Browse and sort the growing list of GDC Summer sessions by day, time, pass type, topic, and format. All session times are shown in Pacific Time. Check out GDC Summer’s Event Details for more information related to the event schedule.
Let the Data Speak: Using Analytics to Guide Every Stage of Your Game (Presented by Sisu)
Sponsor Speaker: Peter Bailis (Sisu)
Pass Type: Conference Pass, Discovery Pass
Topic: Business & Marketing
Format: Sponsored Session
Launching Global Games With google Cloud (Presented by google Cloud)
Sponsor Speakers: Mark Mandel (Google Cloud for Games), Rob Martin (Google Cloud for Games)
Pass Type: Conference Pass, Discovery Pass
Topic: Business & Marketing, Production & Team Management
Format: Sponsored Session
Ask Me Anything: Working Together, Apart, In Dynamic Times. Q&A with Robin Hunicke
Speaker: Robin Hunicke (Funomena)
Pass Type: Conference Pass
Topic: Production & Team Management
Format: Interactive Session
Skill-Building Series: How to be a Force Multiplier
Speaker: Erika Mariko Olsen (Google)
Pass Type: Conference Pass
Topic: Production & Team Management
Format: Interactive Session
Addressing Ethics & Content Responsibility as Game Developers
Speakers: Celia Hodent (Independent), Kate Edwards (Geogrify), Carlos Figueiredo (Two Hat), Kat Lo (University of California, Irvine)
Pass Type: Conference Pass, Discovery Pass, Community Pass, Student Pass
Topic: Advocacy
Format: Community Content
Skill-Building Series: Pixel Art and Animation in the Hi-Bit Age
Speaker: Tyriq Plummer (Independent)
Pass Type: Student Pass
Topic: Student Program
Format: Interactive Session
Experimental Gameplay Workshop
Speakers: Maria Mishurenko (Synesthetic Echo), Patrick Traynor (Independent), Rachel Theil (Puzzsoft), Matt Stark (Independent), Justin Sales (National Student Leadership Conference), Anselm Pyta (Studio Seufz), Sam Polglase (Schell Games), Olive Perry (Wickworks), Shawn Patton (Schell Games), Daniel Benmergui (Storyteller), Christopher Cinq-Mars Jarvis (Cinq-Mars Media), Michal Hupka (Breda University of Applied Sciences, Creative Media & Game Technologies), Robin Hunicke (Funomena), Michael Guattery (Puzzsoft), Guy-Gianno Garcia Hoelen (Breda University of Applied Sciences, Creative Media & Game Technologies), Gwen Frey (Chump Squad), Josh Delson (Independent), Gordey Chernyy (Synesthetic Echo)
Pass Type: Conference Pass
Topic: Design
Format: Session
Roundtable: Game Music Business Essentials
Speakers: Penka Kouneva (Independent), Brian Schmidt (Brian Schmidt Studio & GameSoundCon), Richard Ludlow (Hexany Audio)
Pass Type: Conference Pass
Topic: Audio
Format: Interactive Session
Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer: Advice from Industry Artists
Speakers: Greg Foertsch (Unannounced), Gavin Goulden (Insomniac Games), Claire Hummel (Valve), Gwen Frey (Chump Squad), Magnus Lehmann (Riot Games)
Pass Type: Student Pass
Topic: Student Program
Format: Session
The Year in Mobile Free-To-Play Games
Speakers: Steven Meretzky (Independent), Juan Gril (Game Tapas), David Rohrl (Mobile Games Director)
Pass Type: Conference Pass
Topic: Business & Marketing, Design
Format: Session
Games for Health: A 2020 Update
Speaker: Noah Falstein (The Inspiracy)
Pass Type: Conference Pass, Discovery Pass, Community Pass, Student Pass
Topic: Advocacy
Format: Community Content
Title: CEO
Company: Geogrify
Kate Edwards is the founder and CEO of Geogrify, a Seattle-based consultancy for content culturalization and the former executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), from 2012 to 2017. She is a unique hybrid of an applied geographer, writer, and corporate strategist and is an outspoken advocate on issues affecting the well-being of game developers and the game industry as a whole. Formerly as Microsoft’s first Geopolitical Strategist in the Geopolitical Strategy team she created and managed, Kate was responsible for protecting the company against political and cultural content risks across all products and locales. Since leaving Microsoft, she has provided guidance to many companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google and many others on a wide range of geopolitical and cultural issues and she continues to work on a variety of game franchises. Kate also serves on several corporate and organizational boards including TakeThis.org, and is a regular columnist for MultiLingual Computing magazine. In October 2013, Fortune magazine named her as one of the "10 most powerful women" in the game industry and in December 2014 she was named by GamesIndustry.biz as one of their six People of the Year in the game industry.
Title: President
Company: The Inspiracy
Noah Falstein has been a video game developer since 1980, and was one of the first 10 employees at LucasArts Entertainment, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He recently served for four years as Google's Chief Game Designer, working closely with their AR and VR projects, before leaving the company to pursue health games opportunities. He currently serves as SVP of Content for Mindmaze SA (stroke recovery and other neurogaming applications) and through his company The Inspiracy consults for various other games/health ventures. As a freelance game designer and producer, Noah has moved from earlier work on entertainment titles to focus primarily on health-related projects using games or game technology. Notable peer-reviewed projects he has contributed to include ReMission from Hopelab (helping teen cancer patients stay on their chemotherapy) and Neuroracer from Dr. Adam Gazzaley's UCSF lab, researching attention training. He was the first elected chairman of the International Game Developers Association, has published over 100 articles and book chapters, and currently is an Executive Advisor to Akili Interactive Labs (FDA-approved ADHD treatment), and is working with Applied VR and TrainPain (pain remediation), StoryUp/HealiumXR (stress) and others in neurogaming. He has also spoken at over 200 conferences and universities around the world.
Title: President
Company: Chump Squad
Gwen is a veteran developer with a background in both AAA and indie games. She most recently founded Chump Squad, a new studio to develop what was her solo project "Kine." She pitched the game for funding, hired contractors, and released Kine on 3 consoles, Google Stadia, and the Epic Game Store within a year. Before this she co-founded indie studio The Molasses Flood where she was the CFO and one of six developers on their debut game "The Flame in The Flood." Previously, Gwen worked as a senior technical animator on BioShock Infinite, the BioShock Infinite DLCs, and Marvel Heroes Online. She regularly live streams indie game development on Twitch (@direGoldfish) and co-hosts game development podcast "The Dialog Box."
Title: CEO
Company: Funomena
Robin Hunicke is the Co-founder of the independent, San Francisco game studio Funomena. A game designer and producer by training, she has a background in fine art, computer science and applied game studies. She is an Associate Professor of Art at UC Santa Cruz, where she co-directs the Center for Games and Playable Media. Robin joined Electronic Arts in 2005, to work on The Sims2 and MySims, and then Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox. In 2009 she joined thatgamecompany as Executive Producer for the award-winning Playstation3 title Journey. In 2012, Robin co-founded Funomena with technical director and TGC teammate Martin Middleton. They have announced two commercial titles: the origami-inspired Luna (http://bit.ly/16cUn9g) and the whimsical and mysterious Wattam (http://bit.ly/1uu7eJm). Recently listed as one of Fast Company's 1000 Most Creative People in Business, Robin is also an outspoken evangelist for diversity of thought and participation in both design and business. She organizes the annual Experimental Gameplay demos at GDC, is a mentor for the annual Lexus Design Award, Google's "Made with Code" campaign, and a proud partner of Intel's recently announced diversity initiatives. She believes that by broadening the game community and expanding the feelings game designs explore, developers will make better, more broadly appealing games.
Title: Audio Director
Company: Hexany Audio
Richard Ludlow is the Audio Director and co-Founder of Hexany Audio, a Los Angeles based sound and music studio specializing in audio for games, VR (Virtual Reality), and interactive media. Richard has worked on projects for Disney, Activision, Ubisoft, Universal, Amazon, Tencent, Sony, Google, and many more.
Title: Developer Advocate
Company: Google Cloud for Games
Mark Mandel is a Developer Advocate for Google Cloud for Games and founder of the open source, multiplayer dedicated game server scaling project Agones. Hailing from Australia, but now living in San Francisco, Mark built his career developing backend systems for over 20 years, writing open source software and building infrastructure in the cloud.
Title: Game Producer
Company: Google
Erika is a Game Producer at Google focusing on Stadia Games & Entertainment's 2nd Party titles. She worked at Riot Games from 2014-2018. Her varied background as a Lifeguard, Performing Arts Teacher, Japanese Pageant Queen, and more has prepared her in unexpected ways to work in games.
Title: Chief Architect
Company: Google Cloud for Games
Rob Martin is Chief Architect for Gaming at Google Cloud, working with top publishers and studios globally to deploy gaming workloads on GCP. Rob specializes in scaling up massive truly global multiplayer games utilizing Google Cloud’s differentiated compute, data analytics, and machine learning capabilities. Prior to joining Google to focus on gaming, Rob developed solutions across a number of industry verticals including banking and hedge funds, satellite telecommunications, and media broadcasting. Rob holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Master of Science in Analytics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Title: Game Design Consultant
Company: Independent
Steve Meretzky began his career at the legendary adventure game company Infocom, where his titles included "Planetfall", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (a collaboration with Douglas Adams), "Leather Goddesses of Phobos", and "Zork Zero". Steve has run his own development studio, Boffo Games, and has been a VP at Disney Interactive, Game Show Network, and King. Over his prolific career, Steve has worked with teams at Activision, Blizzard, EA, Harmonix and Hasbro, to name a few. Steve is currently offering his services as a game design consultant while exploring his next career move; recent clients include Google, Draft Kings, and Mobile Game Doctor. A former board member of the IGDA, Steve organizes the Free-to-Play Summit at the GDC as well as the annual Game Designers Workshop.
Title: Artist & Game Designer
Company: Independent
Tyriq is an artist and game designer with over 10 years of experience doing pixel art and animation on such games as Cadence of Hyrule, Thor: God of Thunder, Adventure Time: ETDBIDK!, and Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. He started pixeling when he first opened up MS paint as a child in the 90s and hasn't stopped since. He also taught himself how to code at some point and has been toiling away for the past 6 years on his beloved platformer roguelike, Catacomb Kids, which will be finished someday, he swears. You often can find him streaming game development on twitch at twitch.tv/fourbitfriday, or shuffling tangential to this mortal coil on twitter @FourbitFriday. Or really just google FourbitFriday. There's only one, he's pretty sure, and it's him.