FÍS Games Summit 2021

Galway Film Centre is delighted to announce the inaugural FÍS Games Summit which will take place online as a series of talks on Thursday February 25th. We are excited to be able to confirm Warren Spector as our first speaker who will be in conversation with Brenda Romero about his career in the games industry and will be taking questions from the attendees.

Galway Film Centre manager Alan Duggan said: “The Irish Game Industry has long been approaching a tipping point of critical mass allowing skilled developers and creatives to stay in Ireland to work in this industry, and even found their own companies. Over the last decade we have seen significant encouraging growth, and at Galway Film Centre we want to foster that momentum and support that growth. For that reason we have created a programme for the Fís Games Summit with internationally renowned developers, as well as Irish success stories, that is sure to inspire and embolden all Irish developers.”

Full Schedule

12.30-13.00

If Found…Behind The Scenes

Speaker: Llaura McGee (DREAMFEEL)

13.15-13.45

Funding Your Game

Speakers: Eibhlín Ní Mhungaile (Creative Europe Media Desk) & Rory Clifford (Northern Ireland Screen)

Moderator: Sarah Dillon (WRAP Fund)

14.00-14.30

Managing Game Teams: Keeping It Together To Make It Better

Speaker: Sushama Chakraverty (Ubisoft Toronto)

15.30-16.00

Behind The Scenes: Developing Your Visuals

Speaker: Greg Foertsch (Romero Games)

16.00-17.00

Warren Spector In Conversation With Brenda Romero

Speaker: Warren Spector (OtherSide Entertainment)

Moderator: Brenda Romero (Romero Games)

17.00-18.00

Brian Fargo In Conversation with Keith O’Conor

Speaker: Brian Fargo (inXile Entertainment)

Moderator: Keith O’Conor (Romero Games)

Our Theme

The theme of this year’s FÍS Games Summit programme is Journeys. Whether it is the journey to publishing your first game, the journey to seeking funding, or the lifelong and storied journey of a career decades in the making, we want to use this summit to share with Irish developers some of the journeys one must take throughout their time in the industry.

About FÍS Games Summit

FÍS Games Summit 2021 is the inaugural event of what will be a recurring annual summit. The event is hosted by Galway FIlm Centre in association with Screen Skills Ireland, and with the support of Romero Games, Creative Europe Media Desk Galway, Northern Ireland Screen, the WRAP Fund, and Imirt. The goal of the summit is to help foster growth and success in the Irish Games Development community by providing Developers on the island of Ireland with a unique opportunity to engage with talks and presentations that will help them in their own careers.

Confirmed Speakers

Warren Spector

Warren Spector has been making games for 37 years. Best known for his work on the Deus Ex and Disney Epic Mickey games, he also worked on several entries in the Ultima series. He began his career in 1983 in tabletop games, with Steve Jackson Games and TSR, before moving into electronic games in 1989 where he worked at Origin, Electronic Arts, Looking Glass, Ion Storm and Eidos before starting Junction Point Studios, acquired in 2007 by the Walt Disney Company. In addition to his game work, he is a published novelist (The Hollow Earth Affair, 1988) and comic book author (DuckTales: Rightful Owners, 2012). From 2013 to 2016 he was Director of the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. In 2016, he partnered with Paul Neurath in the creation of indie developer OtherSide Entertainment. He was awarded the Pulcinella lifetime achievement award at the Cartoons on the Bay conference in 2011, and in 2012 received a Lifetime Achievement award at the Game Developers Choice Awards as well as an Honorary Doctorate from Columbia College of Chicago.

Brian Fargo

Brian Fargo has been in the games business since its infancy, having founded Interplay Entertainment in 1983 and producing some of PC gaming’s most beloved franchises, such as Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, and Wasteland. He founded inXile Entertainment in 2002 and went on to set crowdfunding records for Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera. inXile was purchased by Xbox Game Studios in 2018 and he sits as Studio Head and creative visionary for Wasteland 3 and future titles.

Sushama Chakraverty

Sushama stumbled into the industry by chance, nearly two decades ago. Since then, she has worked at studios small and large, on games that only got bigger with time. She remembers her time at a small studio, working on Playboy: The Mansion, fondly. Today, she leads small teams on massive and ambitious projects at Ubisoft Toronto, which has also given her a lot of experience and good memories. She has worked on IPs such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell and, most recently, Watch Dogs. She passionately cares about her teams and is committed to help make the workplace an inclusive, fair and nurturing place to be. Anecdotally, she regularly draws on her parenting experiences to help her keep both herself and her teams sane and productive (yes, that’s true!).

Llaura McGee

Llaura is an Irish artist, writer and game maker from Donegal who founded the Irish game studio DREAMFEEL. In 2014 she released Curtain, which follows the destructive relationship between two women in a Glasgow punk band. This won AMaze Berlin's Grand Prize and the Writers Guild of Ireland's Best Game Script. In 2016 Dreamfeel won three awards from the Irish Design Awards for If Found and in 2020 the game was released in collaboration with Annapurna Interactive to iOS, Steam and Nintendo Switch. She's currently working with the Dreamfeel team on an unannounced project for 2022! 

Greg Foertsch

Greg is a veteran of the game industry with more than 15 years of experience.  He is one of the original members of the Firaxis Games team and has directed and created visual content for more than eighteen games, including the Sid Meier’s Civilization series, Pirates! and Railroads!.  Greg spoke at the 2007 Game Developer Conference on managing and integrating interns into your development team.  As the driving force behind Firaxis’s internship program for the past 10 years, Greg has been responsible for the education, training, and advancement of young game developers.  Most recently, Greg has been working as the Lead Artist on an unannounced title, as well as teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art.  His classes at MICA over the past several years have included Introduction to 3D, 3D Computer Animation II Character Creation and Game Art: Beyond Pacman.

Funding Panel

With new funding opportunities arising such as the Creative Europe MEDIA 2021 - 2027 programme and existing opportunities such as the Northern Ireland Screen Games Fund, our speakers Eibhlín Ní Mhunghaile of Creative Europe MEDIA Desk and Rory Clifford of Northern Ireland Screen will discuss the options available to games developers on the island of Ireland with Sarah Dillon of the WRAP Fund.