Cynthia Freese
Executive Director, LOGIN Conference
Co-founder, Evergreen Events

Prior to her founding of Evergreen Events, Cynthia was the Event Director at The Game Initiative where she grew the Game Initiative’s conferences to include small, focused events with a unique focus. Cynthia was the creator and manager of the 2005 Casual Games Conference in Seattle. This successful conference allowed the games industry to focus on a new perspective in the industry. She was also the Conference Director of the 2005 Austin Game Conference, Women’s Game Conference and Writers Game Conference in Austin, TX, all of which had record attendance in 2005 and were well covered in the media. In addition to her work on innovative conferences Cynthia also focused on the Breaking In To the Game Industry events as well as helping to organize and attain industry speakers for middle school Career Days around the country.

Cynthia likes to be thought of as a bridge between groups and believes that by working together we will all be better off in the long run.

Peter Freese
Lead Programmer, Hidden Path Entertainment

Peter Freese is an entrepreneur, programmer, and visionary/co-creator of the LOGIN Conference with his wife, Cynthia.

Peter has been programming for over 30 years and making games professionally since the early 1990’s. After developing several award-winning educational games for Edmark, Peter co-founded Q Studios in 1994 and led development on the campy breakout 3D shooter title, Blood. He was the graphics engine lead on Sierra Studio’s fully 3D adventure game, Gabriel Knight 3. At Origin Systems, Peter learned of the joys and trials of MMO game development as client lead on the Ultima Online 2 team. In 2001, Peter established and directed the Core Technology & Tools team at NCsoft North America, contributing to development on all shared technology for numerous MMO game titles. In 2005, Peter co-founded MMO development company Secret Lair Studios which was acquired by Vivendi in 2006. Peter is currently lead programmer on an unannounced project for Hidden Path Entertainment in Bellevue, Washington.

Mathew Anderson
Lead Community Manager, Petroglyph Game Studios

Mathew has been passionate about developing game communities since Meridian 59 was released in 1996. With over seven years experience in community management, Mathew has striven to professionally bring gamers together since volunteering for the EQ Guide Program in 2001. From there he developed his career through managing online game communities on prominent media networks as IGN.

Recently returning from teaching English in China in 2008, Mathew continues to learn more about the differences in game communities across cultures. He is not only passionate about helping to grow communities he participates in, but also lead the field of community management as a critical component of game development.

Mathew is currently the Lead Community Manager for Petroglyph Games studio in Las Vegas.

Erik Bethke
Founder & CEO, GoPets Ltd.

Erik Bethke is the founder of GoPets and currently resides in Seoul. He has been developing games for over 12 years. Previously, Erik was responsible for overall corporate operations at Taldren, Inc., leading design and business development. Projects managed at Taldren include the Starfleet Command real-time tactical starship simulator. He acted as the lead designer and producer/executive producer throughout the series, including SFC 1, SCF: Neutral Zone, SFC II: Empires at War, SFC: Orion Pirates and Starfleet Command 3. Prior to founding Taldren, Erik worked for both large publishers and small developers. Projects include I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream for Cyberdreams, PlanetNET for MPGNet and Caesars Palace Windows 95 for Interplay. Erik is the author of the book Game Development and Production. The book is currently used by the game design departments of at least half a dozen universities and colleges.

Scott Hartsman
Chief Creative Officer, Trion World Network

Scott Hartsman has more than 20 years of games industry experience and has contributed to more than 40 online products. Formerly an executive at Sony Online Entertainment among other online games companies, he has immense knowledge and skills in the development, deployment, and operation of online games. While at Sony Online Entertainment, Hartsman held key positions throughout the EverQuest franchise, including managing the massive EverQuest II team and successfully shipping more than a dozen EverQuest-related products across a variety of locales with monthly content updates. Most recently, Hartsman oversaw the development of MMOs for the exponentially growing social networking audience.

James Hursthouse
Managing Director, IGM KK

James Hursthouse is an experienced global online game business developer and entrepreneur. His introduction to the industry came through work with an early incarnation of Nexon Japan. He moved to the US in June of 2004 to set up Online Game Services Inc (OGSi), which rapidly established itself as a leading infrastructure provider to the online games industry, offering a broad spectrum of solutions including hosting, billing, customer support and market development consultancy. Moving back to Tokyo in October 2007, James is once again focusing his efforts on Asian business development activities in the online games sector with IGM KK, a consultancy offering overseas companies business development and sales activities in the Japanese market, and helping Japanese companies with their overseas expansion. Clients include BigWorld Technology, China Telecom, Umbra Software, FMOD and Original Force 3D. James has served as Chairman of the Advisory Board for the ION 2008 Game Conference and the International Game Developers Association's Online Games Group. He holds advisory board positions with a number of game studios and companies.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameshursthouse

Darius Kazemi
President, Orbus Gameworks

Darius runs Orbus Gameworks, a company that's building gameplay data metrics tools to help developers keep track of what their players are doing in-game. Before Orbus, Darius did gameplay metrics at Turbine Inc for MMORPGs including Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. He is also a technology officer for the IGDA Education SIG, a committee member for the Boston Postmortem, and spends a good deal of his free time giving advice on how to break into the game industry.

Steve Klebe
SVP, Business Development at Vindicia, Inc

As Sr. Vice President of Business Development for Vindicia, Steve is responsible for building and managing the relationships to drive the adoption of Vindicia’s services by merchants through various reseller and infrastructure partnerships.

Steve has over 30 years of experience in sales, business development, strategic alliances and product marketing in electronic payments, authentication and fraud prevention including the last 15 years specifically in ecommerce.  He has worked in a variety of senior management roles at companies such as; VeriFone, CyberCash, CyberSource, and PassMark Security (acquired by RSA/EMC).  Steve has driven numerous innovative solutions from infancy through their mainstream stage. He was responsible for a wide variety of partnerships with companies such as First Data and Visa including the equity investment by Visa in CyberSource and the co-branded product – the CyberSource Advanced Fraud Screen enhanced by Visa.  He has taught classes at the NACHA Payments Institute, was on the board of directors of the Electronic Transactions Association (www.electran.org) and on the advisory boards of the DRF (www.directresponse.org) and the EFTA (www.efta.org). Steve has spoken at over 50 banking and technology conferences during his career.

Steve received a Bachelor of Science with honors in Business Administration from Northeastern University, Boston, MA.

Rick Lambright
Chief Architect, Gazillion Entertainment

Rick is Chief Architect at Gazillion Entertainment where a variety of MMOs are in development, including LEGO Universe, Jumpgate Evolution, and Marvel Super Hero Squad. Rick’s game industry experience began at Starwave in 1995 as server architect and lead server programmer on the pioneering MMO Castle Infinity, the first fully released MMO designed for children. Subsequently Rick was Director of Online Technology at Humongous and Cavedog Entertainment where he wrote the networking for Total Annihilation and led the team that created the Boneyards online gaming system for GT Interactive. Rick was subsequently VP of Internet Engineering at LithTech and Director of Online Technology at Monolith and was the lead engineer on The Matrix Online. In 2005 he joined Secret Lair Studios, which was acquired by Vivendi in 2006 and became Sierra Online Seattle. Rick was Technical Director at Sierra Online, during which time the studio shipped Carcassonne for XBLA.

Joe Ludwig
Programmer, Valve Software

Joe Ludwig is a ten year veteran of the game industry. Before joining Divide by Zero in summer of 2008, Joe worked on the PC MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea at Flying Lab Software from the project's inception past its launch. He served as Lead Programmer, then Director of Development, and finally as Producer on Pirates. Prior to Flying Lab, Joe spent a year working on the Middle-Earth Online project at Sierra.

Joe is a frequent speaker and occasional writer on MMOs and their challenges. He has spoken at the Online Game Development Conference, the Austin Game Development Conference, and the ION Game Conference. You can find his writing on MMOs and technology in general at http://programmerjoe.com.

Paul Philleo
Writer/Consultant

Paul Philleo has taken root in the interactive entertainment world since 2001. As Marketing Manager for almost three and a half years at the North American outpost for Korean online game developer giant, Nexon Corp., he guided the marketing and PR programs for three MMO game titles. Most notably, he played a key role in guiding their flagship MMO PC game title Shattered Galaxy toward critical acclaim, with awards from Computer Games magazine, GamePen, FiringSquad, GameSpot and other editorial venues.

Since departing the Nexon fold in 2004, Paul has written for MPOGD.com, a respected and veteran online multiplayer gaming-focused website, particularly in covering numerous game industry events across the US. Additionally, Paul had co-founded and independently worked with the mar-com agency Levelup Communications in crafting press releases and marketing strategies for independent studios and Korean-originated game titles.

Currently, he is involved in a new website editorial project and pursuing other business ventures.

Scott Warner
Owner, Garvey Schubert Barer

Scott has worked with game companies for more than 12 years, covering all aspects of game development and distribution for game companies in the pc, console, casual, downloadable, and mmog space. During this period he has worked on deals to develop and distribute games domestically and internationally, including in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, and France with companies ranging from EA, Sony, Disney, Real, Microsoft, Fox, Valve, Big Fish, Warner, T-Mobile, Sprint, Motorola, Qualcomm, Simon, Schuster, Scholastic, and many many others. Scott has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” in Washington and as one of Washington’s Most Amazing Lawyers by Washington CEO Magazine in 2006. You can view Scott’s resume (click on narrative bio) at: http://www.gsblaw.com/people/bio.asp?EmployeeID=W617305935

Dave Weinstein
Senior Security Development Engineer, Microsoft

After turning pro in the 1994 season as part of the White Wolf Productions' Empire II: The Art of War team, Dave moved to Kesmai Studios. In 1997 he donned the red and white stripes of Red Storm Entertainment (later part of Ubisoft), working as a networking specialist on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. After 11 years, three companies, and six platforms, he retired from professional game development during the 2005 season, and moved to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains to write and research security tools as part of the Microsoft Security Engineering Center. He also freely admits to having written this biography under the influence of OLN Tour De France coverage.

Jason Wonacott
Founder & CEO, Wonacott Communications, LLC

Jason created Wonacott Communications, an award-winning PR agency, in 2007 with one mission: Provide the benchmark public relations and new media results of a major agency while being affordable, adaptable and approachable.  By adhering to this mantra and leveraging his experience and enthusiasm for online/social entertainment, he quickly established the company as a respected strategic PR partner for a number of online interactive entertainment and digital media companies. Wonacott Communications’ clients have included Atlus Online, NHN USA (ijji.com), Gamania Digital Entertainment, GamePot (USA), Cookie Jar Entertainment, WEBZEN, Realtime Worlds, Gala-Net (gpotato.com), Clear Ink, Moblyng Games, and many others.

Prior to Wonacott Communications, Jason was director of corporate communications for MMO developer and publisher Turbine, Inc., and then the head of corporate communications for Korean MMO developer Webzen’s North American subsidiary. He was also a senior member of two independent Los Angeles-based public relations firms, providing strategic counsel and program tactical execution for a number of clients in the consumer electronics, digital entertainment, luxury lifestyle, technology and alternative energy industries.

Before his successful transition to public relations, Jason was a TV reporter and also served four years in the U.S. Navy.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Communication from the University of Oregon.

Geoffrey Zatkin
President and COO, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research

Geoffrey Zatkin serves as President and COO of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), a business intelligence company that empowers investors, publishers and developers to make informed decisions about the games they are creating and the capital being spent to produce them. Co-founding the company in 2006, Geoffrey directs the development of EEDAR’s product line (GamePulse and DesignMetrics) and oversees the data collected for use in EEDAR’s commercial and custom research products. 

With more than a decade’s worth of video game industry experience, Geoffrey has performed in lead and senior design roles for both international corporate entertainment conglomerates and independent development studios. Geoffrey specializes in the evolution of game design and emerging technology trends for the computer and video game industry, with a particular emphasis on Massively Multiplayer games, feature identification/categorization and feature trending.