Two Inspirational Industry Leaders Join the Advisory Board to Program the Event: Designer and Scholar Brenda Romero and Composer Penka Kouneva
SAN FRANCISCO – July 31, 2014 – UBM Tech Game Network, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference® (GDC) 2015, are now accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, panels, posters and tutorials through Thursday, August 28th.
GDC 2015 is the game industry’s most comprehensive and longest running professionals-only conference, where game developers meet for a week of learning, networking and inspiration. GDC 2015, the event’s 28th edition, will take place March 2nd-6th at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.
The GDC advisory board is considering session submissions for seven Main Conference tracks—five on the various disciplines of making games: Audio, Design, Production, Programming and Visual Arts–as well as a track on Advocacy, which covers social issues from diversity to quality of life, and, finally, a track covering Business, Marketing & Management. Proposals can be submitted via the official GDC website at: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/c4p/. The call for submissions to present talks at the GDC Summits specific to a variety of sectors within the industry will open in September 2014.
The GDC Main Conference advisory board, which includes game industry leaders such as Microsoft’s Chris Charla, Konami’s Julien Merceron, Media Molecule’s Siobhan Reddy, Oculus VR’s Laura Fryer, and Double Fine’s Lee Petty, is also thrilled to welcome two new members to contribute in planning content for the conference.
Brenda Romero is an award-winning game designer, Fulbright scholar, entrepreneur, artist, writer and creative director who entered the video game industry in 1981. Brenda has worked with a variety of digital game companies as a game designer, creative director or consultant, including Atari, Sir-tech Software, Electronic Arts and numerous companies in the social and mobile space. She is presently the Program Director of UC Santa Cruz’s Master’s in Games & Playable Media Program, Co-founder / Chief Executive Officer of Loot Drop, a casual game company, and an independent game developer at Romero Games, LLC. Brenda has more than 30 years of experience in PC, console and casual gaming.
With more than 15 years of professional composing experience, Penka Kouneva has a diverse background of classical training and media scoring. To highlight some of Penka’s credits, she is a lead orchestrator and composer on game & film titles grossing $10 billion worldwide: Matrix, Transformers, Pirates (films), World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Gears of War 2, 3, Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands, Sims 3, Diablo III, Need for Speed, Dragon Age II (games). Last year she became the first woman since Shirley Walker to be the Lead Orchestrator on two studio films with budgets over $100M — Elysium and Ender’s Game. She is extremely excited to contribute to the community she feels most energized by – game makers and game composers.
“In this ever-evolving industry, the best lessons come from each other, so we encourage developers to submit proposals that demonstrate best practices learned, as well as those that cover recent challenges and how they overcame them,” said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of GDC Events. “Our advisory board members are a dedicated group of industry leaders that truly have a passion for the craft, and an eye to the future. We look forward to working closely with them in creating the best GDC content to date.”
For more details on the submission process and to view the complete list of GDC 2015 Main Conference advisory board members, please visit http://www.gdconf.com/.
