INDUSTRY CLIENTS

One of the world’s largest publishers of video games, Ubisoft produces such works as the Splinter Cell series and other titles based on Tom Clancy’s novels; Beyond Good and Evil; IL 2 Sturmovik; Myst III: Exile, and many more.

Crytek is world-renowned for their incredible graphics technology and stunning first-person shooter games. They hired me to do some game design training and to hold a seminar on interactive storytelling issues.

BioWare makes some of the greatest role-playing games, with the richest stories, in the world. They invited me to give their designers a one-day seminar on advanced design topics.

A major international publisher, doing large numbers of both licensed and original products for all the big platforms, from Finding Nemo to Warhammer. I consulted on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl for them.

Glu Mobile makes a variety of games for wireless and Internet-capable devices. They have a game platform that allows developers to create games for both wireless and fixed devices easily. They consulted me about some localization issues.

Publishers of the famous record book. Guinness World Records maintains a database of tens of thousands of different records, only some of which can make it into the book each year.

Legacy makes a variety of casual and adventure games, many of them downloadable from their website.

Creators of the Teletubbies. They asked me to do a product concept for them.

The OECD is a multinational organization funded by the leading financial powers to promote economic growth and good business and governmental practices around the world. They hired me to write a report for them about the potential of video games in education.

Enterprise Ireland is the enterprise development agency of the Irish government, which distributes entrepreneurship grants to qualified applicants. I went to Ireland and gave a lecture to the new Irish chapter of the IGDA, then a game design workshop.

Emerging Entertainment is a new Singaporean studio dedicated to family-friendly games with a strong emphasis on humor. I did a game design audit for them.

Cognitoy created a great game called Mind Rover a while back. I helped to brainstorm on a new product they’re working on.

Terraplay is a Swedish company offering an SDK of powerful tools to optimize throughput in networked games. I helped them to create some marketing marterials aimed at developers.

Elixir Studios was the home of Demis Hassabis, among other very, very smart people . I pitched in to lend a hand on one of their projects that needed a little more design work.

Ravn Studio is a new startup based in Drammen, Norway, not far from Oslo.

Hidden Entertainment, formerly Hidden Dinosaur, is based in Stockholm, Sweden. They were one of my first clients. I did a little early consulting on a project of theirs that eventually became Loophole, a hugely successful brand that includes a TV show and a variety of other merchandise.

Trapeze is based in Toronto, and is known primarily for its TV and commissioned animation work. In addition to their ordinary TV productions, they do movie marketing, animation for kids, corporate work, and some interactive television. They hired me specifically for my experience with the video game industry, another of their new interests.

Desq is a company in Sheffield, UK that concentrates on educational entertainment software. I did some design review work for them.

The Environment for Lucrative Virtual Interaction is a project in Oulu, Finland whose purpose is to encourage the growth of the local game industry. I was hired as an expert to evaluate ideas for video games.

A-Rage Pty Ltd. is an Australian startup looking to make a line of augmented reality game gear. I’ve given them a little advice from time to time.

A small but vibrant development company located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. GameBrains used to concentrate primarily on titles for the GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance, but since then they have branched out and are now doing development on the PS2 and GameCube. Among their credits are Madden NFL 2002, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Mummy Returns. They asked me to comment on the core mechanices of a new game they’re working on.

A2M (pronounced in French “ah-duh-em”) is a Montreal-based developer of character-oriented video games for a variety of platforms. Among their titles are Scooby-Doo, Monsters Inc., and Bugs Bunny.

Nordisk Film is a producer and distributor of electronic media for the Nordic market. In addition to interests in film and television, they have the exclusive right to distribute Sony Playstation games in Scandinavia. They called me in to discuss the design of a game in which they hold an investment interest.

Kapooki Games was an Irish company concentrating on Internet games. They had a strong sense of visual style and have made good use of Celtic cultural motifs in their work.

Escape Artist Productions, Inc.

A television company that creates clever and funny science-themed TV shows for kids. I did some concept work on a game designed to complement a new series that they were pitching.

 

The zoo has a Virtual Gorilla exhibit that was built by a graduate student at Georgia Tech several years ago . They were working to update it to the latest VR hardware, and rewrite the code to make the gorillas more realistic.

The Gentle Revolution Press was a non-profit company founded to distribute books and other products for the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, an organization dedicated to helping both brain-injured and well children achieve their full potential.

I’ve had the opportunity to help the Thames Valley Police a couple of times on a purely informal basis, advising them about IT issues that related to ongoing investigations. I didn’t charge for these services.

ACADEMIC CLIENTS

USA – Canada – England – Scotland – Ireland
Northern Ireland – France – Germany – Sweden
 Denmark – Finland – Portugal – Spain
New Zealand
 

More than a client, Teesside is my academic home. I am honored to have been appointed a Visiting Fellow to its prestigious School of Computing and Mathematics.

USA

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology needs no introduction. I gave a lecture on interactive narratives there in the spring of 2005.

Stanford University is my alma mater, and about 14 years after I graduated, I went back there to deliver a keynote at the very first AAAI Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Entertainment.

I spoke about interactive storytelling to the graduate colloquium at Georgia Tech during my lecture tour in October of 2006.

I gave a lecture on emerging issues in game design at the University of California’s Santa Cruz campus in the fall of 2006.

The Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University invited me to come and give a game design workshop to their highly regarded graduate program.

I stopped in at Rutgers for a day on my 2005 lecture tour to give them two lectures and a 4-hour game design workshop.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a justly-famous technical school in upstate New York. I participated in a two-day Game Studies Symposium and taught a design workshop.

Rochester Institute of Technology is in New York State, across Lake Ontario from Toronto. I gave a lecture to the students and a game design workshop... to the faculty!

As part of a big lecture tour in 2005, I went to Cornell University and gave two lectures and a game design workshop.

The University of Illinois Computer Science department is one of the most famous in the world, and so was the home of the fictitous HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I gave a lecture there and another one to the Women in Math, Science, and Engineering dorm.

For part of my Canadian workshop tour, I dropped down to Michigan State and did a workshop for students from all over the region. Some great ideas came out of this one. I went back there for the FuturePlay conference in 2005, where I gave a keynote and sat on a panel about sex and gender in games.

DeVry is a career -oriented university with campuses all over the United States. I did a pair of game design workshops at the Arlington, VA campus in 2007.

DePaul is a private university in Chicago with a special mission to serve immigrants to the United States. I did a game design workshop there in 2005.

At the invitation of the students, I visited Worcester Polytechnic Institute after the Game Developers’ Conference in 2005, met with the faculty to discuss their curriculum, and gave a lecture.

I gave a 90-minute mini-workshop to students at Ithaca College, as part of my 2005 East Coast Lecture Tour.

College of DuPage is an enormous community college located in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Instructor Sally Mullan asked me to come and give a pair of game design workshops to her classes.

Some of the best-prepared students I ever met were at Full Sail. They invited me to give them a workshop as part of my East Coast lecture tour, October 2005.

Collins College is a small, but growing, private school in Tempe, Arizona that teaches animation, game design, and other new media subjects. I was the commencement speaker at their graduation in the spring of 2005.

I wrote an entire college-level game design course for the Art Institute Online. Its number is GAD312, “Game Design and Game Play.” Not surprisingly, Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design is the textbook.

Canada

A small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, but they run the growing Computer Game Technology conference in Toronto. I’ve taught with them twice.

The Institut National de l’Image et du Son (The National Institute for Pictures and Sound) is a professional training organization for film, television, and now video games, located in Montreal.I did multi-day corporate training there for a couple of different companies.

England

One of the oldest and most famous universities in the world. I was invited to give a lecture to a workshop on interactive narratives by the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio.

Liverpool John Moores University. They asked me to be a keynote at a game symposium they held.

I was pleased to address the new student chapter of the IGDA at Lincoln. Had a good time in the pub afterwards, too.

This new laboratory is associated with De Montfort University in Leicester. They invited me to give a keynote lecture to one of their seminars on narrative in new media.

The University Campus Suffolk is in Ipswich. I went there for a day to review the students’ projects and give them a lecture.



 Another new university, formerly a polytechnic. I gave a long lecture on the future of the industry to a big group of students.


I went down to Portsmouth for a day to give a lecture on interactive narrative to the animation students.


The University of Bradford has named a game design award after me! I went up there to judge the entrants in the Department of Electronic Imaging and Media Communications.

I’ve given game design workshops at the Digital Knowledge Exchange of Doncaster College twice, once to the staff and and some professionals, and once to the students.

One gig sometimes generates another. During my design workshop at Doncaster College (above), one of the participants invited me to do the same at Rotherham College as well.

Scotland

One of my first-ever teaching gigs. I went up for a day and gave a lecture to their International Centre for Computer Games and Virtual Entertainment (IC-CAVE). I went back in 2005 to do a keynote at the Women in Games conference.

Northern Ireland

I gave workshops to two groups of students at the Magee Campus of the University of Ulster, in Derry. I’m also now a visiting professor there.

Ireland

Trinity College (which is effectively the University of Dublin) is the oldest and most prestigious institution in Ireland. I gave a game design workshop to a group of multimedia students there.

I give workshops for prospective students at the Dublin Institute of Technology. One was so popular that we had to schedule a second one just to handle all the participants.

The Waterford Institute of Technology had me come over to give a game design workshop.

Dun Laoghaire is pronounced “Dunleary.” This is the Institute for Art, Design, and Technology. I gave a design workshop and met with them to discuss ideas about establishing a game program.

France

The National School for Games and Interactive Digital Media is located in Angouleme, southwestern France. I went to give a couple of lectures during their Video Game Workshops event.

Germany

This organization in Berlin assembles teachers and students from all over Europe to study new media issues. I’ve taught there twice.

Sagasnet.de is an organized dedicated to training people to write for new media—video games, multimedia, interactive television, and so on. Ragnar Tørnquist (Funcom) and I taught a five-day workshop on interactive narrative.

A dedicated game development training school in Berlin. I gave a public lecture on the industry and the academy, and a workshop.

Sweden

The University of Stockholm hosted a conference on computer games in schools, and I went and gave them a lecture.

Skövde (pronouced “khuvde”) is a small town in the middle of Sweden, with its own technical school. I’ve been there twice, once to give a workshop and once to teach for a whole week.

Powerhouse is a media training institute in Kramfors, far up along the Baltic coast, in an area of particular natural beauty. I went there to give a game design workshop.

The Norrköping (pronounced “norshurping”) campus of Linköping University. I’ve been there twice:once for a conference and once to give a game design workshop.

Gotland is a historically important island in the Baltic between Sweden and Latvia. The whole place only has 50,000 inhabitants, but even so, the technical school needed a game design workshop. I was delighted to go.

Blekinge is a region of southern Sweden; this is the technical school at Karlshamn. I went to particpate in a conference/contest/party there.

Denmark

I was invited to give a lecture at the prestigious new IT University of Copenhagen, where many of the luminaries in the field of ludology now work.

The Interactive Media and Marketing Academy now occupies the former headquarters of a shipyard in Nakskov, Denmark. Steel has given way to high tech. I gave their students a game design workshop in October of 2004, and my 5-day narrative workshop in November 2006.

Finland

My first visit to Finland in nearly 30 years! I was last there in 1968, and don’t remember much about it. This time I went to give a narrative game design workhop at the University of Art and Design.

Spain

Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona. The incomparable Daniel Sanchez-Crespo Dalmau invited me to come and give several lectures.

Portugal

Universidade Lusófona is in Lisbon, in a very pretty location. I went to give a four-day workshop on interactive storytelling.

New Zealand

The University of Otago, in Dunedin on the South Island, invited me to the first-ever game conference down there. I gave a keynote address and a workshop.