We are delighted to announce “GamesWest – Get into GameDev“. On the 4th of December University of the West of Scotland and West College Scotland, in association with IGDA Scotland, are hosting a one-day event focusing on getting into the games industry, held at the UWS Paisley campus. There will also be a chance to hear from established developers how they made their name and various workshops will be running with information on the creative process, technical and business sides of the industry.
The event will feature high profile speakers from around the UK, talking about how they got their start, how they think students should get started now as well as some of the biggest challenges they see for the industry as a whole. Here are just a small sampling of the speakers who will be available on the day
Currently Gary Carr is the creative director at Lionhead studios having worked alongside Peter Molyneux on the studio’s flagship game series ‘Fable’ for a number of years. He also worked on legendary games such as Theme Hospital, Theme park and Populus at Bullfrog Productions.
Patrick Connor is a Senior Engineer at SCEE’s R&D, he graduated from Abertay University in 2003 he has since gone on to work at Lionhead Studios in the Engine team for Fable 2 and 3. He has experience of working with various gaming hardware including mobile platforms as well as console and PC. His expertise covers GPU and multi-threaded programming, stereoscopic 3D and performance analysis and optimisation.
Mitu Khandaker runs The Tiniest Shark, about to launch their first title “RedShirt”, a parody game whose concept is social simulator set on a spacestation. Mitu is one of Develop’s 30 Under 30, a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit and sits on the Advisory Board for the Advocacy Track at the Game Developers Conference among many other claims to fame.
Dr Jo Twist took the role of CEO of Ukie in January 2012. Dr Twist was Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor for Education where she commissioned Digital Emmy-winning Battlefront II, a stable of free to play browser and iOS games, including Sweatshop, Nomnation and International Racing Squirrels, as well as social media projects. Previous positions include Multiplatform Commissioner for BBC Entertainment & Switch, BBC Three Multiplatform Channel Editor and in a former life was a technology reporter for BBC News. With a background in digital media, education, creative technology and youth culture, and a PhD in online communities, identity and young people, Twist brings a wealth of experience in all aspects of interactive entertainment including media, technical innovation and creativity, commercial and political issues.
Alongside these talks, other sessions will be running that will focus on getting into various disciplines within the games industry. Each of these events will be run by industry veterans in those fields. A wide variety of “Getting into” sessions will be covered including both traditional and, somewhat, less traditional disciplines of the industry. These include ‘Getting into’: programming, academia, game art, games journalism and game design and more! There will also be sessions aimed at demystifying the recruitment process with CV workshop sessions running looking how to make your CV the best it possibly can be, portfolio workshops on how to polish up your portfolio and talks on internships in the games industry.
The event will be running from 9.30-17:00 at the UWS Paisley campus and wherever your interest in the industry lies, we hope to see you on the 4th of December! For a more information and up to date information on speakers, make sure to check out the GamesWest website.