Penka Kouneva was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she began piano lessons at an early age, and wrote music for children’s theater as a teenager. In 1990, she arrived in the US to study composition at Duke University on a graduate fellowship. In 1999, she moved to Los Angeles to begin her career…
Jens Andersen is currently the creative director for Sony Online Entertainment’s DC Universe Online and has been in that role since the game’s inception. Andersen has over 14 years of game design experience and prior to working for SOE, he worked at Activision, Z-Axis, and Pandemic Studios. Some of the games he has worked on…
In a world filled with boring educational games that are only purchased by grandparents, Allisyn Levy is part of a company that is creating games that are not only educational, but are also entertaining. Levy received her Bachelors of Elementary Education, Art, and Art History from Skidmore College, and earned a Masters of Education in…
Free-to-play (F2P) games are quickly becoming a significant portion of the videogame industry. Though people outside of the gaming industry would be surprised by a business model that gives away products for free, F2Ps have become a fantastic and financially successful way to build a brand, generate advertising revenue, and get people so interested in…
What most Americans know about Russia and Eastern Europe is typically what they see in James Bond and other “cold war” movies. This means that the average American is not only unaware of the area’s rich cultural traditions, but also the rapid rise of social gaming taking place. With a potential user base of hundreds…
Dan Vargas is the current Art Director for Ubisoft’s Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth. In addition to his work on Battle for Earth, he has also designed some of the worlds in Assassin’s Creed III as a Senior Artist. In addition to Marvel’s Avengers, Vargas has years of experience working with other Marvel characters. Prior to working…
Alex Hutchinson is a current Creative Director of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed III. Prior to this, Hutchinson was a Creative Director of the Electronic Arts’ game, Army of Two: The 40th Day, a Lead Designer for Spore, Sims 2, and was a Co-Lead Designer on The Urbz: Sims in the City. From 2001 to 2003, he…
With a career starting in 1995, Stacey has pushed his company to develop innovative technologies and approaches to game design. As a student at the University of Utah in the early 90s majoring in English, Philosophy, and Classics, Stacey thought that his “career path lay through academia.” After becoming involved with the videogame industry in…
As developers jump ship from jobs as game designers, producers, and developers at large game and film companies to start their own gaming startups, the competition for funding, partnerships and publishing deals are fierce. Accelerators, such as YetiZen’s Get-In-The-Game Competition are one way for developers to get their foot in the door. With over 350…
The mid-1990s was a period of significant changes for the videogame industry. Arcades were beginning to decline as home console systems became more popular, the Nintendo NES would be discontinued in 1995, and computer games were increasing in popularity. Specifically, 1994 saw id Software’s Doom II: Hell on Earth and Bullfrog Production’s Theme Park become…