EA’s Gardner To Keynote Edinburgh Festival

Organizers of the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (EIEF) have confirmed the full conference schedule for the event, including details of speakers and sessions. The keynote speaker on Monday 21st August will be David Gardner, executive vice president and COO of world wide studios at Electronic Arts, who will conduct a talk on the challenges of the next generation entitled “View from the top”. Other speakers from the first day include Ben Sawyer of the Serious Games Initiative, an unconfirmed speaker from British television regulator Ofcom, industry analyst Nick Parker from Parker Consulting, a session discussing age ratings and censorship and a mobile phone games tournament. Speakers on Tuesday 22nd August will include Edge magazine editor Margaret Robertson, video game music composer Tommy Tallarico, Professor Ken Perlin from the Media Research Laboratory at New York University and a presentation on the subject of edutainment. There will also be sessions featuring machinima studio Rooster Teeth, creators of Red vs. Blue, and a session with contributions from Inanimate Alice author Kate Pullinger, as well as a live audio and video concert for game music. Further information on the event, which takes place as part of the larger performance and theater-oriented Edinburgh Festival, can be found at the EIEF official website, and Gamasutra will have write-ups of a number of these sessions as they occur.