A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as programmers, designers, artists, etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games.
The Game Developers Choice Awards are awards annually presented at the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games. Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999. Since then, the ceremony for the Independent Games Festival is held just prior to the Choice Awards ceremony.
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutorials, lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals on game-related topics covering programming, design, audio, production, business and management, and visual arts.
The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is a nonprofit professional association whose stated mission is to "support and empower game developers around the world in achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers."
Warner Bros. Games is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The publisher was founded as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on January 14, 2004, under Warner Bros. Entertainment and transferred to its Home Entertainment division when that company was formed in October 2005. Warner Bros. Games manages the wholly owned game development studios TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, and WB Games Montréal, among others.
Robert Bates is an American computer game designer. One of the early designers of interactive fiction games, he was co-founder of Challenge, Inc., which created games in the 1980s for the pioneering company Infocom. After Infocom's dissolution in 1989, Bates co-founded Legend Entertainment to continue publishing games in the Infocom tradition, but with added graphics. Notable games that he has designed, written, or produced include Unreal II (2003), Spider-Man 3 (2007), and Eric the Unready (1993), listed as Adventure Game of the Year by Computer Gaming World magazine and also included on the 1996 list of "150 best games of all time". In 1998 he wrote the award-winning game Quandaries for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has twice been the chairperson of the International Game Developers Association, which honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Bates has written extensively about game design and development in works such as the 2001 book Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games, which is commonly used as a game design textbook in college courses. From 2011–2014, Bates was Chief Creative Officer for External Studios at Zynga. He continues to work as an independent consultant with various publishers in the games industry.
Hal Halpin is an American computer game executive and entrepreneur, and is the president and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA).
Manifesto Games was an ecommerce retailer of downloadable computer games, specializing in independently developed games aimed at hardcore gamers. It was founded in October 2005 by Greg Costikyan and Johnny L. Wilson, former editor of Computer Gaming World, and is based in New York City. The company was announced September 29, 2005. Costikyan was the company's CEO while Wilson was executive vice president for community and content. On June 23, 2009, Costikyan announced that Manifesto was closing its doors, citing the 2008-2009 economic downturn, a lack of venture capital, and problems successfully marketing the company as a destination for independent games.
Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is a role-playing video game created by Danny Ledonne and released in April 2005. The game recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Columbine, Colorado. Players assume the roles of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and act out the massacre, with flashbacks relating parts of Harris and Klebold's past experiences. The game begins on the day of the shootings and follows Harris and Klebold after their suicides to fictional adventures in perdition.
Brenda Louise Romero, previously known as Brenda Brathwaite, is an American game designer and developer in the video game industry. She was born in Ogdensburg, New York and is a graduate of Clarkson University. Romero is best known for her work on the Wizardry series of role-playing video games and, more recently, the non-digital series The Mechanic is the Message. She has worked in game development since 1981 and has credits on 49 game titles.
Danny A. Ledonne is an American film director and former video game developer. From 2011 to 2014, he worked as a professor in Film and Media Arts at American University, served on the board of the Southern Colorado Film Commission, and became the director for the 2015 edition of the festival. He is known for the documentary Playing Columbine, about the controversy surrounding his 2005 video game Super Columbine Massacre RPG!.
Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat is a 2009 documentary film, directed by Spencer Halpin, an American independent filmmaker. The title of the film is in part a reference to the Mortal Kombat series of video games. The title was changed from Moral Kombat to Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat to avoid the risk of a lawsuit.
Erin Hoffman is an American game developer, blogger, and fantasy writer. She has published three fantasy novels, and been the lead designer on multiple games such as Kung Fu Panda World, GoPets: Vacation Island, and Frontierville. Her anonymous post as a disgruntled "EA Spouse" in 2004, based on the working conditions of her husband who was an Electronic Arts developer, led to industry-wide awareness of the frequent use of "crunch time" overtime work to complete games in the video game industry.
Jennifer MacLean is known for being the chief executive officer at 38 Studios, an independent game developer, from 2009 to 2012 and the executive director of the IGDA from September 2017 to April 2019.
The Digital Game Xpo (DGXPO) was the Southeast U.S.'s largest game industry conference. The event was organized and hosted by Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina. The first event was held in 2005 and it was held annually until 2009. The event comprised an expo, career fair, student showcase, and a variety of tutorials, lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals. The expo also held a number of tournaments for popular games of the time like Guitar Hero, Super Smash Bros., and Halo 3.
GCA Games Convention Asia is a major video game exhibition in the Asia-Pacific region. It consists of a public exhibition and a conference where the various players in the video game industry network and interact with each other, while showcasing their latest products and services to the public. Games Convention Asia serves as an entryway for companies trying to enter the Asian interactive entertainment market.
Kate Edwards is a geographer, writer, and content culturalization strategist, most active in information-based cartography and video game content. She was the executive director of the International Game Developers Association from December 2012 to June 2017. Edwards spent over a decade working in various roles at Microsoft, creating the Geopolitical Strategy team and working to evaluate and manage geopolitical and cultural content in software products. After leaving Microsoft she founded Englobe as a consulting firm engaged in content culturalization and strategy, primarily for the video game industry.
Playing Columbine is a 2008 American documentary film produced and edited by American independent filmmaker Danny Ledonne. The film follows the video game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! in which players experience the Columbine High School massacre through the eyes of the murderers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Vast Studios is a casual video game company founded in 2008 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are the developer of 3Tones, a match 3 game nominated for RealNetworks' Great Game Awards as well as the Nightfall Mysteries series. The studio also partnered with National Geographic to make a point-and-click style game based around the Salem Witch Trials called “Lost Chronicles: Salem” which was released December 4th, 2010. The first publicly released game by Vast was "Hard Hittin’ Hockey" in 2007. Vast Studios has since gone out of business, and in 2014, they were acquired by ISIS Lab Corporation, now known as Tangelo Games Corp.
The Mortal Kombat series of fighting games, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, has been the subject of various controversies since its creation in 1992. In particular, Mortal Kombat has often been criticised from a broad spectrum of politicians and other critics for its unrestrained use of graphic and bloody violence, both in the game's regular combat scenes and its Fatalities—finishing moves which allow the player to kill or otherwise maim the defeated opponents.
