Press Releases ( Women in Gaming )

WCG Educational Track Schedule

October 5th

1pm-2pm

Programming = Presentation tutorial via the DigiPen ‘ProjectFUN’ editor on how games are programmed. The presentation culminates in the creation of a PC game made from start to finish during the presentation.

Production = #John Williamson (“How are games really made?/ What’s it really like to work in the games industry?”)

Design = #Jeff Lane (“Creating Maps For Team Fortress 2”)

Music/Art = #Adam Crespi (“Digital Cinematography: fear and loathing in lighting techniques. An overview of design and techniques to set a mood in a virtual environment with lighting and post effects.”)

2pm-3pm

Programming = Presentation of DigiPen student created Xbox-360 games using XNA and Microsoft Game Studio Express.

Production = #Paul Levy (“Marketing and PR: Game Production’s Final Lap”)

Design = #Nate Simpson (“Taking concept to Game”).

Music/Art = #Jazno Francoeur (“The Physics and Design of Classical Effects Animation”)

3pm-4pm

Programming = Presentation tutorial via the DigiPen ‘ProjectFUN’ editor on how games are programmed. The presentation culminates in the creation of a PC game made from start to finish during the presentation.

Production = #Jeff Pobst (“Making Console & PC Games with the Major Publishers”).

Design = #Dr. Greg Street (“The Design of Age of Empires 3: How to add features to a sequel without killing a franchise or going insane.”)

Music/Art = #Mike Swanson (“Managing Next-Gen Art and Artists”)

4pm-5pm

Programming = Presentation of DigiPen student created Xbox-360 games using XNA and Microsoft Game Studio Express.

Production = #Inwoo Kim (“The Challenges of Mobile Game Development”).

Design = #Royal Winchester (“Flight Simulation Art Development”)

Music/Art = #Lawrence Schwedler (“The Art Of Music Production For Games”)

October 6th

10am-11am

Programming = Presentation tutorial via the DigiPen ‘ProjectFUN’ editor on how games are programmed. The presentation culminates in the creation of a PC game made from start to finish during the presentation.

Production = #Mike Swanson (“Plotting Your Career in the Games Industry”)

Design = #Cindy Ball (“World Cyber Games – Women in Gaming Symposium pt. 1 of 2”)

Music/Art = #Adam Crespi (“Digital Cinematography: fear and loathing in lighting techniques. An overview of design and techniques to set a mood in a virtual environment with lighting and post effects.”)

11am-12pm

Programming = Presentation of DigiPen student created Xbox-360 games using XNA and Microsoft Game Studio Express.

Production = #Erik Chan (“What it takes to start your own indie game studio”).

Design = #Cindy Ball (“World Cyber Games – Women in Gaming Symposium pt. 2 of 2”)

Music/Art = #Jazno Francoeur (“The Physics and Design of Classical Effects Animation”)

12pm-1pm

#Cindy Ball (“World Cyber Games – #Women in Gaming Symposium Q&A”)

1pm-2pm

Programming = Presentation tutorial via the DigiPen ‘ProjectFUN’ editor on how games are programmed. The presentation culminates in the creation of a PC game made from start to finish during the presentation.

Production = #Michael Lescault (“Game Development and Technology”)

Design = #Dr. Greg Street (“The Design of Age of Empires 3: How to add features to a sequel without killing a franchise or going insane.”)

Music/Art = #Greg Shaw (“Forza 2 Motorsports Audio Creation”).

2pm-3pm

Programming = Presentation of DigiPen student created Xbox-360 games using XNA and Microsoft Game Studio Express.

Design = #Brent Conklin (“ Game Quality, the Final Frontier”)

Music/Art = #Dave McCoy (“ Video Game Art 101”).

Speaker Bios

World Cyber Games Presenter Bios

Adam Crespi

Adam Crespi (“Digital Cinematography: fear and loathing in lighting techniques. An overview of design and techniques to set a mood in a virtual environment with lighting and post effects.”)

Adam Crespi is an award –winning educator, author and 3D artist with over fifteen years professional experience in the design visualization and animation industries. He also has owned and operated Suddenly Scenery, a design visualization consulting company for seven years, serving high profile architecture, interior design, and development clients throughout the western United States. His new book, Achieving Invisibility – Architectural Visualization in 3ds max, will be published in late 2007. Additionally, Crespi has been a guest instructor at several prominent schools and companies, including Montana State University, Legoland California, and others.

Brent Conklin

Brent Conklin (“Game Quality, the Final Frontier”)

Brent is currently the Test Manager of the Aces Games Studio at Microsoft. He has 10 years of software development experience beginning in 1997 as a Software Test Engineer (STE) on Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 98. He worked on numerous titles including Cart Precision Racing, Monster Truck Madness 2, Midtown Madness, and the Combat Flight Simulator series. Brent was promoted to Test Lead of the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise in 2000 and continued to lead the team through the development of the latest version, Flight Simulator X.

John Williamson

John Williamson (“How are games really made?”) (“What’s it really like to work in the games industry?”)

John has been making games for a living for nearly a decade, including work on some of the best selling and most played, realistic military shooters: Spec Ops, Rainbow Six and America's Army to name just a few. He as both a B.S. and M.S. in Experimental Psychology and came into gaming after stints doing Virtual Reality training research for the US Air Force and Dept. of Energy. John is the current President of Zombie Studios.

Michael Lescault

Michael Lescault (“Game Development and Technology”)

Mike Lescault has worked in the computer gaming industry since 1994, for both small developers like Papyrus Design Group and Mythic Entertainment, as well as large publishers like Sierra On-Line and NAMCO. He’s held many different positions in the industry, including designer, producer, and an external development manager. Mike is currently the Online Community Manager for Wizards of the Coast, where he acts the Community Liaison for all of Wizard’s games.

Erik Chan

Erik Chan (“What it takes to start your own indie game studio”)

Eric Chan is a co-founder of Bottomless Pit Games, a studio based in Bellevue, WA. His previous work experience includes such major game developers as Midway Games and Activision. He holds a BS from Johns Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering with focus on Math and Computer Science. He is currently devoted to producing the debut title of Bottomless Pit Games, Harmotion; a game that blends light, color and music into an action packed arcade shoot-'em up with both multiplayer and single player experiences. Go check it out at www.Harmotion.com!

Inwoo Kim

Inwoo Kim (“The Challenges of Mobile Game Development”)

Inwoo Kim, has joined Guppy Games in 2004, and is currently the Lead Development Engineer. In this capacity, he oversees all of the technical efforts in managing junior level engineers, remote porting processes, and the release of various applications before it is submitted to various carriers.

Mike Swanson

Mike Swanson (“Art Production 101”)

Mike has been in the games industry for 18 years. Working for several major publishers; Electronic Arts Canada, Lucasarts Entertainment and Take Two Interactive. Game Credits include Supreme Commander, Armed and Dangerous, SSX, Triple Play Baseball, FIFA Soccer and NHL Hockey. Mike has lectured extensively on game art and animation throughout China, Taiwan, Scotland and all over North America. Mike is currently the Studio Art Production Manager at Gas Powered Games in Redmond, Washington.

Jeff Lane

Jeff Lane (“Creating Maps For Team Fortress 2”)

Jeff has been in the games industry for over fifteen years, with the last seven years as a level and game designer at Valve. His many projects have included SWAT3: CQB, Team Fortress: Classic, Half-Life 2, Day of Defeat: Source, and most recently, Team Fortress 2. Jeff has also been a primary contributor to the Source SDK documentation.

Jazno Francoeur

Jazno Francoeur – (“The Physics and Design of Classical Effects Animation”)

In 1990, Jazno Francoeur was accepted into the Walt Disney Feature Animation internship program in Orlando, FL. Upon completing his B.F.A. in Illustration from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1992, Jazno trained under the tutelage of Randy Fulmer at the Disney studios in Los Angeles. Jazno’s 12 year filmography includes Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, Mulan, Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, John Henry, Brother Bear, The Little Match Girl, Roger Rabbit’s Trail Mix-up, A Few Good Ghosts (development), the Magic Mirror (used for theme parks and Snow White DVD), the Aladdin video game by Sega-Genesis, and numerous commercials. Jazno sat on the Disney portfolio review board for many years and helped recruit animators at the Cardiff Animation Festival in Wales; he’s also given numerous speeches at press events, including the Ad Pros Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, and was featured on the Disney Channel in Europe. After WDFA closed its Orlando unit in 2004, Jazno joined the DigiPen Institute of Technology, where he teaches character design and traditional animation.

Nate Simpson

Nate Simpson (“Level Design Process from Start to Game”).

Nate Simpson has been making art for games since 1993. After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Painting and Drawing, he was recruited by Taldren, where he worked on two Starfleet Command games and oversaw the art development for the much-anticipated (though cancelled) Black9 project. He recently helmed the art department for GoPets, a breakout casual game from South Korea. He is now the lead artist on an unannounced title at Gas Powered Games. Nate is an avid drawer and reader of comics, and may one day complete his graphic novel, Gordon and the Stareater.

Paul Levy

Paul Levy (“Marketing and PR: Game Production’s Final Lap”)

For the past eight years, Paul Levy has worked in a variety of roles in the games industry. Prior to joining Gas Powered Games, Paul worked at Microsoft Game Studios on family-oriented titles for the original Xbox and PC, including Fusion Frenzy and Zoo Tycoon. He has also worked on family entertainment software at Sesame Workshop, where he produced online games for children. Beyond family-oriented games, Paul worked at Zipper Interactive on the SOCOM series and is now the PR/Marketing Manager at GPG, where he drives all the marketing efforts for GPG's AAA titles. He also spends his evenings performing improvisational comedy at Improv theatres around the globe.

Dr. Greg Street

Greg Street (“The Design of Age of Empires 3: How to add features to a sequel without killing a franchise or going insane”.)

Dr. Greg Street is a Lead Game Designer at Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios. Almost ten years ago, Greg was a marine biologist teaching college in South Carolina when he decided he liked RTS games more than science. When he stumbled upon an interview with Bruce Shelley saying Ensemble Studios was looking for assistant designers, no experience necessary, he spent all night making the perfect scenario for Age of Empires. Greg ended up getting the job, and the scenario went into the Rise of Rome Expansion. (It didn’t hurt that the designer hiring him, Sandy Petersen, also had a love of dinosaurs and arthropods.) Since then, he has been responsible for the single player campaign and random maps in Age of Kings, took on more senior roles on Age of Mythology, and finally became the lead designer of Age of Empires 3. He currently sits on the Ensemble Studios Management Team.

Greg Shaw

Greg Shaw (“Forza 2 Motorsports Audio Creation”)

Greg Shaw is currently the Audio Director at Turn 10 Studios, a division of Microsoft Games Studios (MGS). Previously, he was an Audio Lead in the Publishing Division of MGS, a Sound Designer and Audio/Video Manager at Crystal Dynamics as well as a Sound Designer at Adrenalin Entertainment. Greg has been making sound for games for over 10 years and has worked on the Forza Motorsport franchise, the Legacy of Kain franchise, Gex 3, RalliSport Challenge 2, Tiger Woods PSX, and many other titles.

Lawrence Schwedler

Lawrence Schwedler (“The Art Of Music Production For Games”)

Lawrence Schwedler is a composer and sound designer with fifteen years of experience in the video game industry. He has fifteen published titles to his credit, including Metroid Prime: Hunters and Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis for the Nintendo DS. He holds a Masters degree in classical guitar and electronic music from the University of California at Los Angeles. For the past eight years he has been Audio Director at Nintendo Software Technology Corp. in Redmond, Washington. He teaches part-time at the Digipen Institute of Technology.

Jeff Pobst

Jeff Pobst (“How Video Games Get made: My Perspective”)

Jeff Pobst, Founder and CEO, Hidden Path Entertainment

Jeff has held roles as a game programmer, producer, operating officer, group leader for the Xbox/Xbox 360 platform teams, and is now CEO of Hidden Path Entertainment, an independent video game development company producing games for the major consoles and computing platforms. Jeff has shipped over 20 game titles and has worked on multiple platforms bringing games in the Half-Life, Homeworld, and Lord of the Rings franchises to market in addition to others. By being Sierra Studios' first external producer in 1998, Jeff had atypical involvement in all elements of the publishing business. Jeff has a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering and was a film student, a researcher, systems engineer, and project manager before entering game development. Jeff is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hidden Path Entertainment.

Dave McCoy

Dave McCoy (“Creating The Art of the Game – Video Game Art 101”)

Dave has been a Creative Director and Art Director for 19 years. He was the Creative Director at FASA Interactive, heading the art and graphic technology departments and contributing game design on all the studio’s titles including its Mechwarrior and Mechcommander series. He oversaw design of FASA’s widely hailed Virtual World Entertainment Tesla system and co-created the critically acclaimed Crimson Skies franchise as well as designing and producing a theme park attraction developed for Disney’s Imagineering. When FASA was acquired by Microsoft, Dave served as a Creative Director at Microsoft Games Studios and later moved to the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, helping to launch the original Xbox and providing artistic guidance on more than 80 titles including numerous hits from multiple publishers. After the launch of Xbox, Dave served as Technical Art Director on both Rise of Legends and Crackdown. He left Microsoft in 2006 to co-found Hidden Path Entertainment where he is the company’s Art Director. He is a co-developer of 3 patents in the field of computer graphics.

Cindy Ball

Cindy Ball (“ Women In Gaming Part 1 & 2”)

Cindy is the CEO and co-founder of Global Wonder Entertainment, a production company known for quality and originality through cutting-edge animation, games and mobile applications. Cindy oversees daily operations and strategic planning, focused on creating innovative interactive entertainment content through great art and technology. Ms. Ball earned a M.S. degree in Computer Science from the California Institute and studied at the Art Center College of Design. Prior to Caltech, she worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles on the development of state-of-the-art digital ink & paint technology for television animation production, and launching an affiliated large-scale digital animation studio in Taiwan.

Royal Winchester

Royal Winchester (“Flight Simulation Art Development“)

Royal seems to have settled into a career as a 3D animator/technical artist after trying physics and flying for the USAF. Lasers and F-15’s lost their luster and I’ve been doing 3D ever since – about 15 years now. Royal has worked on game titles SWAT 3 and SWAT 4 for Sierra Studios, FORZA 2 and FLIGHT SIMULATOR X for Microsoft and currently working on TRAIN SIMULATOR 2 and unannounced products in Microsoft’s ACES Studio where he is a technical Artist and Program manager. Royal also do advanced 3D workshops, such as on Cartoon Character modeling and rigging for 3DS Max. “ In between Sierra and Microsoft it was my great privilege to teach at the DigiPen Institute of Technology where I led the 3D animation program and culminated my services as the Chair of the Digital Art department. My favorite aspect of 3D is character work and telling animated stories and I am currently building a character animation pipeline from the ground up for the ACES studio”.

Women in Gaming Symposium

Women in Gaming Symposium

Women play games, and women make games. World Cyber Games presents Women in Gaming, a two-hour symposium that explores career opportunities and life in the game industry. Top female game professionals present their perspective on working in games, including the fun, challenges and future of game development. If you love playing games, please join us to learn how much more fun you could be have making them!

Women in Gaming Symposium, October 6th, 10 am – noon. Qwest Field.

Women in Gaming Speakers

Cindy Ball

Cindy Ball, CEO, Global Wonder Entertainment

Cindy is the CEO and co-founder of Global Wonder Entertainment, where she oversees daily operations and strategic planning, focused on creating innovative interactive entertainment content through great art and technology. Ms. Ball earned a M.S. degree in Computer Science from the California Institute and studied at the Art Center College of Design. Prior to Caltech, she worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles on the development of state-of-the-art digital ink & paint technology for television animation production, and launching an affiliated large-scale digital animation studio in Taiwan. Her free time is mostly spent making art and collecting bugs with her five-year-old daughter.

Christa Phillips

Christa Phillips, Community Editor, Xbox.com

Christa (better known by her online persona “TriXie”) co-founded and manages Xbox GamerchiX and Xbox Ambassadors. She has been in the games industry for 12 years, starting out as Assistant Editor at InterAction magazine, moving on to copywriter at Sierra On-Line, where she wrote packaging and advertising copy, and then wrote product manuals for Microsoft’s Xbox, before moving on to the Xbox.com group. She recently moderated a Girls and Games panel at Penny Arcade Expo. Christa’s favorite game is Zuma, which she has beat 32 times without managing to earn the last two achievements.

Tara J. Brannigan

Tara J. Brannigan, Program Manager, Microsoft Game Studios

Tara is a passionate gamer at heart who attempted to leave the industry several years prior, only to discover that work outside of the game development industry is painfully dull and not at all what she wanted to pursue. Taking a risk to save her sanity, she abandoned her full time QA job in the web development industry to take a contract test position with the Hired Gun team at MGS. After shipping Halo 2 for Windows Vista, she transitioned to a full time Program Manager position on the same team. She is much happier now and enjoys having the excuse to play more games while at home as ‘vital research’.

Susanna Burney

Susanna Burney, Voice Talent

Susanna Burney is an actress, director and voice over artist who makes her home in Seattle. For almost 20 years, her acting work has taken her to New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New England, Florida, Nevada, and Edinburgh, Scotland. She has voiced a number of computer games, including Hoyle Casino and Kids Games, and is the character Jin in F.E.A.R. (Monolith & Sierra). She has also narrated audiobooks for BBC America, Harper Collins and Brilliance Audio.

Rebecca Coffman

Rebecca Coffman, Animation Lead, ArenaNet

Rebecca Coffman began her game industry career in 1992. She has been part of all four 'Guild Wars' titles from ArenaNet, and is currently working on 'Guild Wars 2.' Before joining the world of MMOG development, she was part of the 'Voodoo Vince' animation team at Beep Industries. She has also worked on games published by Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog Entertainment, Square Soft, Microsoft, and others.

Heidi Costello

Heidi Costello, 3D Animator, Amaze Entertainment

Heidi Costello is a 3D animator in the Console Games group at Amaze Entertainment in Kirkland, WA. Amaze Entertainment is a division of Foundation 9 Entertainment, the largest independent interactive game development company in the world.

Heidi specializes in character animation, and just shipped Shrek The Third for XBox 360, PlayStation2, Wii, PSP, and PC. An August 2005 graduate of the Vancouver Film School, Heidi is also an award-winning short film maker, having won the Nell Shipman Production Excellence Award for her student film entitled "August Twenty-Eighth". Heidi is currently working on an as yet unannounced AAA console title.

Heidi Gartner

Heidi Gartner, Graphics Programming Lead, Flying Labs Software

Heidi Gaertner has been a computer game developer since 1996. She started at FASA Studios in Chicago, where she coded the content editing tools and user interface system for the MechCommander games based on the popular Battletech franchise. When Microsoft bought FASA, Heidi became the lead developer for the Xbox Live Dashboard, the online component of Microsoft’s Xbox game console. She is Flying Lab’s graphics lead, developing the technology for the reflective, pixel-shaded ocean in Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Suzanne Kaufman

Suzanne Kaufman, Assistant Professor, DigiPen Institute of Technology

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Computer Animation and Photography from University of Wisconsin in 1994, Suzanne went to work for Free Range Digital a special effects studio. During her tenure, she animated on various projects for Discovery Channel, Fox, and Universal Television. In 1996 Kaufman relocated to Seattle where she animated, modeled, and textured for Boss Game Studios, Microsoft Corporation, and Sucker Punch Productions. As the 3d lead at Sucker Punch Productions she was proud to have modeled and animated characters and their fantastical environments for Sly Cooper trilogy of games. Sly Cooper, Sucker Punch’s critically acclaimed PS2 title was awarded the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences 2003 “Innovation in Art Direction” and “Innovation in Animation” award and Game Developer’s 2003 “Best Original Game Character” while Sly 2 was awarded Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences 2004 “Children’s Title of the Year”. She has been a guest speaker for Alias on the “Making of Sly Cooper” for Siggraph 2003 in San Diego, 3D December 2003 in London for Alias and industry panelist for Women in Games International Conference in 2005. She is currently an Assistant Professor of 3d Animation and Environmental Design at DigiPen Institute of Technology.

Brigitte Samson

Brigitte Samson, Technical Artist/ Senior Animator, Surreal / Midway Games

Brigitte Sampson has worked in the game industry for 12 years, and is currently working on an undisclosed adventure open world game on the Xbox360 / PS3. Brigitte has contributed to numerous titles including:

• The Suffering: Ties That Bind (2005) Midway Games,
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002) Black Label Games,
• Drakan: The Ancients' Gates (2002, PS2) Surreal Software/Sony,
• Cyber Space Mountain Krash Character (1997) Disney Imagineering,
• Nickelodeon 3D MovieMaker (1996, PC) Viacom,
• 3D MovieMaker (1995) Microsoft,
• Mortal Combat the video (1995) RG/A LA

Awards include Gaming Report: The Best of the Bunch (1997) Animation World Magazine and International Milia D'Or Edutainment Award (1996) 3D MovieMaker for PC.

Jaclyn Shumate

Jaclyn Shumate, Sound Designer, Flying Labs Software

Jaclyn Shumate is a musician, sound designer, and audio engineer whose most recent work prior to Flying Lab was for the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, where she designed sound for Robbie the Robot in the Forbidden Planet exhibit. Jaclyn also works as a session musician in Seattle, playing acoustic and electric violin (often composing her own parts) for music genres ranging from classical to heavy metal. An East Coast transplant, Jaclyn received her education at Barnard College and also studied at the Manhattan School of Music.

Joanna Wang

Joanna Wang, Texture Artist, Suckerpunch Productions

Joanna is a texture artist at SuckerPunch Productions. She has worked on Sly2. Band of Thieves(PS2), Sly3. Honor Among Thieves(PS2) and is currently working on Infamous(PS3). Prior to joining SuckerPunch, Joanna worked at UBI Soft, in Shanghai, China as a Graphic Designer and Modeler, and contributed to Splinter Cell (PS2); Rayman Arena(PS2); VIP(PS2); F1 Racing Championship(PS2) and Rayman2 (PSX);

She loves her work as a Texture Artist and enjoys developing content that ranges in style from cartoony to realistic. Her focus is on developing a wide range of original art styles, utilizing the latest in technology.

Kiki Wolfkill

Kiki Wolfkill, Director of Art, Microsoft Game Studios

Kiki Wolfkill, Director of Art for Microsoft Game Studios, leads an internal team of art directors and artists focused on providing publishing support for all of MGS’s 1st party Xbox 360 and PC titles. Kiki works with both internal and external game studios including Bungie, Ensemble, Rare, Lionhead, Bizarre Creations, Remedy, Epic, and Bioware.

As a member of the Microsoft Game Studios leadership team, Kiki is chartered with helping drive major Xbox 360 and Games for Windows initiatives, including making the most visually-stunning and innovative games on the platform. She supports development partners all over the world in pushing the boundaries of Xbox 360's next-generation technologies.

Kiki joined MGS in 1998 and has since shipped over 20 games. Before joining Games, she worked at Microsoft’s post production studio as a motion graphic artist, focusing primarily on FMV work. It was a natural transition from effects work to games-specific graphics. Game credits include the Project Gotham Racing and Forza franchises, the Fable and Viva Pinata franchises, and most recently, Crackdown.

Press Releases

Women in Gaming

September, 11, 2007- DigiPen Institute of Technology announces Women in Gaming Symposium at the Educational Track of World Cyber Games 2007

DigiPen Institute of Technology (http://www.digipen.edu) is pleased to announce that as part of the Educational Programs they have developed and are facilitating for the upcoming 2007 World Cyber games in Seattle there will be a Symposium on ‘Women in Gaming’ Saturday, October 6th from 10am to 1PM in the East Hall of Qwest Field. These symposiums, as for all the activities at the Educational Tracks, are free of charge to anyone attending the World Cyber Games.

The Educational Track of the World Cyber Games will give participants and spectators a chance to get information from industry professionals on the aspects of what goes into the creation of video game content. Speakers from companies such as Microsoft, Gas Powered Games, Valve, Wizards of the Coast and others will explore the development of games from four different perspectives (Programming, Design, Art/Sound and Production).

“The educational tracks are an opportunity for people to be able to look under the hood at how games are made from the ground up” states Christopher Erhardt, Vice President of Production for DigiPen, the developer of the Educational Track. “At DigiPen we are excited that for the first time at World Cyber Games people will have an opportunity to see the development aspects of games as well as watching the top players in the world competing “.

The ‘Women in Gaming’ symposium is a segment of the overall show that is geared towards showing the variety of career options available for women in game development. “A wide range of talents are needed to bring a successful game to market, ranging from game design, project management , programming, art, sales, marketing and many others.” says Cindy Ball, CEO of Global Wonder Entertainment. “We want girls and women be aware of the diverse career opportunities available to them in the games industry, how to prepare for those opportunities, and value their unique perspectives to the overall industry.”

More information about the educational track, including speaker biographies and course schedules, can be found on-line at http://www.digipen.edu/wcg

About The World Cyber Games

The World Cyber Games (http://www.worldcybergames.com) is the premiere blue chip global tournament and cultural cyber festival in gaming, with well over 1 million players from more than 70 countries participating annually. Founded in 2000 and credited with launching the professional careers of many of the planet's top video game players, the World Cyber Games uses a yearlong tournament format, which begins with online, regional and national competitions in each country. National finalists then compete in the ultimate international tournament in e-Sports, The World Cyber Games Grand Final, where each country's best players compete for the largest and most prestigious prize in competitive gaming. The 2007 Grand Final will be held at Qwest Field in Seattle, Washington October 3 - 7.