PETER HEINRICH
Developer Evangelist, Amazon

Peter Heinrich is a Developer Evangelist with Amazon focused on mobile development best practices, including game design, coding, marketing, and monetization. Before Amazon, Peter created desktop and console games for fifteen years before moving to online and mobile. He co-founded indie studios Smarterville and Zero Entertainment after working as an individual contributor for several large game developers.

MELISSA DINGMON
Social Media Manager and Game Evangelist, Big Fish Games

Melissa is a lifelong gamer. She learned to spell playing King’s Quest, learned the importance of teamwork from Portal 2, and became a leader in World of Warcraft. She is the Senior Social Strategist for Big Fish Games; working at the intersection between game design, business development, marketing, and community management. Tweet with her: @melissadingmon!

JOHN SMITH
Technical Director, Wargaming

John has developed multiplayer game technology and platforms for over 20 years and is now working at Wargaming.net (creator of World of Tanks) in Bellevue, WA on a games platform. He has worked at Internet Gaming Zone in 1990s, which delivered casual games, retail games and eCommerce infrastructure for MMOs, then worked on Sony Online Entertainment’s MMOs and along the way a couple of startups which developed their own platforms for server and mobile games.

ROBIN WALKER
Valve

DEAN TAKAHASHI
Lead Writer, GamesBeat

Dean Takahashi is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist for more than 25 years, and he has covered games for 18 years. He has been at VentureBeat since 2008. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, “Opening the Xbox” and “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked.” He organizes the annual GamesBeat and GamesBeat Summit conferences. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

MARK SUBOTNICK
Business Development, Client Computing Group VR Center of Excellence, Intel

Mark Subotnick, known as Bot to many, has been in the video games industry since late 1993. Mark has worked in the entertainment industry for most of his life, starting as an event / club promoter and then moving into the video games industry. He started his video game career at SEGA of America, as a tester and working in various roles and on his way to producing, and managing internal development before moving on in late 2000. Some of the roles and jobs Mark held during his time at SEGA of America are lead tester, QA supervisor, Marketing, PR spokesperson, and Producer at SEGA, running internal development for the DreamCast Launch.

Mark joined the Executive team of a small startup in Silicon Valley from 2000 to 2002 working on 3D web enabling technologies. Mark then joined Microsoft in 2002 and began to work on Xbox, Xbox Live, Games for Windows, and eventually Xbox 360 as a Developer Relations Manager. Mark worked with all developers of games for Microsoft platforms in the following territories, Northern California, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Seattle. Mark left Microsoft in 2007 to join Intel Corporation as the Executive Producer of Project Offset and the Game Engine Team. Mark then worked in the Software and Services Group at Intel Corporation focusing on Content Strategy, Business Development, Account Management and Portfolio Management for 8 years. Mark now works in Business Development for the Client Computing Group VR Center of Excellence.

Mark is credited in over 31 games from 1993 to the Present and to date has worked on 10 platforms and 8 platform launches.

JAY MINN
Executive Producer, Wargaming.net

Jay Minn serves as the Executive Producer at Wargaming.net, publisher and developer of World of Tanks, and is currently focused on developing platform and game operation technologies. Previously Jay co-founded Area 52 Games, Inc. and worked as the Chief Games Officer and Creative Director working closely with Disney Interactive on a key Star Wars project. As VP & Studio Director at Gazillion Entertainment, Jay directed and shipped Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, a major online world in cooperation with Marvel. He has over 22 years of experience in the gaming industry and is an experienced game designer, executive producer and creative director. He has expertise in mobile and online gaming and technologies with an emphasis on international development in China, Korea, and Eastern Europe. He advises developers, publishers, media companies and venture groups, and was responsible for assisting in the acquisition of his company Secret Lair Studios to Sierra Online, a division of Vivendi Games. His clients and partners have included Capcom, Disney Interactive, Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, Microsoft Game Studios, and the Department of Homeland Security.

LANDYN PETHRUS
Technical Marketing Engineer, Intel

Landyn Pethrus is an engineer at Intel, avid gamer, and hardware enthusiast. When Landyn is not fountain sniping with Ancient Apparition in Dota2, slaying bosses, or pursuing higher level education, he can be found on the rivers of Oregon fishing.