Cette troisième édition aura lieu du 12 au 16 février. Elle est organisée autour de 10 rencontres, en live et en visio, entre professionnels internationaux de l'industrie du jeu vidéo et étudiants.

Les conférences se dérouleront à l'Enjmin - 121, rue de Bordeaux - Angoulême / Salle Nemo du CNBDI. L'entrée est libre dans la limite des places disponibles. Inscription obligatoire auprès de Cette adresse Email est protégée contre les robots spammeurs, vous devez avoir Javascript actif pour la voir

 PROGRAMME DE LA SEMAINE     ce programme est susceptible de subir des modifications

Lundi 12 février

18h en visio : Julien BLERVAQUE, Graphic Technical Director, Ubisoft Entertainment Montréal

SUJET : Julien Blevarque travaille actuellement sur le jeu Lost. Il évoquera les points suivants : comment il est passé du rôle de Directeur Technique chez Def2Shoot, prestataire en post-production, au rôle de Directeur Technique Graphique chez Ubisoft. Comment s?est opéré le choix d?Ubi, les étapes de recrutement, la gestion d?un déménagement à Montréal. Puis il entrera dans le détail de sa fonction, quel est son rôle exact, comment ce rôle s?articule avec les autres corps de métiers intervenants dans la conception d'un jeu. 

BIO : Ingénieur en informatique de formation (diplômé de l'Université de Belfort-Montbéliard), Julien a suivi une partie de ses études à l'Université Concordia de Montréal, où une partie de l'enseignement suivi portait sur la création de films d'animation et de dessins animés (Ecole de Cinéma Mel Hoppenheim). Il a ensuite intégré le studio d'animation Chaman pour travailler sur le film "Kaena la Prophétie" comme développeur, puis la société de post production Def2Shoot comme superviseur technique pour la previz du long métrage "L'Empire des Loups". Il y a encadré le tournage des effets spéciaux de plusieurs films publicitaires et participé à la mise en place de la chaîne de production permettant de les traiter. Parallèlement il intervient comme consultant auprès de la société NxPublishing pour l'organisation d'évènements comme Imagina et FMX/06. Ses rencontres l'amènent à participer à la conception de projets artistiques aux côtés de l'architecte François Roche, entre autres pour des expositions aux musées d'Art Moderne d'Anvers et de Paris. Depuis Novembre 2006 Julien a porté son attention sur le jeu vidéo et a rejoint le studio de Montréal d'Ubisoft comme directeur technique graphique sur un projet d'adaptation de la série Lost.

Mardi 13 février

9h30 en live : Jesper JUUL, Soup Games, Denmark.

SUJET : Why Should you Punish the Player? The Problem with Goals and Failure. 
Games have had goals for millennia, and for good reason : Goals provide players with a clear sense of direction as well as a clear sense of accomplishment. In this talk, I will nevertheless argue that there are problems with game goals: Goals often force players to focus on optimizing a strategy, at the expense of personal preferences such as issues of style or at the expense of social considerations in multi player games. Goals also tend to imply their opposite: Punishing the player for failing to reach the goal. This may not be an issue with the current generation of dedicated gamers, but it poses a problem if games want to reach a broader public that does not necessarily enjoy failure, or want to play video games on a daily basis. A number of recent hit games have demonstrated that a game can be interesting because it has weak or non-existing goals. Hits such as the Grand Theft Auto series, World of Warcraft, and The Sims may be very different games, but they all share the fact that the player is free to perform actions that do not simply work towards a single game goal. In the presentation, I will focus on how video games seem to be moving away from the traditional "hardcore" model of punishing the player for every single mistake, and on how removing or weakening the goals of a game may expand the potential audience for a game.

BIO : Jesper Juul is a video game theorist and assistant professor in video game theory and design at the Centre for Computer Game Research Copenhagen where he also earned his Ph.D. His book Half-Real on video game theory was published by MIT Press in 2005. Additionally, he works as a multi-user chat systems and casual game developer.

11h en live : Lee SHELDON, Assistant professor Dept of telecommunications, Indiana University, USA

SUJET : The Wellsprings of Emotion: Character, Story and Play.
Emotion lies at the core of all great literature; classic drama and films; and the best of TV. What touches us... what illuminates a truth about the human condition... is at the heart of what entertains us. Why then do video games seem to have so much trouble arousing emotions in players beyond the emotions directly attributable to gameplay such as curiosity, excitement and fiero? To answer that question we must look at how games borrow from other media; how they create emotions in their own unique way; and finally we must look at ourselves, those of us who make and play video games. This talk will examine the rich well of experience from which we can draw insight into creating emotional responses in players that equal the best other media has to offer. Games have nothing to lose by touching the hearts of their audience, and everything to gain."

BIO : Lee Sheldon has written and designed 17 video games including Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, The Riddle of Master Lu, Dark Side of the Moon and Wild Wild West: The Steel Assassin. He has worked on massively multiplayer worlds for companies such as Cyan (URU: Ages Beyond Myst) and Disney (Disney's Virtual Kingdom), as well as an experimental multiplayer X-Box project for Microsoft. Lee has written and produced over 200 popular television shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation and Charlie's Angels. As head writer of the famous daytime serial Edge of Night, he received a nomination for best writing from the Writers Guild of America. His book, Character Development and Storytelling for Games, is being used by game design programs at schools all over the world. Lee has been twice nominated for Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America. He is currently a professor at Indiana University teaching screenwriting and game design in addition to working on three more Agatha Christie video games for DreamCatcher Interactive and a storytelling game for the Nintendo Wii.

18h en visio : Louis CASTLE, Vice President, Electronic Arts, Los Angeles, USA.

SUJET : In this talk I will reflect on my personal involvement in gaming over the past 2 decades. I will begin with a brief background of how I broke into the games industry and why Brett and I created Westwood Studios. I will touch on the cultural decisions that made Westwood such a unique developer and talk about many of the hit products I had a hand in creating over Westwood?s 18 year history and my 9 years at EA. Special attention will be given to the creation of the RTS genre and of course, C&C. Throughout the talk I will refer to the evolution of games and how great ideas from the past have come back to be even bigger products later. In closing I will discuss my ongoing roll as VP Creative Development at EALA, the creative process used at EALA to develop titles and some broad trends I see for the industry in the near future. I look forward to sharing with you my personal perspective on this fantastic industry.

BIO :  In the role of Vice President of Creative Development at EA Los Angeles (EALA), Louis Castle is responsible for helping all of EALA's creative teams realize their product visions and specifically guide individual product teams as needed. Louis was co-founder of Westwood Studios, which became a part of EALA in January 2003. Westwood was a pioneer in the Real-time Strategy (RTS) genre, having established the widely successful Command & Conquer franchise and the first RTS game in the interactive entertainment industry in 1993. Louis received the Game Developer Association?s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, in recognition of his tremendous contributions to the industry.
Louis was the General Manager of Westwood Studios from 2000-2003 and served in creative, business and financial roles while growing Westwood from two employees in 1985 to over 250 in two locations in 2002. In his creative roles, Louis has contributed as Executive Producer, Creative Director, Technical Director, Programmer and Artist to over 100 games created by Westwood over the past 18 years. His business positions include serving as the COO and finance officer for Westwood Studios between 1992 and 2000, a period in which the company negotiated 4 multinational acquisitions. Louis is passionate about the products and the people who create them. His role at EALA allows him to leverage his considerable interactive entertainment experience to add value across the spectrum of EALA's creative and business developments. He most recently acted as the Executive Producer of the critically-acclaimed The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II?the first RTS game for the Xbox 360.

Mercredi 14 février

10h en live : Johan SJÖBERG, Business Development Manager, Peligroso Entertainment Group, Sweden.

SUJET : Bringing your first game to market.
Let's say you have a great idea for a game. All you need now is for someone to give you the money you need to produce it and getting it up on the store shelves, be they virtual or actual. That's normally where the story ends. The idea remains a great idea and the game never gets made, or even worse, once you've funded the game on your own nobody wants to buy it.
This lecture gives the audience a crash course in how to bring to make a game the market needs and bring it onto the store shelves. During the lecture we will look at things like: How the game industry works today and what the trends are, how to prepare your pitch, how to put together the team, what a publisher does, what a typical publisher deal looks like, alternative ways of distribution - is the publisher really necessary?
This is all blended with actual experiences from the trenches of game development to highlight the most important parts of the lecture. The attendants will walk away from the session with new knowledge and ideas regarding how to get their game project financed and into the hands of consumers.

BIO : Johan is a fifteen year game industry veteran and serial entrepreneur, with extensive experience from all aspects of game development. He was early attracted to the power of alternative types of storytelling and in the 80's he started what would be a decade long career as a bestselling author of pen-and-paper roleplaying games, working in all genres from fantasy, via sci-fi to horror. From there the move wasn't far to digital media and since the 90's his focus has been the development of video games. Johan has co-founded game development studios, worked with leading international publishers, delivered interactive TV-shows for leading networks, and created entertainment for many target groups, ranging from young children to mature horror fans. He has worked in managerial positions both in sales, game production, and business development, and have extensive experience from many aspects of game development. Among other things he has written game design, negotiated contracts with publishers, and lectured at international conferences. Johan is currently the Business Development Manager at Peligroso Entertainment Group, a company that specializes in business development for the games industry. Based on real development expertise, they provide representation and sales services for games developers, quality reviews, contacts, and facilitation on a global basis.

18h en visio : Raphael COLANTONIO, CEO and Creative director, Arkane Studios, Austin - Texas, USA

SUJET : Raphael Colantonio, fondateur d?Arkane Studios, revient sur son parcours et évoque la création du studio, en France puis aux USA. Avec la franchise, la passion et l?honnêteté qui le caractérisent, il explique comment un petit studio indépendant peut non seulement survivre mais se développer et gagner la confiance et le respect de structures infiniment plus puissantes que la sienne. Une occasion pour les étudiants de vérifier qu?à force de ténacité, de travail et de compétence, tout est toujours possible !

BIO : Raphael worked in the game business for 13 years. He founded Arkane Studios in 1999 in France and recently opened an office in Austin, TX. Raphael acts as CEO and Creative director of the company. His recent work includes Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Arx Fatalis. Prior to this, he started with Electronic Arts in Europe and played a part in the following games: Theme Park, Space Hulk, Fifa Soccer, EA cricket...

Jeudi 15 février

10h en live : Stéphane BAUDET, Directeur, Ubisoft Annecy.

SUJET : La gestion des assets. Le sujet de cette intervention concerne la problématique de management des ressources dans une production de jeu vidéo. La réalisation des ressources d?un jeu (visuelles et sonores) nécessite aujourd?hui l?intervention d?une cinquantaine de collaborateurs (Infographistes, Animateurs, Bruiteurs et Musiciens) et la création de plusieurs dizaines de milliers de fichiers graphiques et sonores composant un jeu vidéo. Après une période de solutions « maisons », les solutions professionnelles sont aujourd?hui largement répandues dans notre secteur. En prenant en exemple la production sur plusieurs sites du jeu Splinter Cell Double Agent, cette présentation va exposer les challenges auxquels la production doit faire face au quotidien et mettre en avant les raisons pour lesquelles, des solutions d?asset management comme Perforce ou Alien Brain permettent d?y remédier.

BIO : Après une formation en Informatique Industrielle, Stéphane Baudet entre en tant que programmeur de jeu chez Infogrames en 1988. 10 ans plus tard et après avoir collaboré a l?ascension d?Infogrames, Stéphane fonde Eden Studios dont la série V-Rally fera le succès jusqu?au rachat du studio par Atari en 2004. En 18 ans, Stéphane a été crédité pour la réalisation d?une vingtaine de jeux sur des plateformes variées allant de l?Atari ST en 1988 à la PlayStation 3 en 2007. Les jeux les plus reconnus étant : North & South, les adaptations de BD (Astérix, les Schtroumpfs, Tintin?), la série V-Rally, Need For Speed Porsche, Kya, Titeuf et Test Drive Unlimited. Stéphane est aujourd?hui le directeur d?Ubisoft Annecy et vient d?achever Splinter Cell Double Agent pour consoles Xbox 360 et PlayStation 3.

18h en visio : Rémi ARNAUD, Playstation, Sony, USA 

SUJET : Cross-platform content pipeline using COLLADA
COLLADA is a standard, hosted by the Khronos Group along with the OpenGL, OpenGL ES and other API standards. COLLADA defines an XML-based schema to make it easy to transport 3D assets between applications - enabling diverse DCC and 3D processing tools be combined into a production pipeline. The interchange format provides comprehensive encoding of visual scenes, including shaders and physics, and even multiple versions of the same asset that can be used in a cross-platform production. This talk will provide an overview of the technology, and explain how to it is currently being used by game developers to create an effective content creation pipeline for the most complex development.

BIO : Computer Entertainment US R&D in January 2003 as the Graphics Architect for the PLAYSTATION®3 graphics API, Arnaud obtained his Ph.D in Real-Time Image Synthesis while working in the R&D department of Thomson Training & Simulation (Paris, France) designing visual systems for custom hardware and high-end workstations.

Vendredi 16 février

10h en live : Eric LUX, Directeur général et co-fondateur de Ginger Studios.

SUJET : Eric évoquera les points suivants : Bref retour sur sa carrière, qui comprend les expériences de Directeur du Développement chez Activision Europe puis pour le Compact Disc Interactif de Philips, Vice-President du Développement de Virgin Interactive Entertainement (Groupe VIACOM), à Los Angeles, puis en charge des projets Ultima avec Richard Garriott chez Origin / Electronic Arts à Austin, Texas. De retour en France, Eric prend la Vice-Présidence International de Vivendi Universal Publishing pour tous les produits Enfants pendant l?ère « J6M » de Jean-Marie-Messier, avant de créer Ginger Studios en 2003. Eric expliquera comment Ginger Studios est né, comment le studio a réussi à fonctionner dès le départ sur des missions de « Serious Game » et de promotion avant de se lancer dans le développement de jeux essentiellement pour le Grand Public Enfin, Eric évoquera l?organisation du studio, les choix techniques retenus, les projets en cours en présentant budgets, organisation humaine et technique. Last but not least, Eric donnera son sentiment sur les perspectives des métiers de la création de jeu vidéo en France et quelques recommandations pour « percer » dans l?industrie.

BIO : Eric Lux est Directeur Général de Ginger Studios, développeur de Fort Boyard 2006 pour Mindscape, mais aussi prestataire en communication numérique pour des entreprises comme Publicis, WPP, Renault, SNCF, Sony et L?Oréal. Avec plus de 15 ans d?expérience internationale dans les médias interactifs, Eric Lux est reconnu comme un expert dans la création de logiciels grands publics, ayant produit près de 150 titres. Après des débuts chez Commodore, constructeur des célèbres ordinateurs Amiga, il occupe des postes de direction chez Activision, Philips Media, Virgin Interactive Entertainment puis Electronic Arts, en Angleterre et aux Etats-Unis. De retour en France en 2000, il est nommé Vice-Président International de Vivendi Universal Publishing Kids, et dirige alors le studio Coktel (créateur des best-sellers Adi & Adibou) et le marketing international. Il crée Ginger Studios en 2003. Eric Lux est Ingénieur diplômé de L?Ecole Supérieure d?Informatique (Paris).

11h30 en live : Stephen REID, Game Services Manager, NCsoft Europe.

SUJET : European Games Publishing : an insider's view
Many people want to develop games and create them from scratch, but someone needs to get those games into shops, tell the world about how great they are, and in many cases, give developers money to make them! Without games publishers, many great games would never have been created.

BIO : Stephen Reid is an online gamer and virtual worlds advocate, which perfectly matches his job as Game Services Manager for NCsoft Europe. Stephen has focused on community development, content and games for most of his career, with stints as a journalist, AOL channel producer/editor, and Editor in Chief of PlayStation.com. He joined NCsoft Europe as part of the initial management team in 2004.

Sera également présent Sebastien VIDAL, Chief Operating Officer à NCsoft Europe.

BIO : Sebastien started his career in the games industry 10 years ago as a journalist before moving to France Telecom's game division where he worked on their gaming and matchmaking web platform. In 2002, he worked on the launch of Dark Age of Camelot, the first successful and localised MMORPG in Europe and eventually headed up France Telecom's online operations 2 years later. In 2004, he joined NCsoft Europe as Chief Operating Officer.