Develop Conference Reveals Keynotes, Sessions

Develop Conference organizer Tandem Events has revealed the keynotes for each of the tracks at the upcoming event, set for July 14-16 in Brighton, UK. Tracks include art, audio, business, design and production. Realtime Worlds founder David Jones will give the overall keynote, and companies presenting include Media Molecule, Microsoft, Nokia, Traveller's Tales, Mythic, Hansoft and Ubisoft. This year's event will also feature a keynote presentation on mobile games development, comprising a discussion of personalized content with Nokia and two addresses for the July 14 Evolve conference, the event's casual gaming and digital distribution summit. Acclaim Games creative director David Perry will keynote Evolve with a talk titled "Resetting the Game," described as a "no-bull guide to the future." Independent consultant David Edery will keynote on digital distribution and the "long tail." On the art track, Media Molecule's Kareem Ettouney and Mark Healey will present a wide-ranging discussion on the art of LittleBigPlanet, and how the team integrated the game's visual style with its functionality to serve its user-generated content goals. Kareem and Mark will touch on a broad range of subjects, from the desire for LittleBigPlanet to be a collage of visuals mixing the ancient with the contemporary; how the look and functionalities of LittleBigPlanet are highly integrated; and how cutting-edge visual technology was used to serve the vision of user-generated content. Microsoft Game Studios audio director Guy Whitmore will present that track's keynote on "The Inevitable Directionality of Game Audio," discussing how audio content must be authored in small components until the mixing stage in order to adapt to flexible game timelines. Mythic Entertainment EP Jeff Hickman will keynote on the business track, discussing the challenges of evolving past boxed products and into online multiplayer models, sharing lessons from Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. On the design track, Traveller's Tales development director Jonathan Smith will discuss audience and user-testing research and market analysis with plenty of examples from the LEGO franchise. Nokia's Mark Ollia will talk about the development of mobile title Dance Fabulous on the mobile track, and how the game incorporated user music collections and other unique features of the N-Gage. Finally, for the production keynote, Ubisoft associate producer Lisa Charman and Hansoft co-founder Patric Palm will discuss common challenges in implementing agile project management methods in large organizations, sharing stories from their own respective experiences.