Jun 03 2010
In the words of the inimitable Matthew Kagle who is helping post this Month:
Wednesday, June 23th at Kapp’s in Mountain View
(191 Castro St)
Who is invited? You and your friends/coworkers/family!
What are we talking about? Games!
What are we eating? Mostly pizza!
What happens if I don’t come? Deep sadness!
Mar 29 2010
Gone are the days, if they ever really existed, where creatives could count on being sponsored by a large studio for their entire careers. By choice or necessity we may have to create our own.
Ever wondered what is the secret to founding and keeping a creative studio alive? Unfortunately there’s no magic lantern you can rub, yet there are many aspects of that “business” thing that involve creativity, which you might – god forbid – enjoy.
We have the founders of a game, graphic and sound studios here to share the stresses, the sucesses and the inflection points for the unexpected. Walk away inspired and apply some points to ease your own journey.
Bios:
Kai Huang, co-founder of Red Octane and its President and CEO since 1999. Publishers of the popular Guitar Hero franchise, RedOctane was acquired by Activision in June 2006. Prior to RedOctane, Mr. Huang was co-founder and CEO of Adux Software, a software company developing solutions for the server appliance market and prior to that, he was a consultant with Accenture. Mr. Huang holds a BA in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley
Alejandro Gil, co-founder of Blackpoint Studios. Alejandro has been working on television, film and games for nearly 15 years, starting his career in real time Broadcast TV back in Spain and transition to film and commercials after his arrival to Los Angeles in 1998 in the middle of ‘El Nino’ storm. He moved north to join EA at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and then spent 4 intense years as founder and creative director at Blackpoint Studios.He joined EA for a second term, to help finish Godfather 2 and is now Lead Environment Artist at a brand new studio opened by Activision.
Simon Amarasingham, co-founder and CEO of dSonic Inc., a company that has been creating audio for games for 10 years including titles such as Brutal Legend, Bioshock, and Farmville. Starting from amongst a sea of competitors, dSonic has grown to become one of the game industry’s premier suppliers of audio for games. Prior to his dSonic days Simon did a little programming during the dot com boom and composed music and sound effects as an independent contractor both in the US and Australia.When: April 7, 6:30pm
Where: Cogswell Polytechnical College
Who: Three Fabulous Studio Founders – Game, Graphic and Sound.
Presented By: The Silicon Valley IGDA — linkedin, facebook, google group
Cost: Free and you must register here
Agenda:
6:30 – 7:00 Refreshments, socializing
7:00 – 7: 15 Intros, Abert Chen (Cogswell) & Ann Burkett (SV IGDA)
7:15 – 7:45 Simon Amarasingham of dSonic, special prepared talk
7:45 – 8:00 Refreshments, Socializing break
8:00 – 9:00 Panel with Kai Huang, Alejandro Gil, and Simon Amarasingham, then Q&A.
9:00 – 9:30 Socializing/Networking and byes
Feb 21 2010
NOTE: Registration is full for this event. If you previously registered through Eventbrite see you there!
Join us March 22 at 6pm for the “Keys to Viral Game Success”
Whether you a web, mobile or console game designer or developer you know that going viral is a critical key to success. Virality is a puzzle you must continually solve and plan for. No games seem to be solving this puzzle more succesfully than some of the social games which don’t even have state of the art graphics or gameplay. Join us to hear Mark Skaggs, the lead man behind the largest game on Facebook Farmville whose previous work also included such hits as Red Alert II with EA, and Sana Choudary, Chief social strategy consultant at Traffichoney, a company that consults with and creates social games for the largest traditional game companies as they discuss keys to virality and how those apply to both social and other games.
We plan to finish with an interactive Q&A so designers and developers can get a chance to get some brief direct opinions or strategies on some of their own game & app virality issues.
You can view articles and more information about Mark and Sana at:
Mark Skaggs accepting prize on behalf of Farmville
Sana Choudary on Casual Games and Facebook
Zynga’s Skaggs On Social Games’ Developer Appeal
http://traffichoney.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanachoudary
When: March 22 6p-9pm, 2010
Where: Hacker Dojo
Register: http://sgf2010march22.eventbrite.com/
Speaker Bios:
Mark Skaggs is an award winning game developer and most recently known for creating the world-wide phenomena, “FarmVille” for Zynga.
With a career spanning 17 years, 2 AIAS awards, 4 console transitions and a track record of creating games which have sold over 16 million copies at retail, Skaggs is also known for creating multi-million selling RTS games such as “Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2”, “Command and Conquer: Generals” and “Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth”.
Skaggs joined Zynga in 2008 and is currently Vice President of Product Development, leading the charge to create new and interesting games in the social gaming space.
Sana Choudary is Founder/Chief Virality and Social Game Strategy consultant at Traffichoney. Sana works with game companies who are having the challenge of understanding how to build social games. Traffichoney helps them optimize virality and engagement to build popular social games.
Sponsors:
refreshment sponsor courtesy of Zynga
Feb 17 2010
Hi Everyone!
Only this Wednesday our,
Next Chapter Meeting Social Event will be combined with Wildpocket @
Bay Area Game Jam 2010 Pre-event Meet Ups! Location: BBC Menlo Park -
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
When and Where?
Silicon Valley Meet Up:
Wednesday, February 24th 7:30 – 9:30pm
BBC Menlo Park
RSVP – http://wildpockets.com/gamejam?quicktabs_5=2#quicktabs-5
Continue reading “Feb 24 – Party Time! Chapter Meeting at BBC with Wild Pockets”
Jan 29 2010
More than 125 sites around the globe this year for the IGDA’s Global Game Jam.
There are three sites in and near Silicon Valley; in San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Sunnyvale.
Here are URL’s to the three sites on globalgamejam.org
http://globalgamejam.org/sites/national-university-san-jose
http://globalgamejam.org/sites/university-california-santa-cruz
http://globalgamejam.org/sites/cogswell-polytechnical-college
Late breaking note — Santa Cruz is full, and Cogswell is looking pretty packed also, contact
Mark Resch and take advantage of National University San Jose’s beautiful new labs and have some global fun.
Jan 11 2010
Happy 2010. Join us for our next Pizza Night meeting at 7:30 pm at Kapps. Time to talk games, projects and fun again. Details here
Nov 21 2009
Silicon Valley International Game Developers Association (SVIGDA) siliconvalleyigda.org
in collaboration with the Business Association of Stanford Entrepeneurial Students (BASES) bases.stanford.edu
present:
Games and (new) New Media,
Speakers:
Steve Meretzky, VP Game Design, Playdom, and
Dave Castelnuovo, cofounder Bolt Interactive.
Continue reading “Friday, December 4th at Stanford — Steve Meretzky and Dave Castelnuovo on “New Media and Games”,”
Oct 20 2009
Hi All, join us for our next Pizza Night meeting at 7:30 pm at Kapps. It’s a been a wonderful year for the chapter, let’s plan a new one and also just simply talk games and munch. Bring your ideas an/or your smiling face and appetite! Details here
Sep 26 2009
Game Demo Night is a evening where new and upcoming games and game tools are presented, after which the audience has a chance to interact with and give feedback to presenters and check out many of the demos. Of additional fun and benefit will be hearing about the wide range of game approaches and experiences. Developers range through creative college students, the untamed wild of small independents, to well established larger companies. Presentations are concise game and tool overviews.
Event: Silicon Valley International Game Developers Association (SV IGDA) Game Demo Night
When: Wednesday September 30, 2009 6:30pm – 9:30pm.
Where: Cogswell Polytechnical College in the Dragons Den Auditorium
Cost: Free and open to the general public
This upcoming Demo Night we have the great fortune to have cutting edge 3d game engines, beautiful independently crafted games, the latest on the very, very hot topic of game monetization, an interesting new tool for 3d graphic artists and the beloved Game Development Club. The start time was also moved up a bit to 6:30pm to help ensure that we have some casual time to see demos at tables and chat at the end of the evening. More detailed presentation summaries, speaker bios and information are coming however I wanted to get the list out as soon as possible.
Cogswell Game Development Club: One of the most popular presenters from last year, Brody Brooks , is back to chat about the ultra caffeinated “game in a day” experience.
Trinigy: Trinigy CEO Danie Conradie will be coming fresh from Austin GDC to speak. Trinigy has come to talk about the latest developments in their multi-platform 3D game engine, including all new integrations with, and support for, some of the game industry’s leading technologies. Those who are interested can get more hands-on with the technology after the presentations. A big thank you to Trinigy who has helped make this event possible.
Lazy 8 Studios: Founder Rob Jagnow will present the gorgeously crafted independent game Cog and his philosophical insites gained. Two people made this game. Look and weep.
Refreshment Break
PlaySpan: Karl Mehta, Co-Founder & CEO and GM of Social Networking Monetization at Playspan will be providing a demo of DDO Unlimited, game marketplace for digital goods, as well as an overview of the companies new Ultimate Payment Wall for social network games. They will be speaking to how developers can use these platforms to tap into a new distribution mecahanism to monetize games and applications.
Bioroid Studios: Founder Martin Robaszewski will talk about his wild and wooly, (you think I kid, look at the costume on his site) experiences at Comic-Con with his series of XBOX Live Indie games about Cyborg Mice and perhaps give us a peek at the latest Cyborg Mice Game.
Terathon’s C4 Game Engine: Eric Lengyel, Founder and CTO of Terathon Software will cover some of the new developments for their C4 3D game engine. Should be an especially great night for those interested in game engines.
Mixamo – Stefano Corazza, the CTO and mastermind behind Mixamo’s advanced technology will speak about their upcoming products for streamlining the 3d motion animation process. Mixamo is also local and enjoys direct developer feedback on their new products so make sure and chat with them after the presentation.
Who is the Silicon Valley IGDA? It’s you, that’s why it works.
Sep 08 2009
Interested in creating a social game or app, or promoting your existing game through one?
Join the Social Game Fest group on 
Check out and register for a Social Game Fests in the Bay Area this Fall at http://www.socialgamefest.net/
