GO3 Expo Speakers Announced!
A number of guest speakers for the upcoming GO3 Expo (30 March 2007) have been announced on the GO3 conference webpage. (My man on the inside tells me that there are more high-profile speakers still to come). Already, the lineup looks very good, You can read through their bios on the GO3 page, but there are no links for more information, so I’ve tried to include as many as reasonably possible here. The announced speakers are:
- Rod Fergusson (Epic Games)
- Chris Williams (LucasArts)
- Harvey Smith (Midway)
- Masaya Matsuura (NanaOn-sha)
- Goichi Suda (Grasshopper)
- Roy Taylor (Nvidia)
- John Passfield (Pandemic Sudios Australia)
- Paul Turbett (Benevolent Interactive)
- Dr Martin Masek (Edith Cowan University)
- Paul Bourke (University of Western Australia)
The real standouts to me are Masaya Matsura, Goichi Suda (aka. Suda 51), and John Passfield. For those that don’t immediately recognise these names (and haven’t yet clicked on the links above), let me give you a little background on each of these people (after the jump).
Update: This story on PALGN suggests that GO3 is in discussions to nab Peter Molyneux (Lionhead) as a speaker!
Masaya Matsura basically invented the modern “music game” genre with games such as Parappa the Rapper. I personally feel that one of his most accomplished works is vib-ribbon (which I don’t think came out in the US). These games were both real eye-openers for me in that they expanded my concept of what a game could be by challenging prevalent notions.
Goichi Suda (aka. Suda 51 since 51 in Japanese is go-ichi) is president of the Grasshopper Manufacture Inc., the studio behind the amazingly stylish GameCube and PS2 game Killer 7 and the upcoming Wii game Heroes (video). He’s also working with Hideo Kojima on a project codenamed “Project ‘S’“. Like Matsura, his games are also very challenging to a general audience that may not be expecting something so different to (and more confronting than) conventional games.
James Passfield is probably best known as one of the founders of Krome Studios (producers of the Ty The Tasmanian Tiger series). When I attended the Australian Game Developers’ Conference a number of years ago, I was really struck by the professionalism of the (then newly formed) Krome Studios. Since then I’ve come to know him better through his blog and website where he dispenses invaluable information for those wanting to enter the gaming industry.
When I read about these three speakers in particular, I was very, very, very happy. I also wondered if I had something to do with the fact that they would be coming to Perth (and not just in a I-willed-it-to-happen sort of way). A few months ago the GO3 organisers asked for suggestions for speakers through the Perth Independent Game Makers Initiative (PIGMI) mailing list and I responded with a list of speakers.
GO3 is planned to be a fairly mainstream and inclusive event (there are family passes available), but I threw in the names of a few “out there” game developers (Matsura and Suda) who I had admired for quite some time, and now… there they are on the speaker’s list!
I’ll be going to the second (ever) IGDA Perth Chapter event next Monday, and I’ll try to find out if it really was my suggestions that helped build the list of candidates. I know that I said it before, but I’m really looking forward to GO3 (even more than before). I’ll have my copies of vib-ribbon and Killer 7 handy!
Headsup from Sumea Launchpad.
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