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From VP of Brand Western Studios at Square Enix I moved into the Indie space in 2016. There is an agility and resourcefulness around Indie publishing that has huge value as well as challenges. I have 30 years of industry experience starting my career at Criterion Studios, moving to publishing at Ubisoft. I then progressed from territory marketing to central brand management at THQ and Electronic Arts where I was embedded in the UK studio. My passion for brand, audience and insights took me to Eidos to work on the original research that determined the change in direction for Tomb Raider & the 2013 reboot. I've worked in the indie sector since 2016 and am passionate about sharing insights and knowledge with developers in this sector. It is a hugely creative and innovative space that has delivered incredible gaming experiences. I've honed my Early Access experience since working on Core Keeper from 2020 pre EA release. Having now supported a marketing team who have launched & supported 10 games in Early Access I am keen to share these experiences and support developers looking for guidance in this space.

Gina is the Head of Technology (Senior Director of Engineering) on Teamfight Tactics (TFT) at Riot Games. She leads the engineering team, focusing on core architecture, gameplay development, and feature implementation for TFT. In her role, Gina is responsible for driving technical innovation in areas such as AI to build new capabilities that ensure the game's long-term growth and scalability. Gina is active in the local community. She advocates for programs and opportunities in the special education community—particularly access to computer science, assistive technology, and scholarships. She has served as the Special Education District Advisory Committee chair for SMMUSD and founded the Epic soccer program for AYSO Region 20, now in its 11th year. Prior to Riot Games, Gina worked as a Senior Director of Engineering on the Sports Platform team at Electronic Arts (EA), where she led engineering efforts to build the EA Sports app, a socially-driven sports app blending real and virtual sports content. In addition, she served as the global co-chair for the ABLE employee resource group to support families with disabilities. Gina was also Vice President of Consumer Technology at Activision, where she partnered with game studios, business leads, and marketing teams to develop experiences for franchises like Call of Duty across web, mobile, console, and voice platforms, leveraging data and AI. She holds a Master's in Computer Science from California State University.

Pamela Iluore is a Senior Product Manager at PlayStation, where she leads strategy for mobile games. Throughout her career, she has helped shape products at some of the industry's largest companies, including Electronic Arts, where she worked on Apex Legends Mobile, a title recognized as Apple's and Google's Mobile Game of the Year.

Nate LaMartina has been working professionally in the gaming industry for over 20 years. His career has spanned across Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and NetEase before arriving at Tencent. He started out as a character artist, switch to art direction for a bit, and then dedicated himself fully to technical art after realizing how much he missed it. He's had the privilege of working on some of the biggest titles in the industry, new franchises and old, such as Dragon Age, Anthem, Assassin's Creed, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and more. At every company that he has worked, he has been part of respective global technology initiatives, looking for ways to align, share, and drive tech forward together.

Tülay Tetiker McNally is a senior strategic leader with over twenty years of experience in the global games and VFX industries. With a professional history spanning Germany, the UK, Canada, Sweden, and Spain, she brings a globally informed perspective to developer- and player-centred design. Following foundational experience at Microsoft, Square Enix, and SEGA, Tülay joined BioWare in 2010 as Director of QA & Central Development Operations. She later led strategic cultural transformation initiatives within Studio Operations at EA DICE before being appointed as Electronic Arts' first Director of Inclusive Design & Product Development. In this role, she helped integrate the frameworks required to embed inclusive design into global production pipelines. Currently, she is the Senior Director of Product Inclusion & Central Ops Partnerships at Scopely, a strategic programme she created and leads to provide teams with guidance on accessibility and inclusive content, ensuring culturally informed decisions throughout the development process. Tülay holds an MA in American Culture, History, and Society from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and a Postgraduate Diploma in Innovation & Design Thinking. She is an ICF Certified Coach and a CQ® Certified Facilitator and serves on the GDC Advisory Board and is a Patron of the mental health charity Safe In Our World.

Borut Pfeifer has worked in videogames as a programmer and designer for over 25 years. From working on early open-world games like Scarface: The World is Yours, to working with Stephen Spielberg at Electronic Arts, to his last released project with WolfEye Studios, Weird West, he's pushed on the boundaries of procedural characters and stories in games. He's worked on a wide range of games, with releases on every major game platform in that time, with novel technical achievements like developing the first console, PC, and phone cross platform game, the critically acclaimed Skulls of the Shogun. He has worked at E-Line Media since 2022, first on a sequel to the BAFTA winning Never Alone, and his latest project is the cozy city sim Neighborhoods.

David Pritchett is a Principal Designer and Producer at Electronic Arts with a background that spans television production, advertising, technical art, and game development. Originally from St. John's, Newfoundland, he studied English and creative writing before attending film school and beginning his career in television production and editing, including work with the CBC. He entered the game industry in 2011 as a Technical Art Director and has spent the past 15 years at Electronic Arts, contributing to franchises including Grand Slam Tennis, SSX, EA SPORTS UFC, and EA SPORTS NHL. A lifelong storyteller and problem solver, David is equally fascinated by retro games and emerging technology. He is particularly interested in how AI and new creative tools can remove traditional production constraints, increase quality, and make previously impractical ideas achievable. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife and their cat, Twinsen, and remains a long-suffering Toronto Maple Leafs and Blue Jays fan.

Steve is a principal software engineer at Electronic Arts where he specializes in optimizing games and developing performance dev tools as part of the Performance Technology Group. He was previously the UX manager and principal software engineer at Nintendo Technology Development where he oversaw UX design for developer tools on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, as well as architecting development tools such as the Nintendo CPU Profiler for Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and Switch. Steve is an inventor with 16 issued patents covering data visualization, profiling, augmented reality, and game controllers. He is an advisor and founder of the GDC Game AI Summit, editor of the Game AI Pro book series, and a Computer Science instructor at DigiPen Institute of Technology. He earned a B.S. in computer engineering and a M.S. in computer science, both from the University of Washington.

Stephen Rhodes is an award winning writer and narrative designer with over 16 years of game development experience working on AAA, AA, and indie titles. Alongside his work on video games, Stephen also writes for comics, TV, film, and TTRPGS. He is currently a Senior Narrative Director for Electronic Arts and is working on the Iron Man title at the EA Motive Studio in collaboration with Marvel Games.

Carla Rylance is Head of Business Solutions at XDS Spark and Chair of the XDS Advisory Committee. With more than 20 years of experience in game development, she has led external development, production, and strategic initiatives at studios including Lionhead Studios, The Coalition, Electronic Arts, Behaviour Interactive, and XDS Spark. Throughout her career, Carla has contributed to the development of 18 shipped titles, including Halo Infinite, Gears 5, The Casting of Frank Stone, Fable Legends, and The Casting of Frank Stone.

Mathew Savage is a Senior Audio Artist and Speech Lead at Electronic Arts. Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, he spent most of his time outside, but thanks to an abundance of rainy days, his passion for video games grew and eventually led to a full-time career. He broke into the game industry in 2019, joining Electronic Arts to work on the NHL franchise, and has never looked back. Mathew is fascinated by the search for ways to bridge the gap between live sports broadcasts and video game commentary. He believes AI-assisted tools can help close that gap by supporting talent during recording sessions, reducing bottlenecks, and improving workflows. When it rains these days, Mathew tries to find time between family life, friends, and work to continue a seemingly endless game of Factorio because, well… The Factory Must Grow.

Carl got his start in games in 1994, as an artist, a buyer, a service provider, and operations executive, most notably at Michael Crichton's Timeline Entertainment, Nvidia, Electronic Arts and most recently as Senior Director of External Development at Zynga. At Zynga, Carl created and lead centralized external development operational programs that improved processes, efficiency, and strategic benefit across the business in all disciplines. Currently, as Senior Vice President of Strategy at service provider GlobalStep, Carl's focus is on partnership with the CEO and fellow executives to define long-term goals, identify growth opportunities, and translate those visions into actionable business plans.

Pasha Sol is a Motion Capture Supervisor at Electronic Arts, where he supports performance capture production for a wide range of AAA titles across the company. With over a decade in games and a background in acting and optical physics, he brings both a performer's insight and technical perspective to the craft. His work focuses on building robust capture pipelines, supervising on set, and guiding teams through complex production challenges.