GDC 2019 welcomes five new members to the Advisory Board!

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 is proud to share five key additions to the Advisory Board of the upcoming conference, which will further bolster its Programming, Business & Marketing, Design, and Production & Team Management Tracks.

The new additions to its Main Conference Advisory Board span creators & contributors to titles such as the Ratchet & Clank franchise, Slime Rancher, The Sims franchise, Don’t Starve & many more. Andreas Fredriksson, Carolin Krenzer, Nick Popovich, Jamie Cheng and Caryl Shaw are the fresh Board recruits for GDC 2019, which takes place March 18 - 22 at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center.

The current Advisory Board, which includes such game industry luminaries as Mark Cerny, Rob Pardo, Amy Hennig and others, will be welcoming these new members to help provide their insights into topics that range from the technical (Programming Track, Production & Team Management Track) to the creative (Design Track) and the financial (Business & Marketing Track). Here’s more detail on the new Advisory Board members and their considerable contributions to the world of game development:

Nick Popovich is co-founder and CEO of Monomi Park and the Game Director of their breakout hit, Slime Rancher, which has earned critical acclaim, award nominations, and countless fans. Before Monomi Park, Nick worked with Three Rings/Sega, creating and leading Spiral Knights. Drawing from his strong design experience as a creator at Three Rings, his work on Slime Rancher at Monomi Park serves as a great example of a constantly developing/evolving community-centric game. His work with evolving online experiences will come in handy as he joins the Design Track advisory board.

Carolin Krenzer is co-founder of the Supercell-funded mobile games startup Trailmix. Prior to Trailmix’ founding, Carolin worked as VP & Head of Studio for King, joining the company in 2012 to help establish the London studio and release Farm Heroes Saga. Carolin also worked at EA/Playfish as the Director of Product Management on games including The Sims Social. Her experience navigating the free-to-play landscape will help as she proffers direction in her role on the Business & Marketing advisory board.

Andreas Fredriksson is a Principal Engineer at Unity. Having worked on iconic titles at DICE and Insomniac Games, Andreas was a key contributor to underlying engine development, optimization and team leadership behind such titles as Battlefield 2 and 3, Ratchet and Clank (PS4), and Sunset Overdrive. As part of the Frostbite engine team, he helped create the tech that powers EA’s internal roster of games. His technical expertise tackling complex technical problems will help guide the Programming advisory board to ensure that the technical content is rigorous and on point.

Jamie Cheng is CEO and founder of Klei, the makers of Don’t Starve, Mark of the Ninja, Oxygen Not Included and others. Jamie splits his time between game design and business strategy, and will be joining the Design Track of GDC. Klei has come into its own with a string of recent successes that showcase dead-on design and a notably high success rate.  His experiences designing and creating these titles, and speaking at GDC multiple times over the years, will help inform his role on the advisory board.

Caryl Shaw is VP of Development at Double Fine Productions.  Prior to her work at Double Fine, Caryl worked with influential developers Electronic Arts/Maxis, Amazon, Telltale Games and other organizations along the way. Caryl has also previously served as an excellent contributor to other GDC Summit and other boards in the past, most recently the GDC Mobile Summit. This year, Caryl will contribute to the Production & Team Management Track, to offer her experience with team management and growth, game production, quality assurance management and shepherding online features.

Together, they're five more great reasons to look forward to next year's show! And of course, the call for submissions to present lectures, panels & roundtables remains open through Thursday, August 16 at 11:59 PM PT.y So if you have an idea for a talk you think should be a part of GDC 2019, submit it now!

For more details on GDC 2019 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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