Origin Co-Founder, Creat CEO To Keynote IGCEast

The upcoming Independent Game Conference East will feature keynotes from Origin Systems co-founder and Happy Cooperative founder Dallas Snell, and Creat Studios co-founder and CEO Vladimir Starzhevsky. Starzhevsky will talk on "The Challenges of Independence," while Snell's talk is titled "There's Nothing Casual About Social Games." The two-day IGCEast, organized by GamePath, is set for May 7 and 8 at Boston's Northeastern University. It includes sessions on both business and technical tracks, and previously announced speakers and panelists include Orbus Gameworks' Darius Kazemi, 38 Studios' Brett Close and Red Storm Entertainment's Judy Tyrer. Before heading up operations and product development at Creat in Boston, Starhevsky was executive producer at Turbine, and also managed titles including Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and Spiderman 2 at Vicarious Visions. Snell has over two decades' experience in the games industry. After developing his first graphic adventure, The Quest, in 1983, he worked with Richard and Robert Garriott at Origin Systems, where he managed and produced over 30 titles including the Ultima and Wing Commander series. He became Origin's general manager after the Electronic Arts acquisition in 1992, and after a hiatus to explore social psychology, he rejoined the games industry as business development director at NCsoft in 2006 and then founded social games and publishing services company The Happy Cooperative that same year. Those interested in further info and registration details for IGCeast can visit the event's official website.