The Entretech Forum:
Making Your Name in a Changing Gaming Industry

The EntreTech event will feature a lively and interactive discussion between panelists and the audience on how young entrepreneurs and their start-ups canbe successful in today’s changing gaming industry. The panelists bring a wide range of experiences as developers, entrepreneurs, and executives from the industry’s premier companies. They will discuss international competition, getting funded, publishing your games, changing gaming platforms, and the strategies that will help you make your name in this dynamic industry.

Cost: FREE for Students & Active Military, $10 Faculty Members & NEU Staff and $25 Community & Others

Please visit the Entretech website to register.

Moderator:

Terrence Masson,
Director of Creative Industries: Northeastern University
SIGGRAPH 2010 Conference Chair
Author of "CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference" (Second Edition) www.cg101.com

SHOTS magazine called Terrence “Possibly the most mobile practitioner in the CG industry” [Nov. 98]. With 20 years of very eclectic production experience, he has served his own consulting company "Digital Fauxtography" as a Creative Producer, Director and VFX Supervisor. Terrence came up through the ranks on about 20 feature films including three Star Wars movies, Hook, True Lies and Interview with a Vampire. He is also well known for single-handedly developing the CG pipeline for SouthPark in 1996. Interactive projects have included Cyberia2, SimCity4, Batman: Dark Tomorrow, and Alter Echo. As an award-winning Director & Producer his short animated film Bunkie & Booboo won first place in the World Animation Celebration in 1998. He currently consults with major production studios world-wide on creative development and pipeline efficiency. Terrence also currently serves as an on-camera image analysis expert for the History Channel’s UFO Hunters.

As Director of Creative Industries at Northeastern University in Boston, MA he oversees seven dual majors in Game Design and Interactive Media as well as a new GPU production research initiative. He is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Visual Effects Society and has been active in SIGGRAPH since 1988, most recently as the 2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair and currently as SIGGRAPH 2010 Conference Chair. ( www.visualfx.com )

Panelists:

Eitan Glinert
President, Fire Hose Games

Fire Hose Games is a new Cambridge based studio making downloadable console and PC games with a positive angle, and Eitan is the founder and creative director. Awesome! Before Fire Hose Eitan spent several years making educational and accessible games, including AudiOdyssey, the first Wii Remote game accessible to the blind. Eitan plays ice hockey religiously and thinks Lemmings is the greatest game ever made.

Paul Neurath
Creative Director, Floodgate Entertainment

Paul started developing games in the “8-bit” 1980s.  In 1990 Paul founded Blue Sky Productions, which became LookingGlass in 1992.  As Creative Director of these studios, Paul helped come up with the concepts and directed the development of such acclaimed titles as Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Flight Unlimited, and Thief, which collectively garnered dozens of game-of-the-year awards and earned over $150M in sales.  In 2001 Paul founded Floodgate Entertainment, a studio focused on developing games for emerging platforms, including mobile games and PC downloadable games.  Floodgate has developed such award-winning and hit games as Neverwinter Nights mobile, Civilization mobile, Daycare Nightmare, Pirates of the Caribbean Multiplayer, and NASCAR mobile.

Al Reed
Co-Founder and Studio Director, Demiurge Studios

Albert is the principal founder of Demiurge Studios and has been serving as Studio Director since the company's inception. In this role, Albert oversees game production at the studio and handles business development. Prior to founding Demiurge along with Tom and Chris, Albert was a programmer at Cognitoy and Iron Lore Entertainment. Albert holds a B.S. in Technical Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.

Brian Sullivan
Co-founder Iron Lore Entertainment and Ensemble Studios

Brian is one of the most successful game designers ever, having created the Titan Quest game franchise and co-created the Age of Empires  game franchise. These games are a huge commercial and critical success, selling over 20 million copies worldwide and amongst them winning almost every award possible.
 
Brian co-founded Iron Lore Entertainment in 2000 to bring his design sensibilities to role playing games.  Brian was Lead Designer on Titan Quest and Creative Director for the other titles published, in addition to being President of the company.  Iron Lore won IGDA's 2006 Choice Award for Best New Studio.
 
As a founding partner of Ensemble Studios in 1996, the developer of the Age series, Brian helped build the company into a premier game development powerhouse. Among his many roles while at Ensemble, Brian was the co-designer and project manager on Age of Empires , and executive producer of the other games in the series.
 
In 1998, Brian won the 1998 Computer Game Developers Association (GDC) Spotlight Award for Achievement in Game Design for his work on Age of Empires .
 
Previous to his work in the game industry, Brian managed the successful design and development of many multi-million dollar software systems for organizations including Harvard, MIT, Fidelity Investments, EDS, the New York Department of Economic Development and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.