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It is our pleasure to welcome you at the first game dev industry conference in Romania. We believe you’ll find DEV. PLAY to be an exciting event, with interesting talks, panels, technical Q&As and workshops but it wants to be much more than that. DEV.PLAY wants to be a community builder, an event that brings together as many local and international industry players as possible, to discuss pressing issues, expectations and hopes about the future, share best practices, inspire one another and learn from each other.
So with that in mind, we strongly believe in the importance of this conference for our industry and have spared no efforts into organizing this first edition. It’s been a great and challenging ride, but it’s also been a great learning experience for us all, which will allow us to grow the event in the years to come.
We worked hard to put together a compelling agenda, with international and local speakers, in-depth workshops, seminars and Q&As, as well as an indie pitch competition. Last but not least, we look forward to having a drink together The Romanian game development industry at the official Dev.Play part, a great is the largest in the region, with over opportunity for networking and some good 6000 people making games. A significant fun! amount, yet our industry doesn’t have the recognition it deserves. Our aim with DEV. We want to thank you for joining us in this PLAY is to take a step towards changing adventure! that and to make it more meaningful Game on, DEV.PLAY! Make the most of it for game development companies to be all! present here. Cătălin Butnariu President, RGDA
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Day 1 (September 26, Monday) When...
Platinum Hall
Arizona + Colorado Hall
08:30 - 09:15 Registration & Coffee
Registration & Coffee
09:15 - 09:30 Opening Speech by Catalin Butnariu
n/a
09:30 - 10:30 Code Create Collaborate by Ian Livingstone
n/a
10:30 - 11:30
March of Mobile: The Evolution of Mobile Games And What Lies Ahead by Scott Humphries
VR Is The Future, Unity Is Ready by Josh Naylor (powered by Unity)
11:30 - 11:45
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
11:45 - 12:45
The 1337 Playbook \\ How Romania’s Gamedevs Will Win The Future by Mihai Pohontu
How We Won Gamedev By Rolling Our 11:45 - 12:15 Own Tech by Mihai Gosa
12:45 - 13:15
Quality Practices to deliver great gaming experiences by Mario Vasquez (EA)
12:15 - 13:15
13:15 - 14:15
LUNCH
LUNCH
14:15 - 15:15
Panel: How Relevant are VR & AR For Video Games? (powered by Samsung Gear VR)
Panel: Running A Game Business In Romania
7 Games Design Mistakes We Made So 14:15 - 14:45 That You Don’t Have To by Radu Rovin & Valentin Simion 14:45 - 15:15 Kickstarting an Adventure by Liviu Boar
15:15 - 15:45
What To Do If Your Mobile Game Launch Fails by Samir el Agili
Augmented Reality – Turnkey Solutions or In-House Development by Daniel Flamaropol
15:45 - 16:15
TBA by Fernando Vasconez
Where Good Ideas Come From by Gabriel Stancu
16:15 - 16:30
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
16:30 - 17:30
Monetization During Game Evolution by Maria Negruta & Alexandra Dragulin
A Personal Development Plan For Producers by Dan Teodorescu
17:30 - 18:30
Creating Effective Video Trailers In Reference To Marketing Strategy by David Kurowski
20:00-onward dev.play Official Party (sponsored by Amber)
Cofounders, Employees, Investors. Who 17:30 - 18:00 Should Get Shares In Your Startup? by George Lemnaru 18:00 - 19:00
Creating Immersive VR Experience by Robert Muresan
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Day 2 (September 27, Tuesday) When...
Platinum Hall
08:00 - 09:30 n/a
Arizona + Colorado Hall
n/a
09:30 - 10:30
How To Handle Security In Your Game. Multiplayer Included by Nicolae Georgescu
Dev.Play Indie Pitch (powered by Carbon Incubator)
10:30 - 11:30
Designing For Narrative Emotions by Dave Pimm
Dev.Play Indie Pitch (powered by Carbon Incubator)
11:30 - 11:45
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
11:45 - 12:45
Witchcraft: The Alchemy of a Crafting-Based Economy by Matthew Steinke
12:45 - 13:15
The Evolution Of Gameplay Programming by Daniel Cipu
13:15 - 14:15
LUNCH
LUNCH
14:15 - 14:45
Large Scale Security by Alexandru Chica
14:15 - 15:15 (Room Arizona)
Workshop: Narrative Design with Dave Pimm & Rob Kurta
14:45 - 15:30
Panel: In The Heart Of E-Sports
15:15 - 16:15 (Room Arizona)
Seminar: Project Centennial – migrate x32 app to Windows Store with Laura Savu (powered by Microsoft)
15:30 - 16:15
Panel: Education For Game Development
Workshop: Concept Art 14:15 - 16:15 – Behind The Iris Curtain (Room Colorado) with Cristian Chihaia
16:15 - 16:30
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
COFFEE BREAK (sponsored by RGDA)
16:30 - 17:30
10 Things You Need To Know To Be Successful In Asia with Jaime Gine
17:30 - 18:00
Why Success Is Scarier Than Failure And 7 Other Head-Scratchers From The Top Of The Games Industry by Mihai Sfrijan
18:00 - 19:00
RoIndieVan (documentary screening)
16:30 - 17:15 (Room Arizona)
Q&A: Building VR Apps In Unity with Josh Naylor
Seminar: Game Dev On Any Store – With Visual 16:30 - 17:15 Studio – Xamarin/Azure (Room Colorado) OSS with Ciprian Jichici (powered by Microsoft) 17:30 - 18:15 (Room Arizona)
Q&A: Building iOS Apps with with intl. iOS experts
ME E T S O ME O F O U R SP E A KE RS
IAN LIVINGSTONE Ian co-founded iconic games company Games Workshop in 1975, launching Dungeons & Dragons in Europe, and also co-authored the multi-million selling Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. Ian launched global video games franchises including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He has been awarded a BAFTA Special Award for his positive influence on the gaming industry.
MATTHEW STEINKE Matthew Steinke is Lead Technical Designer for CD PROJEKT RED’s ground-breaking game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. A 16-year veteran of the commercial games industry, Matthew previously worked at Ubisoft Toronto where he directed level design for the award winning Tom Clancy’s: Splinter Cell series. During his time at Midway Games he worked as a gameplay programmer on a number of of titles including Mortal Kombat, Stranglehold and PsiOps:The Mindgate Conspiracy.
MIHAI POHONTU Mihai Pohontu, is currently the Vice President in charge of Samsung Emerging Platforms. Prior to joining Samsung, he oversaw Product Operations at Disney Interactive, an organization comprised of over 600 staff distributed in 9 locations around the world. Before joining Disney, Mihai was the VP and General Manager of Central Development Services at Electronic Arts, overseeing operational teams supporting 18 development studios on 3 continents. He founded and was the General Manager of EA Romania, one of the largest game development studios in Eastern Europe.
SCOTT HUMPHRIES Scott is an independent mobile game producer for over 15 years. He worked on the industry’s first 3D mobile game (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater: 3D Mobile Edition), the industry’s first synchronous multiplayer mobile game (Bejeweled MP). He produced mobile games based on iconic EA franchises like Madden NFL, Need for Speed, The Sims, and SPORE. Scott was also producer on the free-to-play title The Simpsons: Tapped Out, EA’s highest-grossing mobile game of all time. Most recently, Scott was running Disney Interactive’s co-development and licensing business for mobile games – a portfolio of over 20 games with 5-6 product launches a year.
GEORGE LEMNARU George, cofounder and CEO Green Horse Games, has 10 years of experience in online games. During this time he raised close to 4 million EUR in order to build and scale 2 financially successful gaming companies in Romania.
MIHAI GOSA Turning the passion of playing games (pro-gamer) into the passion of developing them (programmer), Mihai started making games through high-school, worked for big game development studios and now is a proud indie. In a time when games can take so many years to make, Mihai is focusing on shortening the development speed of games through efficient and novel techniques.
MARIO VASQUEZ Mario Vasquez is Sr Director of QA & Certification at Electronic Arts in Vancouver, Canada. He brings over 20 years of experience in the video game and technology industry. Under Mario’s leadership, EA has transformed their approach to Quality Assurance and Testing to become an integral component of the game making process and play a key role in bringing EA’s great franchises and services to market and delight players worldwide.
DAWID KUROWSKI Dawid Kurowski is the Marketing Assets Producer at 11 bit studios where he is responsible for creating all kind of marketing graphical and video materials. At 11 bit studios Dawid was involved in few projects – Anomaly Defenders, This War of Mine, Beat Cop, Tower 57 and Frostpunk. Before starting work at 11 bit studios, Dawid was working as a main graphic designer at few polish e-commerce websites. Passionate about gaming and fast cars.
JOSH NAYLOR Josh Naylor: Born in the year of the SNES and a man of the North, Josh is a Product Evangelist at Unity Technologies based in Brighton, UK. Josh helps spread the word about Unity presenting new features and improvements to the engine and supporting the community. When he’s not talking about Unity, he’s tinkering with game mechanics in Unity. Game-Jams, football and travelling are his pastimes.
ROBERT MURESAN Robert Muresan: Robert is a game designer and programmer, founder of exosyphen studios. His works include the popular Hacker Evolution games. His most recent project is DailyIndieGame, a website oriented at selling discounted games and bundles, launched over a year ago. It had a spectacular growth, now delivering aprox. 250.000 game licenses monthly and having served over 1.000.000 gamers.
MARIA NEGRUTA Maria Negruta is a Game Economy Designer at Gameloft Romania. She is a mix of passion for balancing virtual economies and collecting dragons (in Dragon Mania Legends!). As a GED, she works closely with the development and business teams and it’s her responsibility to take data-driven decisions, to identify and develop purchase drives in the game economy context.
T EC H N I CAL T RAC K & INDIE PITCH WORKSHOPS AND Q&As For day two / second track the word is PRACTICAL. Indie pitch, workshops and technical Q&As prepared especially for you to bring some practical knowledge back to the office. 14:15 - 15:15 (Room Arizona)
Workshop 1: Narrative Design by Dave Pimm and Rob Kurta
15:15 - 16:15 (Room Arizona)
Seminar: Project Centennial - migrate x32 app to Windows Store by Laura Savu, Microsoft
14:15 - 16:15 Workshop 2: Concept Art Workshop - Behind the Iris Curtain by Cristian Chihaia, Ubisoft (Room Colorado) 16:30 - 17:15 (Room Arizona)
Q&A 1: Building VR Apps In Unity by Josh Nailor, Unity
16:30 - 17:15 Seminar: Game Dev On Any Store with Visual Studio - Xamarin / Azure OSS by Ciprian Jichici, Microsoft (Room Colorado) 17:30 - 18:15 (Room Arizona)
Q&A 2: Building iOS Apps
INDIE PITCH The Indie Pitch Contest is an important part of Dev.Play Conference and it was thought as an exercise, designed to help indie studios present their games in front of an audience, consisting of investors, publishers and journalists. Submitted projects went through a selection process, and selected pitchers will be in front of the judges on the second day of the conference. The pitch will be delivered by one speaker, decided by the team, using a Powerpoint support document. Selected projects: • Devious Technologies with Marble Land VR • Webprest Limit with Virtual World • Critique Gaming with Interrogation • Amused Sloth with Disco Dave • Kappsule Studios with Mad CEO • Rikodu with Second Hand: Frankie’s Revenge
Panel 1: How Relevant are VR & AR For Video Games? (Powered by
)
Synopsis: VR has long been heralded as the future of video games, but as the technology is reaching maturity, it is finding certain challenges to reach mass-market, as well some “competition” in the form of Augmented Reality. Join our panelists for an in-depth discussion on the evolution of this medium and its future potential. Moderator: Ivan Lobo Time slot: September 26th, Platinum Hall, 11:45 – 12:45 (60 min)
Panel 2: In The Heart Of E-Sports Synopsis: This panel takes a different approach from usual discussions on e-sports game development: the panelists are not game developers themselves, but people with years of experience in this (now) hot field. They are event organizers, team managers, players or marketers, and they are here to tell developers what E-Sports need from them. Moderator: Catalin Butnariu Time slot: September 27th, Platinum Hall, 14:45 – 15:30 (45 min)
Panel 3: Running A Games Business In Romania? Synopsis: Romania is a major game development hub in Europe, with over 6000 employees working in the industry The presence of big names such as EA, Ubisoft or Gameloft goes hand in hand with the development of numerous indie studios. How did we get here and what’s next? What does the local industry need to grow further? Join this discussion with several studio heads from big and small game dev companies from Romania, as they share their personal experience. Moderator: Andrei Istrate Time slot: September 26th, Arizona/Colorado Hall, 12:15 – 13:15 (60 min)
Panel 4: Education For Game Development Synopsis: Games are growing as a global entertainment business and Education in this field is becoming more and more important. Only through education can we achieve a sustainable development for the industry since only through education one can achieve the needed specialized work force. What is Romania doing in terms of education for game development? How can the local industry learn from existing established knowledge centers, such as US, UK, etc? Moderator: Catalin Butnariu Time slot: September 27th, Platinum Hall, 15:30 – 16:15 (45 min)
Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial and financial center. A vibrant city, which has developed in recent years into a regional hub for innovation and technology.
Bucharest is not all about working hard though, it’s also about playing hard, with most expats and tourists rating its nightlife as one of the best in Europe.
All in all, Bucharest is a city that you need With large IT&C multinationals opening to explore, so join us this September and shop here in order to take advantage of meet your Romanian peers to discuss the the highly skilled workforce and a buzzing future of game dev here. start-up community in the field, Bucharest has also grown into a regional dev hub which promises a lot in the future.
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EL T O N H O T A T RES SHER A H C Its privileged location in the city center of Bucharest makes this hotel an ideal setting for meetings, seminars, trainings or social events. With a combined meeting space of 1.200 square meters, our convention center offers 11 conference rooms that can accommodate up to 1400 participants, including 2 ballrooms and 2 boardrooms. All venues are equipped with digital signage, sophisticated lighting, electronic remote projection screens and free High-Speed Internet access.