IGDA Silicon Valley Chapter Presents: A Speaker Panel Discussion on Current and Future Trends in the Casual Games Market November 15, 2007

With the tremendous growth in the Casual Game market, Cogswell is pleased to host this event for IGDA and discuss a topic that has such relevance for the industry. Time has also been set aside for a question and answer period.

Moderator:

Albert Chen
Albert is a game industry veteran with over 12 years of experience and has nearly two dozen shipped titles under his belt. He has worked at LucasArts, The 3DO Company, Factor 5 and Electronic Arts. He joined Cogswell's full-time faculty this fall as Assistant Professor of Game Design and Development.

Panelists:

Mitzi McGilvray
Mitzi McGilvray is game industry veteran with more than 20 years experience working on everything from large console games to small downloadable content. She currently holds the dual responsibility of VP of Casual Games at TikGames and is Chair of the IGDA Board of Directors. Mitzi brings the medium sized publisher/developer perspective to the table where she works with the major portals to get distribution for her company’s titles.


Dave Rohrl
Dave Rohrl is one of the most experienced and respected producer/designers in the casual game space. Among his accomplishments in the casual space are conceiving and launching Pogo To Go (Pogo.com’s downloadable game channel), founding and managing PopCap Games’ San Francisco development studio and creating some of Pogo’s best known and loved products including Word Whomp, Tumble Bees, and Casino Island. In all, Mr. Rohrl has produced and designed more than 20 published casual games and served as executive producer on another 8. He is currently working as a freelance producer/designer for multiple clients including Electronic Arts’ Sims label.


Javier Maldonado
Masq is an Interactive Story/Drama which is now being referred to by game magazines as “the father of a new game genre,” “the future of games” and "the most fun some of us have had playing a game in years.” Javier is Masq's author and executive producer and the CEO of Alteraction. He has been creating and engineering linear and interactive media in a multi-disciplinary fashion for years. He has created ad campaigns, theme park shows, comic strips and TV commercials, but also has programmed and designed multimedia software authoring tools.


Location:
Cogswell Polytechnical College
The "Dragon's Den"

Official Website: http://www.cogswell.edu/news/118.html