacomini is an Audio Designer at thatgamecompany, where he strives to enhance players' experiences by creating delightful sound effects to listen to, as well as systems and tools to support the audio team. He is currently working on dynamic soundscapes for group meditation experiences in the game, bringing his expertise in generative ambient music to the world of Sky.

Sonia Mokhtari is a French-American composer and sound designer, recognized as one of the few women leading audio and composition in the video game industry. Based in San Francisco since 2010, she currently works full-time at Take-Two/Zynga, specializing in audio design and music composition for live mobile games. Her previous experience includes roles at Meta, VGW, CALM, and Electronic Arts (The Sims). Sonia's background combines rigorous musical training—including classical, jazz, and world music—with advanced studies in composition and sound design for film, television, and games at Berklee College of Music. She brings a rich, diverse musical palette to her game audio work, blending orchestration with adaptive sound design to create immersive player experiences. In addition to her professional work, Sonia teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and actively mentors emerging talent through programs like Genheration and Reel Stories. She is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in the gaming and audio industries. A member of SACEM, Sonia composes for games, films, and interactive media, continuously pushing creative and technical boundaries in game audio.

Shayna Moon is a Technical Producer at Meta's Sanzaru studio, recently shipping the critically acclaimed Asgard's Wrath 2. Her previous work includes engine production on Gears of War: E-Day, the Unity DOTS Spotlight group, and cinematic and audio production on Sony Santa Monica's God of War (2018) and God of War: Ragnarok (2022). She also has worked to support up and coming game developers through volunteer and mentoring opportunities such as Amplifying New Voices and the GDC Conference Associates program. Shayna graduated from Ferris State University in 2014 with a degree in Digital Animation and Game Design. She later attended the University of Texas at Austin Denius-Sams Gaming Academy, completing the program with honors. She began her career in games as a Quality Assurance tester in her home state of Michigan.

Howard Mostrom is a veteran sound designer, composer, and recording engineer whose work includes Kerbal Space Program 2, Planetary Annihilation, Supreme Commander, and Monday Night Combat. Known for blending technical rigor with emotional impact, Howard has captured real rocket launches on the pad at Cape Canaveral, composed and recorded epic orchestral scores, and designed complex interactive audio systems across Unreal, Unity, Wwise, and FMOD. His work focuses on pushing the boundaries of realism, immersion, and expressive sound in interactive media.

Jon is a veteran game writer and narrative designer with over fifteen years of industry experience, including work with properties such as Indiana Jones, Game of Thrones, Futurama, Jurassic World, SpongeBob, and more. His expertise is centered on narrative tools & technology, with a specialization in dialogue and conversational interfaces. In 2025 he was named among the top 100 innovators of the first decade of the Voice industry for his company Earplay's pioneering interactive audio story experiences released on mobile, Alexa, and Google Assistant. He most recently collaborated with Scholastic and Petricore Games to develop AR character conversations as a companion experience for the NYT bestselling series The Last Resort.  

For about 20 years Tomas worked on multiple AAA titles and game engines with extensive audio production needs like Crysis, World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3 Reforged, Overwatch, and an Unannounced Survival Game. Since joining CD Projekt Red he has contributed to the shared audio tech for multiple exciting projects across The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 franchises. Tomas is driven to fully unlock the creative potential of the audio professionals he has had the privilege to work with. As an engineer exclusively working on audio tech, Tomas has worked across different code disciplines from game client and server; game and audio tools; asset management systems, to deliver importance-based audio mixing; server authenticated voice system; or other complex audio features.

Charles Pateman is a game audio voice/dialogue specialist with 20 years experience working in audio professionally. Moving into the games industry in 2015, he has worked at Lionhead, OMUK, Creative Assembly, and has most recently worked as Lead Voice Designer at Massive Entertainment on Star Wars Outlaws.

As someone with a keen interest for sound and technique, Olivier studied sound design, doubling his specialization in both post-production and game audio. He then joined Audio Workshop, an audio outsourcer, as sound designer where he worked on several projects before joining Sandfall Interactive.

Founder and President of Fair Play Labs, Costa Rica's leading video game development studio, Claudio is a pioneer in the region's interactive digital entertainment industry with more than 20 years leading and shaping the country's game development ecosystem. Under his leadership, Fair Play Labs has developed both licensed and proprietary intellectual property while providing high-quality outsourcing services in software development, 2D and 3D digital art, animation, and music for the global gaming and edutainment markets. The studio made history by publishing Color Guardians, the first Costa Rican video game released for major consoles, including PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, a milestone that helped position Costa Rica on the global gaming map. Fair Play Labs has since expanded its international footprint with high-profile titles such as Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, nominated for Best Fighting Game of the Year. In addition to leading Fair Play Labs, he serves as LATAM General Manager at HatchWorks Technologies, driving innovation and growth across the region. His academic background includes studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and executive education at MIT Sloan School of Management, where he completed the program Building, Leading and Sustaining the Innovative Organization. A visionary entrepreneur, he is committed to advancing Costa Rica's position as a global hub for creative technology, innovation, and digital entertainment.

Always passionate about sound and music, Maxance did sound design studies, with a specialization in audio post-production and then game audio. That is when he joined Sandfall Interactive as an audio intern. He was the first member of the audio team, and ended up defining Clair Obscur : Expedition 33's audio artistic direction.

Star Victoria Power (aka, Slide20XX) is a composer who writes colorful music for colorful games. Their work includes contribution to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's new DLC, Dominique's Curse; the soundtrack for Calico (a game about magical girls running a cat cafe); the anti-racist PSAs, put out by Steven Universe; and electro-swing & jazz-hop for the visual novel, Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain. They're also co-founder of The Rising Star Patronage Project, a fund supporting marginalized video game music composers, co-founder of video game music community and educational resource, Beats to Play Games to, and founder of Beats to Play Games to's sister organization, Black in Game Audio.

4 Time Academy Award (BAFTA & AIAS) winning, experienced Audio Director with over 15 years in the video game industry; specializing in immersive sound design and audio direction for AAA titles. Proven track record in leading audio teams and delivering high-quality soundscapes that enhance gameplay experiences. A Battlefield, DICE and EA veteran.

Steven Sargent has over 30 years of industry experience as a production specialist, building and guiding companies to deliver quality products in a myriad genres and on multiple platforms. Notable Achievements: -BAFTA for Best Music for "Imperium Galactica II" (Senior Producer) -Award for Audio Achievement for "Zombie Pizza" (lead audio team) -Sensible World of Soccer has been judged one of the 10 most important games of all time [1] -Pioneered with Clinton Keith the use of formal agile methodologies in a video-game development setting

Pat Scandalis, CTO acting CEO of moForte Inc, has held lead engineering positions at National Semiconductor, Teradyne, Apple and Sun and spent the past 30 years in Digital Media. He was an Audio DSP researcher at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). He is the co-founder and VP of Engineering for Staccato Systems, a successful spinout of Stanford/CCRMA, sold to Analog Devices in 2001. He has held VP positions at TuneTo.com, Jarrah Systems and Liquid Audio/Liquid Digital Media (responsible for online digital music e-commerce properties for Walmart). He is currently the CEO/CTO of moForte Inc, a developer of GeoShred, a new kind of musical instrument based on physics modeling. He holds a BSc in Physics from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and is currently a visiting scholar at CCRMA, Stanford.

Brian Schmidt is one of the early pioneers of the game audio industry. The 2008 recipient of the Game Audio Network Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award, and 2017 inductee into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame, Brian has been creating game music, sounds and cutting-edge technology for more than 35 years. With a credit list of over 140 games and a client list including Electronic Arts, Zynga, Microsoft, Sony, Capcom, Sega, Data East, Namco and many others. Brian has used his combined expertise and experience in music composition, sound design and his deep technical knowledge to further the state of the art in game audio and his music has been featured in TV, Film and in the CD-set, Legends of Game Music. Brian began his career in game audio in 1987 as a composer, sound effects designer and music programmer for Williams Electronic Games in Chicago - writing music and creating sound effects for pinball machines and coin-operated video games. While there, he was the primary composer of the iconic video game NARC and lead composer and audio lead for Black Knight 2000. His main theme from NARC was later recorded and released by The Pixies. In 1989, Brian left Williams and became one of the industry's first independent game composers, where he worked on such games as John Madden Football, the Desert Strike Series, Mutant League Football and the award-winning Crueball. Other credits include Guns and Roses Pinball, where he worked closely with Slash to create a truly interactive Rock and Roll game experience. In 1998, Brian was recruited by Microsoft to lead the direction of game audio technologies. While there, he joined the then-fledgling Xbox organization as the primary architect for its audio and music system. Brian has been credited with bringing Dolby Digital Surround Sound to interactive gaming through his efforts at Xbox (where he also created the original Xbox startup sound).Through his ten-year tenure at Microsoft, Brian continued to drive and advance game audio technologies through tools such the award-winning XACT (Xbox Audio Creation Tool); the first-of-its kind tool to provide interactive mixing for video games. Brian was also responsible for the overall audio system of the Xbox 360 game system, including the XMA audio compression format, winner of the G.A.N.G Best New Technology award and finalist in IGDA's Best new technology category. Brian currently works as a consultant to the video game industry working with companies large and small. Brian is the creator of GameSoundCon, the industry's largest conference dedicated to composing video game music and video game sound design. Brian is a frequent and in-demand speaker on game audio and game audio technologies, having given literally hundreds of educational and inspirational talks at events all over the world. Events such as the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft's Gamefest, Sega Devcon, and the Audio Engineering Society Conference, SiGraph and esteemed institutions such as Yale University, Northwestern University and Digipen have invited Brian to share his knowledge and insight into the industry. Brian received undergraduate degrees in music and computer science from Northwestern University in1985, where he created the first dual degree program between the School of Music and the Technological Institute. He went on to complete his Masters in Computer Applications in Music in 1987, where portions of his thesis work was published in the prestigious Computer Music Journal and presented by invitation to the AES special conference on Audio Technology. Brian currently serves as President of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), a position he was elected to in 2012; sits on the advisory board of the Game Developer Conference; is a former steering committee member of the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (ia-sig) of the MMA; and has been a featured keynote speaker at GDC, Project BBQ and the Montreal Interactive Games Summit (MIGS).

Carl got his start in games in 1994. Carl has worked at small and large companies alike from a buyer and a service provider perspective, most notably Michael Crichton's Timeline Entertainment, Nvidia, Electronic Arts and his current role as Senior Director of External Development at Zynga. In this Business Operations role, he has built a worldwide organization which facilitates all of Zynga's external development and partner relations involving Art, Engineering, Audio, UI/UX, Co-Dev, QA, Localization/LQA, Narrative, UA and Marketing/Publishing. In addition, Carl helps coordinate and facilitate M&A integrations for Zynga and its subsidiaries.

Composer Garry Schyman’s award-winning music can be heard in nearly every audio-visual media, including feature films, prime-time television, and video games. His haunting orchestral scores for the globally acclaimed video games BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite have earned him multiple awards, including top honors for Best Original Score from the British Academy of Film & Television (BAFTA) and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

As one of the world’s most celebrated composers of video game music, Schyman is notable for his versatility of style and unique ability to fluidly draw from multiple eclectic sources of inspiration. Always experimenting, his recent music for the game Metamorphosis, based on Kafka’s groundbreaking novel, incorporates a unique expressionist score featuring techniques such as Sprechgessang (half sung half spoken) and 12-tone music.

He captured the fantasy world of Tolkien for the adventure game Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (nominated for a BAFTA award) and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and paid playful homage to ’50s sci-fi with his score for the game Destroy All Humans! (followed by two sequels). He accelerated heartbeats with his thunderous orchestral score for EA’s Dante’s Inferno and gave a nod to the hypnotic style of Bernard Herrmann in the mystery game Voyeur, as well as his beautiful and haunting music for the VR game Torn soundtrack available on Varèse Sarabande Records.

When he’s not composing, Schyman teaches part-time at his alma mater the University of Southern California in their world-famous Screen Scoring program.

Based in Seattle, Kareem Shuman has been a game audio professional for over 13 years, focusing on game dialogue specifically for the last 9 years. He's worked on indie titles, Guild Wars 2, Halo 5, many Destiny 2 seasons and expansions, and most recently as the Dialogue Lead at Insomniac Games working on the upcoming Wolverine game.

Amanda Rose Smith is an audio engineer, composer and sound designer based in NYC, with twenty years of experience working in games, film, tv, animation, audiobooks, and podcasting. She specializes in capturing and creating high quality dialogue and spoken word audio across multiple genres with credits including GANG best dialogue winner “Telltale’s The Walking Dead”, Just Cause 4, Orange Is The New Black, The New Adventures of Peter Pan, Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, and many more. She holds a BA in Music Composition from Smith College and a MA in Music Technology from New York University. She’s passionate about the convergence of art and technology and using new tech to bring an artist’s vision to life, whether that art be her own or someone else’s. The rest of her time is spent walking with her adorable dog and watching old episodes of Star Trek TNG.

Guy has been developing audio engines for various platforms since 2002. He has worked on everything from slot machines to AAA titles to indies, and written audio engines for them all, from a low-level mixer up through next-gen multi-threaded magic. He has also worked as a gameplay engineer on multiple titles, implementing various combat and gameplay systems, and was until recently the lead gameplay engineer at Echtra Games. He now works as an Audio Programmer at Blizzard Entertainment. Guy is editor/author of five books on Game Audio Programming entitled Game Audio Programming: Principles and Practices volumes 1 through 5.

Adam Sporka is a software developer by trade, a musician by domain, and a scientist by approach. As a researcher, developer, and educator in game audio, he places a special focus on interactive music. He has served as the technical music director for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Warhose Studios) and is the author of the Sequence Music Engine, a proprietary adaptive music middleware used in both games. As a composer, he contributed to the soundtrack of both Kingdom Come: Deliverance games, writing some of the most memorable medievalesque and early renaissance pieces on the soundtrack. Currently, he teaches game audio at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received his Ph.D. and habilitation in human-computer interaction from the Czech Technical University (Czech Republic) and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Trento (Italy). He has published more than 50 articles in the proceedings of international conferences and academic journals. Adam is currently appointed as a principal engineer at Embody, a Sunnyvale-based game audio software company focused on the commercial applications of the head-related transfer function. He can be reached on Twitter at @adam_sporka

David Su is a game developer, audio programmer, musician, sound designer, and researcher interested in creating new audio experiences through technology. He is currently a senior dialogue designer at Naughty Dog and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Southern California. Previously he was the lead audio and systems programmer at Brass Lion Entertainment, working on Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver. David's game credits include One Hand Clapping, NFL Endzone, Trolls Music Stars, and Yi and the Thousand Moons. He has also worked on audio technology for products by Focusrite Novation, Output, and Sunhouse.

Born and raised in Portugal. He studied Sound Design (BSc) in Lisbon and Music Composition for Film and Media (MSc) in Hertfordshire. Then moved to the UK in 2017 to work at Codemasters Cheshire, where he worked on Onrush, Grid, and Dirt 5. In 2020, he was hired to work at EA DICE, moved to Sweden and has spent the last 5 years pushing the limits of what Battlefield audio can be.

Akash Thakkar is an award-winning sound designer based in Seattle. His portfolio includes contributions to critically lauded titles such as Hyper Light Drifter, Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye, Concrete Genie, and High on Life, among others. Beyond his creative work, Akash is dedicated to educating and empowering the next generation of audio professionals. He frequently shares his expertise through international speaking engagements and educational content for aspiring sound designers. Akash is also a vocal advocate for fair compensation in the gaming industry, actively working to ensure audio professionals receive appropriate recognition for their contributions.

Katherine Tole is a Kat of all trades: a professional dialogue editor, voice actor, project manager, and once chemical engineer. Specializing in video game audio, Kat co-founded a game dialogue pipeline company called Plant Based Audio to work with companies like The Halp Network and freelance with clients such as Jackbox Games, Nintendo, and Trinket Studios. Recent voice acting credits include Wizard of Legend 2, Roundguard, Legend of Keepers, and the D&D Minecraft Map. They identify as non-binary and are part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Anna Waismeyer is a Senior Product Manager on the Gaming for Everyone team at Xbox. She is responsible for co-creating and managing the Inclusive Design Workshops and Accessibility Research programs. Anna has a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley where she studied cognitive and comparative psychology. Driven by her passion and advocacy for players with disabilities, in 2024 Anna led the launch of the Game Accessibility Workshop Toolkit, a pioneering resource that provides game developers throughout the industry with tools to help them bring accessibility and inclusive design practices to their studios. Over the 5 years that Anna has been at Xbox, she has supported the release of accessibility features across Xbox Game Studios including award-winning features such as Forza Motorsport's blind driving and steering assists, as well as Sea of Thieves' audio aim assist.

Colin has almost two decades of experience developing audio technology for video games. As CD PROJEKT RED's Engineering Director, he's worked on best-selling titles Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and has experience on other triple-A games including GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Colin is therefore involved in a wide range of audio subjects from acoustics and ambisonics to performance and streaming, but has also led the implementation of Core Values, led the formation of a Management Team in the Technology department, and provided technical direction for the Shared Dev Services area across multiple projects.

Luke Wang, Principle Audio Designer for Delta Force, specializes in technical audio for shooters. Leads cross-platform audio architecture and proprietary spatial audio system implementation across PC, consoles, and mobile. Contributed to CrossFire Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile.

Jay Weinland is an Audio Director, Sound Designer, and Technical Sound Designer with over 30 years in the games industry. He spent 18 years at Bungie, including his final four years as Head of Audio. During that time, he shipped over 12 titles and oversaw end-to-end production of sound effects and dialogue for the studio’s AAA Games division, contributing to award-winning, billion-dollar franchises such as Destiny and Halo. Over the years, Jay has also contributed to other major AAA franchises including Need for Speed, FIFA Soccer, Battlefield, and Batman. Currently freelancing and based in Los Angeles, Jay continues to bring deep creative and technical expertise to projects across the industry.

Debra Wilson was born and raised in Queens, N.Y. and graduated from the N.Y.C. High School of Performing Arts. She attended both Syracuse University and Brooklyn College, studying radio and television communications. She performed Off-Broadway theatre, improv, sketch comedy, film and television and has been the spokesperson for two major brands. In 1995, she became a cast member of the Fox late night sketch comedy series 'MADtv' and continued her career into the voice over world with animation, video games, audio books, ADR/Looping, narration, commercials, network promos, gameshow announcing and coaching. Her love of performing is equally matched with her love of tattoos and animals. She has 12 Lizards, 6 frogs, 2 snakes and a dog.

Audio director of 'Roco Kingdom:World'. Has been deeply engaged in game audio in Tencent for 4 years. Lead sound designer of Ace Force 2 and Main weapon designer of Arena Breakout: Infinity.