Meggan Scavio is an American business executive who is the president and chief executive officer of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS). Prior to leading the AIAS, Scavio worked with UBM plc for eighteen years, where she was most recently general manager for the Game Developers Conference events.
Scavio began her career with the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in 2000, as an operations manager and a liaison for GDC's Conference Associate program. [1] She was appointed event director of GDC in 2007, succeeding Jamil Moledina, and first directed its 2009 event held in San Francisco. [2] [3] [4]
Scavio was appointed general manager of GDC events in 2011. As general manager, she oversaw events in the United States, Europe, and China, as well as GDC Online and the Virtual Reality Developers Conference. She departed from UBM plc (GDC's parent company) in June 2017, having worked in eighteen GDC events since 2000. [5] [6] [7] The next month, Scavio was named as president and chief executive officer of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), which organizes the annual D.I.C.E. Summit. [1] [7] She is also one of the founders of Amplifying New Voices, a professional development program targeting video game developers from underrepresented groups. The program is currently managed by the AIAS Foundation. [8] [9]
In 2018, Variety listed Scavio as one of the "Most Influential in Video Games", recognizing her work in "[bringing] more diversity and inclusivity to the games business". [8]
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, and innovation in video game development by CMP Media, later known as UBM Technology Group, IGF is now owned by Informa after UBM's acquisition.
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.
Game Developer was a magazine for video game creators, originally started in March 1994 by Miller Freeman, Inc as quarterly, later bimonthly, and finally monthly. In each issue, industry leaders and experts shared technical solutions, reviewed new game development tools, and discussed strategies for creating innovative, successful video games. Monthly postmortems dissected the industry's leading games, from AAA console to social and mobile games and beyond, and columns gave insight into deeper development practices from across all disciplines, from design, to programming, to art, to business, and audio. It was closed in 2013 as part of a restructuring at parent company UBM Tech that included the closing of all print publications owned by that company.
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentations of the D.I.C.E. Awards.
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.
Eidos Interactive Limited was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Its games series included Championship Manager (1992), Tomb Raider (1996) and Hitman (2000). Domark was founded by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley in 1984. In 1995, it was acquired by software company Eidos. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became executive chairman of Eidos and held various roles including creative director. Eidos took over U.S. Gold in 1996, which included developer Core Design, and merged its operations including Domark, which created publishing subsidiary Eidos Interactive. The company acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, and owned numerous other assets. In 2005, parent Eidos was taken over by games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainment Group, which was briefly renamed Eidos, was itself taken over by Square Enix in 2009.
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.
SouthPeak Interactive Corporation, doing business as SouthPeak Games, was an American video game publisher based in Midlothian, Virginia. Founded on March 1, 1996, as a subsidiary of SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina, it was sold and moved to Midlothian, Virginia in 2000, and became a public company in 2008. Also in 2008, the company acquired and closed Austin, Texas-based publisher Gamecock Media Group, and opened a separate digital distribution subsidiary 7Sixty in Grapevine, Texas in 2011. SouthPeak Games quietly disappeared from the public eye in July 2013.
Vivendi Games was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1996 as CUC Software, the publishing subsidiary of CUC International, after the latter acquired video game companies Davidson & Associates and Sierra On-Line. Between 1997 and 2001, the company switched parents and names multiple times before ending up organized under Vivendi Universal. On July 10, 2008, Vivendi Games merged with Activision to create Activision Blizzard.
Thatgamecompany, Inc. is an American independent video game development company founded by University of Southern California students Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago in 2006. The company was a developer for Sony Computer Entertainment, contracted to create three downloadable games for the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network service, and has since secured independent funding. The first of their games is a remake of Chen's award-winning Flash title Flow, with enhanced visuals and sound, added multiplayer modes and compatibility with the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller. The title was released on the PlayStation Store in 2007. The company's second PlayStation 3 game, Flower, was released on the PlayStation Store in 2009, and their third game, Journey, was released in March 2012 on the PlayStation Store. Their fourth game, Sky: Children of the Light, was released in July 2019 on iOS and in April 2020 on Android. Later, it released on the Nintendo Switch in June 2021 and on PlayStation 4 in December 2022.
Media Molecule Ltd. is a British video game developer based in Guildford, Surrey. Founded in 2006 by Mark Healey, Alex Evans, David Smith, and Kareem Ettouney, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired the firm in 2010. It became part of SCE Worldwide Studios. The company is best known for developing the LittleBigPlanet series, 2013's Tearaway, and 2020's Dreams for PlayStation consoles.
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not usually afforded in AAA games. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to a lack of publisher support. The term is synonymous with that of independent music or independent film in those respective mediums.
Within the video game industry there are several awards that are given to individual video games, development studios, and other individuals to recognize their merit. Most video game awards are given out on an annual basis, celebrating the best games of the previous year. Most of these awards come from organizations directly within the industry, but there also exist several that come from broader media groups. In addition, many video game publications supply their own end of the year awards.
Jennifer Pahlka is an American businesswoman and political advisor. She is the founder and former Executive Director of Code for America. She served as US Deputy Chief Technology Officer from June 2013 to June 2014 and helped found the United States Digital Service. Previously she had worked at CMP Media with various roles in the computer game industry. She was the co-chair and general manager of the Web 2.0 conferences. In June 2023, she released the book Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.
Make Something Unreal, also known as $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal Contest and Make Something Unreal Live, was a series of video game development competitions organised by Epic Games which began in 2004, with subsequent competitions in 2008, 2012, and 2013. The contests aimed to reward developers who created mods using the Unreal game engine. Make Something Unreal has not returned since the event in 2013. Epic Games has since launched Epic MegaGrants, a grant based scheme, in 2019.
The Seumas McNally Grand Prize is the main award given at the Independent Games Festival (IGF), an annual event that takes place during the Game Developers Conference, one of the largest gatherings of the indie video game industry. The award is named after computer game programmer Seumas McNally (1979–2000), founder of independent game development company Longbow Digital Arts. McNally died of Hodgkin's lymphoma shortly after receiving the award, then just the IGF Grand Prize, in 2000 for his game Tread Marks. The award is given alongside a prize of US$30,000.
The Game Developers Choice Award for the Game of the Year, also known as GDCA Game of the Year, is the main video game award presented at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers. The conference, usually held in or around March in San Francisco, presents the award as part of the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), a series of awards honoring outstanding achievements in video game design for games released during the previous calendar year. It has been awarded since 2001.
The Game Audio Network Guild Awards is an award show that celebrates excellence in video game audio. The awards, which started in 2004, are arranged by the Game Audio Network Guild and held annually during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The first four shows were held at the Fairmont San Jose, before moving to the Moscone Center from the fifth; due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 18th, 19th, and 20th ceremonies were held virtually.
Connie Booth is an American business executive who had served as vice-president of Product Development at Sony Interactive Entertainment. She had been an advocate of many of SIE's first-party franchises starting with Crash Bandicoot. She was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.