Cynthia Freese
Executive Director, ION Game Conference
CEO, Evergreen Events

Prior to her founding of Evergreen Events, Cynthia was the Event Director at The Game Initiative where she grew the Game Initiative’s conferences to include small, focused events with a unique focus. Cynthia was the creator and manager of the 2005 Casual Games Conference in Seattle. This successful conference allowed the games industry to focus on a new perspective in the industry. She was also the Conference Director of the 2005 Austin Game Conference, Women’s Game Conference and Writers Game Conference in Austin, TX, all of which had record attendance in 2005 and were well covered in the media. In addition to her work on innovative conferences Cynthia also focused on the Breaking In To the Game Industry events as well as helping to organize and attain industry speakers for middle school Career Days around the country.

Cynthia likes to be thought of as a bridge between groups and believes that by working together we will all be better off in the long run.

Peter Freese
Conference Director, ION Game Conference
Lead Programmer, Hidden Path Entertainment

Peter Freese is Conference Director and visionary for the ION Game Conference. He has been programming computers for over 30 years, and wrote his first compiler and graphics library before the age of 15.

Peter entered the games industry in the early 1990s, much to his great surprise and immense relief. After developing several award-winning educational games for Edmark, including Thinkin’ Things, Peter co-founded Q Studios in 1994 and led development on the campy 3D shooter Blood, which launched publisher Monolith into the spotlight. After developing the graphics engine behind Sierra Studio’s final adventure game, Gabriel Knight 3, Peter joined the Ultima Online 2 team at Origin Systems in order to learn all the joys and trials of MMO game development. In 2001, Peter created the Core Technology & Tools team at NCsoft North America, where he directed development on all shared technology to support City of Heroes, Lineage II, Auto Assault, and Tabula Rasa. In 2005, Peter co-founded MMO development company Secret Lair Studios, which was acquired by Vivendi Entertainment in 2006 under their newly reformed Sierra Online.

Peter is currently lead programmer on an unannounced project for Hidden Path Entertainment in Bellevue, Washington.

James Hursthouse, Advisory Board Chair
President, GNi K.K.
Director, GNi Games and Digital Media

James Hursthouse was formerly CEO / Founder of Online Game Services Inc (OGSi). The company was acquired in January 2007 by long-term partner GNi, an rapidly growing, Inc-500 Internet services company. GNi’s Games and Digital Media division continues to develop its innovative hosting model for games companies, reducing the risk and cost of game deployment while providing access to the high performance systems and expertise. James relocated back to Tokyo in October 2007 to head up GNi’s expansion into Asian markets. Prior to moving to the US to start OGSi in 2004, James spent ten years living and working in Japan, most recently as International Sales Director at Solid Networks KK., a Tokyo-based company that has been hosting and managing online games in Japan since 1999, first as half of a joint venture with Nexon and more recently as an independent provider. James is also a member of the steering committee for the IGDA Online Games SIG.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameshursthouse

Alan Crosby
Director, Global Community Relations, Sony Online Entertainment

Alan is the Director of Global Community Relations at Sony Online Entertainment and works with the development, marketing, and public relations teams to implement projects that harness the power of the SOE community. Alan spearheads internal and external projects that aim to push community relations to new heights within the industry. An avid MMOG player, Alan has played most every MMO that has come to the US market.

John De Margheriti
CEO, BigWorld Pty Ltd

John is a true entrepreneur, visionary and one of the most motivated and passionate people in the Australian Game Development Industry. In 1985 John co-founded Micro Forté, an Australian Game Development Studio that has just recently celebrated its 20th birthday. Towards the end of 1999 he saw an opportunity within the online game market for a definitive MMOG middleware solution which was successfully developed and spun out as BigWorld.  This well-known company now has a world wide game developer base and a global focus with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, USA, Sydney and Canberra. The BigWorld Technology solution will be seen in such titles as Netease’s ‘Tian Xia 2’, with many more titles in development in the US, Europe and Asia.  John is also the founder and Chairman of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment Ltd (AIE), Canberra Technology Park (CTP), Canberra Business Parks (CBP) and the Australian Game Developers Conference (AGDC). The AIE has gained much recognition for being Australia’s premier Registered Training Organisation for the Computer Game Development and 3D Digital industries.  In December 2005, John announced the closing of Australia’s most successful and well known Game Developers Conference to provide the Game Developers Association of Australia (GDAA) an opportunity to run an industry conference. John founded the GDAA in 1999 at the inaugural AGDC and acted as one of its main financial backers and treasurer until late 2005 when he resigned from the board to focus his energies on expanding BigWorld Pty Ltd.

Christopher Erhardt
Vice President of Production, DigiPen

Christopher Erhardt currently holds the positions of Vice President of Production, DigiPen (USA) Corp. along with Associate Dean-CED. and Professor in the Game Software Design and Production Department of the DigiPen Institute of Technology. He has successfully produced and designed over 20 titles for PC and console platforms since 1987 including BattleTech, Spider Man vs. The Kingpin and Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Erhardt holds a Bachelors and Masters degree and is currently completing his PhD.

Linda Kohout
Senior Marketing Manager/Consultant

Linda Kohout has been on the fringes of the gaming industry as a marketing manager for PC component manufacturers AMD and NVIDIA. At AMD she held positions on the Athlon processor product marketing team focusing mainly on hardware and gaming enthusiasts. It was here that she was able to link her personal passion for PC gaming with technology early adopters as a marketing strategist, company spokesperson and evangelist for AMD's 64-bit processor products for the games industry vertical. At NVIDIA, Linda was brand and campaign manager for nForce products, again focusing on marketing programs for the hardware and gaming enthusiast who buy the motherboards and PCs featuring the chips.

Most recently, Linda has been consulting with games industry companies on marketing strategy, vision, and branding.

Joe Ludwig
Director of Development, Flying Lab Software

After several years at Hewlett-Packard, Joe Ludwig joined the game industry in 1998. He was a server programmer on the ill-fated Middle-Earth Online project at Sierra before going to work at Flying Lab Software. He was a senior programmer on the award winning Rails Across America where he developed AI and multiplayer systems. He is Director of Development at Flying Lab, working on their forthcoming massively multiplayer age of sail game Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Katie Postma
Senior Community Manager, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment

Katie Postma has worked in online community management for nearly 8 years and has worked with Myst, Uru, Prince of Persia, Serenity and Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall communities. She currently works with Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment as Senior Community Manager for the MMORPG in production, Stargate Worlds. Katie co-authored Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming II (published by Charles Media) as well as Myst V: End of Ages Prima Official Game Guide, published by Prima Games. She has participated in Community Panels at the Online Game Developer's Conference and roundtables at the Game Developers Conference. She continues to consult with MMORPG development teams doing online PR, Marketing and Community work. She is also currently Directing the new Children's Gaming Community Portal, Ten Ton Hamster.com which launched in December 2007.

Paul Philleo
Writer/Consultant

Paul Philleo has taken root in the interactive entertainment world since 2001. As Marketing Manager for almost three and a half years at the North American outpost for Korean online game developer giant, Nexon Corp., he guided the marketing and PR programs for three MMO game titles. Most notably, he played a key role in guiding their flagship MMO PC game title Shattered Galaxy toward critical acclaim, with awards from Computer Games magazine, GamePen, FiringSquad, GameSpot and other editorial venues.

Since departing the Nexon fold in 2004, Paul has written for MPOGD.com, a respected and veteran online multiplayer gaming-focused website, particularly in covering numerous game industry events across the US. Additionally, Paul had co-founded and independently worked with the mar-com agency Levelup Communications in crafting press releases and marketing strategies for independent studios and Korean-originated game titles.

Currently, he is involved in a new website editorial project and pursuing other business ventures.

Brandon Reinhart
Lead Designer, Spacetime Studios

Brandon Reinhart has worked in games development since 1998. At Epic Games he developed gameplay for Unreal and Unreal Tournament as well as many Unreal engine features. At 3D Realms he served as a core gameplay programmer on Duke Nukem Forever. At Sony Online Entertainment he switched from programming to game design and became a technical systems designer on Star Wars Galaxies and the Jump to Lightspeed expansion. Currently Brandon is the Lead Designer at Spacetime Studios in Austin, TX. At STS, Brandon is involved in developing a brand new science fiction IP/MMO. In his spare time Brandon enjoys schooling newbies in all manner of online games, from hardcore MMO raiding to competitive first person shooters.

Damion Schubert
Lead Combat Designer, BioWare Corp.

Damion is a game designer for BioWare, where he is lead combat designer on an unannounced MMO. Previously, he worked at Wolfpack, a Ubisoft Company, where he worked on SHADOWBANE, a massively multiplayer title, and its two expansion packs. Damion has been working on massively multiplayer games for almost a decade, since he cut his teeth as the live lead designer for MERIDIAN 59. Damion also runs the occasionally interesting blog Zen of Design, which tends to focus on game design and industry concerns.

Won-il Suh
Vice President, Neowiz

Won Il Suh oversees all international operations within Neowiz, ranging from co-development to investment to operations. He has witnessed and contributed first-hand to the explosive growth of the online game market space (diverse game genres, business models, etc.) in Korea for the past several years. Prior to Neowiz, Mr. Suh was CEO of Nexon and SmartPlay.

Scott Warner
Owner, Garvey Schubert Barer

Scott has worked with game companies for more than 12 years, covering all aspects of game development and distribution for game companies in the pc, console, casual, downloadable, and mmog space. During this period he has worked on deals to develop and distribute games domestically and internationally, including in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, and France with companies ranging from EA, Sony, Disney, Real, Microsoft, Fox, Valve, Big Fish, Warner, T-Mobile, Sprint, Motorola, Qualcomm, Simon, Schuster, Scholastic, and many many others. Scott has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” in Washington and as one of Washington’s Most Amazing Lawyers by Washington CEO Magazine in 2006. You can view Scott’s resume (click on narrative bio) at: http://www.gsblaw.com/people/bio.asp?EmployeeID=W617305935

Zhan Ye
Editorial Director, China GC Networks

Zhan Ye is an interaction designer, writer, academic, and entrepreneur. Zhan began his career in China’s digital entertainment industry in 1995 and was one of China’s first-generation game developers. An influential writer, he has published numerous articles on many Chinese magazines exploring technical, economical, social and cultural issues related to digital entertainment and media. In 2003 he co-authored Game Design and Development: Theory and Practice, the first book written in Chinese language on game creation. Zhan co-founded and serves on the editorial board of Game Creation magazine, the first game developer magazine in China.

Zhan Ye is a China advocate. Through his articles and lectures, he is actively helping the rest of the world understand China’s new market landscape, especially its digital entertainment sector. He has given lectures at various industry events such as GDC, INET, CHI and ChinaJoy.

Zhan Ye received a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology and a Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from Carnegie Mellon University.