Making games is hard! Making games with multiple teams spread across the world is... also hard.

Now try making games with large teams spread across the world AND fostering harmonious working relationships to make your products and your people sing.

Working as Product Manager and Development Manager in WG Sydney on co-development of a new AAA title, Ally & Stefano have learned a lot about what works (and what doesn't work) to create a happy and humming production environment.

In this session, they will share their top findings on planning methodologies, agreements and continuous team improvement to help game developers plan for the bigger picture.

Have you ever wondered what a producer does? What about human resources, recruitment, or operations? Some days I do too, and I am a producer.

Studio support roles are incredibly varied, and sometimes it can be hard to keep up. Join me to find out more about what we do and how we do it. You’ll leave with some new tips and tricks for multitasking in your work (and life).

Technical development and design go hand in hand. This talk goes into detail about how to work with UE4’s default systems to create technology that enables scalable content development in a way that will keep your design team happy.

Unreal Engine is a vastly powerful tool that can be used to make incredible high-fidelity games. However, the engine has some fundamental workflow challenges. Binary assets, merge conflicts and refactor debt plague advanced development projects.

At RocketWerkz we've developed a system similar to the Gameplay Ability System that has alleviated many of these issues. Using datatables, run-time generated components, JSON and more we’ve prepared for huge amounts of content while still playing nice with our backend.

As well showing how the tech works to solve collaboration problems, we’ll show examples of how great design workflow leads to happier developers and why it's the tech team’s job to empower creative decisions.

Critical to capturing business opportunities and strategy is the ability to identify and manage risk.

Risk comes from uncertainty - The more clarity you can glean about the context in which you operate and the inherent components of your studio's objectives, the more control you will have over your likelihood of success.

We will go through some useful hands-on tools that will frame your risk appetite and application to the best success of your strategy:

- Defining your objectives

- The power of financial data

- Identifying events and causes

- Treating and managing risk on an ongoing basis

This talk will cover a practical approach to managing your own risk framework, understanding your financial position, exploring your business context, emerging risks in the current climate, and why you should always think of the worst thing that could happen.

So you’ve got your great game developed and it’s ready for launch. Now’s the time to get started with marketing, right?

This is a common mistake that most indie game developers make.

While it is fine to start assembling your marketing plans once your game is ready, it’s also rather too late. By the time you get your plans deployed, you’ve wasted time that you could’ve been selling your game.

Here’s the cold hard truth: The vast majority of indie games fail - but that’s at least in part because the vast majority of indie developers consider marketing as an afterthought, rather than as part of the game development project itself right from the start.

Join me in this 50-min session to uncover how you can avoid repeating the common mistake that others have made, and discover the one essential ingredient to a successful marketing plan for your game launch that will get you connecting with your potential gamers right from the start.

I will also share with you practical tips on how you can adopt this tried-and-tested framework that can be repeated - not only for each new game launch but also for existing games.

Growing a community online can seem harder and harder these days. There are countless other publishers and developers, each with their own social media pages, all trying to do the same thing. In this environment, it can be difficult to stand out and "compete" for an audience.

This presentation will cover some of the ways that may help you break through the global video game industry landscape and build a community online, through the lens of our Bethesda Australia & New Zealand social media pages.

This presentation will look at how to protect your game IP when working with third parties. You will learn how to effectively monetise your IP, while protecting your studio and your rights when dealing with practitioners on other continents, or in other industries.

Whether you are looking to port your game to a new platform, wanting to work with a publisher based in Europe or Asia, or looking to explore the potential of your game IP in other media or industries, this presentation has you covered.

How do you have a 'face' of a company, without anyone wanting to constantly show their face? How do you engage with fans when you can't talk about what you are making for another year?

This talk looks into the relationship between developer and (potential) fan, with a focus on taking positive customer experience to the digital platform. There will be a lot of questions posed, anecdotes told and very likely a reference or two to Gilmore Girls and craft beer (sorry, not sorry).

With everyone working from home during these exceptionally difficult times, leaders put in extra effort to keep their team connected, healthy and productive. The right tools can enable you to be that positive force!

This is the third instalment of my popular talk series where I condense my favourite people management tools and techniques into memorable, actionable cards. This year, I want to bolster your deck with new connection, psychological safety and emotional intelligence cards that help me foster creative collaboration and maintain team morale through times of increased stress.

Whether you’re currently in a leadership position, aspiring to be or needing tools to better your relationship with your manager, this talk will give you practical tips to improve your team interactions whether you’re working from home or back in the office.

You know that dialogue will bring life and emotion into your game and you're considering hiring voice actors. Do it! Well, check your budget first.

Calculate Costs:

Calculate how many minutes of dialogue you need to produce, and how many hours in the recording studio this will take. Kathy shows you how and provides a rough guide for converting this to costs.

Select recording studio and actors:

Choose the studio – so many pitfalls.

Choose the actors – get them to send you voice clips, and get them to make alterations. Kathy provides an example. Make sure you’re happy with the alterations you requested.

Contract with agents:

Deal with the agents – be prepared. Be very, very prepared. Kathy has a list.

Prepare the actors:

A pre-recording meeting is included in those very high acting fees! Tell the story of the game, give character sheets, give lines, find preferred lines format, give studio address and contact details, discuss time preferences, ask about special needs.

Make a recording schedule:

Start with the clearest cleanest voices. Allow time for settling in and equipment calibration. Calculate which line to get up to each quarter day so you can track progress.

Recording session:

-what to bring

-how to direct –a real live voice actor will help demonstrate

-demo clip etiquette

-credit takes

-ideas for thanking voice actors

Post processing and file naming:

– surprise! Kathy has a list.