APRIL 7-8, 2022 · 8 AM - 6 PM ET

TORONTO, CANADA & VIRTUAL

XP GAME DEVELOPER

SUMMIT

CANADA’S PREMIERE VIDEO GAME BUSINESS CONFERENCE

PARTICIPATING COMPANIES

WHO WE ARE

The XP Game Developer Summit is Canada’s premiere B2B
video game conference.


This year we are offering a hybrid experience with an in-person
portion hosted at Artscape Launchpad in Toronto, Canada. The
in-person summit will feature exclusive workshops and access to
unique.


Our virtual portal will connect industry professionals & businesses
across the world through our partner platform, MeetToMatch.
Some talks and panels will also be available for viewing virtually.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Business Transactions

Connect with developers, publishers, investors, and other business leaders to conduct business transactions. See who’s attending here.

Panels & Workshops

Elevate your industry knowledge with offerings from industry experts & thought leaders.

Indie Game Showcase

Powered by AMD

Showcase or play up and coming games from a variety of studios.

Portfolio Review

Sponsored by ArtStation

Have your portfolio critiqued and reviewed by industry experts.

PROGRAMMING

Our in-person event opens its doors at 8 AM each day and closes at 6 PM.

SUGAR HALL A

APRIL 7

Get your morning started off with some casual networking, served with fresh coffee and pastries.

Connect with a new investor or publisher every 20mins in our fast paced speed-networking session.

Connect with a new professionals from the gaming industry every 20mins in our fast paced speed-networking session.

APRIL 8

Get your morning started off with some casual networking, served with fresh coffee and pastries.

Connect with a new investor or publisher every 20mins in our fast paced speed-networking session.

Connect with a new professionals from the gaming industry every 20mins in our fast paced speed-networking session.

SUGAR HALL B

APRIL 7

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Moderator: Lucie Lalumiere  (Interactive Ontario)

Participants: Jayson Hilchie (ESAC), Vincent Regimbald (Behaviour Interactive), Dan Ayoub (Certain Affinity), Scott Nye (Inflexion)

The Canadian gaming industry has changed and evolved significantly over the last decade. The global pandemic has forced unprecedented changes to those working in the gaming sector across Canada. Join a panel of experts from across the country as they share their insights on what’s changed over the years, where we’re at post-pandemic and what’s still needed in our industry.

Moderator:David Campbell (MNP)

Participants: Nick Alfieri (Digerati), Michael Metzger (Drake Star Partners), Bill Wang (Skystone)

Across the world, investors of all sizes are currently looking for their next projects. Join a panel of publishers and investors as they share their past investment projects and what they’re actively looking for in their next investment or acquisition.

Presented by: Oz Syed, Game Dev Evangelist, Backtrace, Sauce Labs

Game companies spend a lot of money in the development of games and to acquire new players but do not focus enough on improving retention and gaming experience by addressing the biggest concern of any gamer: Errors and Crashes. Learn how 17 out of top 25 game companies use Backtrace to build a positive gaming experience, improve gamer retention and to help ensure overall success. Learn why Backtrace is the critical error and crash reporting tool that game dev teams need to incorporate into their projects of all sizes, platforms and scope.

Moderator: Mary Sorrenti (Gamepill)

Participants:
 Scott Nye (Inflexion), Keith Warner (New World Interactive), Guillaume Provost (Compulsion Games)

Being acquired is a major milestone for your company which often takes years of work to achieve. We’ve brought together a panel of experts which include executives that have recently gone through an acquisition. They will share what they considered prior to being acquired and the pros and cons of different acquisition deals.

Moderator

  • Carl-Edwin Michel

 

Participants:
Sean Gauthier Neilson (Pixel Audio), Benjamin Denis (Edgegap), Nik Schmidt (Game On) and Michael Rodrigues (PleaseFix by Turbulent)

 

To create amazing games, studios need strategic partners to support them with non-core activities so they can focus on what they do best. Edgegap, Game On, Pixel Audio and PleaseFix by Turbulent will discuss how strategic partners can provide added value for gaming companies.

Presented by: Nik Palmer (Accelbyte)

With the move towards a more permanent work-from-home environment, with hybrid teams, fully remote teams and development spread across the world, we are seeing certain sections of the tech industry start to suffer from reduced development cadence. In particular Games Development teams are being affected from the slower development of their products. This is evident in both small and larger organisations.

 

Through this presentation we will look at:

– How teams have worked previously.

– What typical development looks like today. 

– Where the effects of the dispersal of game dev activities are seen most. 

– Solutions for games teams to explore.

Moderated by: Ryan Hill & Carolina Veliz (Gameloft Toronto)

XP is proud to host the XP Summit Student Games featuring Sheridan College’s fourth-year Honours Bachelor of Game Design students (Class of 2022) and their final capstone projects. During the panel, Sheridan game design student teams will share the unique game design challenges and video games they developed over the past academic year to a panel of industry professionals and attendees of the XP Game Summit.

Participants: Felix Kramer, Kim Belair, Louisa Atto, Evan Narcisse, Julia Minamata, Xalavier Nelson Jr.

The games industry is made up of thousands of walled gardens – fiefdoms full of secrets, where too often we find ourselves hard at work fixing the same problems… without ever sharing solutions with one another. Industry shifts often as a result of individual titles’ public success, but rarely behind closed doors, or as the result of inter-team collaborations. In this panel, five narrative professionals from the games industry and beyond, will explore what a more collaborative, open industry might look like– and ask how much better games could be if their productions weren’t locked behind closed doors?

Presented by: Victoria Tran (Innersloth)

What goes into the strategy of a Twitter account? How do you execute on it? What are the problems and joys of handling an enormous community while still being a small independent team? This talk by Innersloth’s Community Director will dive deep into the community engagement tactics they used for the Among Us Twitter account to grow it to over 1.4 million followers – and counting! 

APRIL 8

Presented by: Ken Lai (Brandoville Studios)

Brandoville Academy is Indonesia’s first premium CG school. Our mission is to provide an environment where students can level up their creative talent. We’d love to bring our Indonesian students to Canadian schools to enhance their learning experience and continue to develop Indonesia as a leader in the game and animation industry.

In exchange, Brandoville Academy provides an online program for Unreal Engine where students can gain an official certification. Canadian and international students are welcomed to apply!

Learn more about us with our student showcase and short presentation!

Presented by: Shelley Coultish

A presentation focusing on the different programs offered by the CMF that can assist game developers in acquiring funding for projects, and demystifying the process of submitting an application.

Moderator: Eren Kose (Caboose)

Panelists: Marshal Carper (Carper Creative), Jennifer Zall (Gamesight), Zack Pearlstein (Rumble Gaming)

 

Most companies know how critical influencer marketing can be when planning out their marketing strategy. However, the influencer landscape has changed and is constantly evolving with new tools, platforms and expectations from influencers. Our panel of experts will explore strategies that have shown success for both sponsors and influencers.

Presented by: Tyler Long (NewZoo)

Newzoo works with hundreds of developers and publishers to help guide them through various stages of game development using a combination of unique metrics and analytics. This can provide the foundation of minimizing risk and maximizing success when building and launching a game.

In this presentation, we will explore the metrics that can help ensure success at every stage of a new game’s life cycle no matter the size of your project or company.

Along with techniques being taught at each stage, we will present actual data across a wide variety of data sources that will provide a peek into the games market from a variety of lens including genre and macro trends, game level metrics, to player psychographics and demographics.

The audience should walk away from this presentation with an idea on how to implement data throughout any stage of their game and directly gain insights into the recent trends and market data.

Presented by:
Rebecca Vandersleen, Cameron Skura, and Donald MacGilivray (RBC)

How to level up 🍄 your finance game; leveraging tax credits, bank financing, and other enhancements to fund your next project.

Moderated by Kim Gibson (Ontario Creates)

Participants: Alex Van Lepp (Graffiti Games), Jason Della Rocca, Michelle Brandstetter (Crunchyroll)

One of the greatest business challenges in developing your game might be to pitch it to publishers. Publishers play a critical role in your game’s release by offering support either through funding, marketing, mentorship or all of these. To help you prepare for your next pitch, the XP team has gathered publishers and individuals from across the industry who have decades of experience in what pitches grab a publisher’s attention and how you can get one step closer to successfully launching your game.

Moderated by: Jim Leedham (Unity)

Participants: Astrid Rosemarin (New World Interactive), Tara Brannigan (Behaviour Interactive)

As more companies embrace games as a service model, a new challenge arises in how to keep a playerbase engaged over multiple years.

Moderated by: Ryan Hill & Carolina Veliz (Gameloft Toronto), Ryan Mayne (Certain Affinity)

XP is proud to host the XP Summit Student Games featuring Sheridan College’s fourth-year Honours Bachelor of Game Design students (Class of 2022) and their final capstone projects. During the panel, Sheridan game design student teams will share the unique game design challenges and video games they developed over the past academic year to a panel of industry professionals and attendees of the XP Game Summit.

SUGAR HALL C

APRIL 7

Presented by: Ryan Oliver, Jermiah Nuqingaq, and Cole Tucker

The Pinnguaq Association has been promoting and building digital skills across rural, remote and Indigenous communities in Canada through the Pinnguaq Lifecycle, a learning and support model that meets people where they are and supports them to get where they want to go.  Founded in 2012 in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, the organization is spreading across Canada and building a partnership network to support participants from underserved communities in taking on meaningful roles in the technology and game industries.  

This talk will share the history of the organization through the lens of the Pinnguaq Lifecycle, a belief that permanent, sustainable growth in underserved communities requires a permanent, long term investment through education, resources, mentorship, employment opportunities, production and constant advocacy.  We will talk about our growing and innovative partnership network and invite all guests of the XP Game Summit to discover the roles they and their companies can play in building a more diverse and representative workforce. 

Pinnguaq founder and CEO Ryan Oliver, joined by Jermiah Nuqingaq and Cole Tucker, two youth from Iqaluit, NU who have learned and succeeded within the Lifecycle, will share a living example of the lifecycle and partnership network.  They will share how the Lifecycle is activated to bring employees like Jerimah and Cole into our company, how the process led to Nunavut’s first participation in the Global Game Jam up tothe introduction to Jermiah and Cole’s newest game, “Visit to Headstone Mall”!

Presented by: Jason Della Rocca

Developers all know they should be eating their business broccoli, do market research, be active on social media, and build up an engaged community in order to have a chance at success. However, with limited resources and a typical focus on actual game development, it is often hard to execute the marketing and business side effectively. This session will lay out a community validated deployment framework to connect the game making process with the need to build marketing momentum leading up to launch. This is all the stuff that needs to get done BEFORE you get into Early Access (eg, running private betas). The goal is to move beyond market/competitive analysis oriented estimates, and instead leverage community building to both assist in game product iteration and market fit. This approach brings your social media and community efforts in alignment with a clear call to action and lays the foundation for launching successfully. Bonus: you’ll also have a more compelling case when pitching publishers, platforms, and investors.

Presented by: Kim Belair & David Bedard

As narrative consultants working on projects big and small across the industry, Sweet Baby Inc has acquired a lot of knowledge, experience and best practices around expressing narrative through games. In this talk, Sweet Baby’s co-founders Kim Belair and David Bedard will share their learnings on how narrative fits into a project, and how best to support is across all disciplines. Attendees will learn the realities of narrative implementation and how to use the tools at your disposal to make something both creatively compelling– and feasible to your production.

Presented by: Jim Munroe

Interactivity does not mix easily with an authored experience — the more you’re telling the story, the less agency the player has, and the more agency the player has, the less you’re controlling the plot. But the best videogames manage to strike a balance that is pretty magical.

Are you interested in delving into this dark art? Participants of this workshop will learn some basic principles of mixing writing and interactivity and hands-on experience in creating their own work. Award-winning game writer and novelist Jim Munroe will be teaching with the Texture Writer tool he co-designed. Since its release, thousands of users have created stories generating a combined half a million plays.

APRIL 8

Presented by: Ryan Miller

Join Ryan Miller, Project Manager at the Durham College Mixed-Reality Capture Studio (MRC Studio), and learn how Canadian game and animation studios have cut costs and increased their capabilities by engaging in applied research projects. He will walk through the process of working with an applied research hub such as MRC Studio, including what applied research means, the types of projects and activities that are most suitable, what grants are available, and how to get the most out of a collaborative project.

Presented by: Jim Leedham

Discover the latest release features and iteration speedups that will help you optimize your creative workflow and make better use of your coding time.

Presented by: Serge Landry (Ayming)


Ayming Canada, a global consulting firm which specializes in helping businesses claim SR&ED tax credits and government funding through federal and provincial grants, will be speaking at the XP Game Summit this April 8th at 1h00 pm to shed light on the current landscape for Canadian gaming businesses who are looking for access to funds in order to scale up their business and increase their competitive advantage.

 

Serge Landry, from Ayming’s team will be discussing the following:

· Company Overview – Brief overview on Ayming, our services, and why companies choose to partner with us.

· Multi-media Tax Credits and SR&ED Tax Credits Overview – Overview of these lucrative tax incentives and how companies can claim.

· Government Funding overview – Grants & the types of programs available for gaming companies

We strongly recommend developers and gaming companies stop by to gain a better understanding of the value we could offer by working together.

PORTFOLIO REVIEW SPONSORED BY ARTSTATION

11 AM - 3 PM ET

Sponsored by Artstation, our portfolio review gives attendees the chance to have their portfolio critiqued and reviewed by experienced industry experts.

Our experts will evaluate the portfolios through an industry lens and provide valuable feedback to help fine tune your portfolio.

Artists of all levels of industry experience can apply with the purchase of a ticket.

SPEAKERS

Ken Lai

Cofounder & CEO
Brandoville Group

Jennifer Zall

Head of Customer
Success Gamesight

Jayson Hilchie

CEO & President
ESAC

Victoria Tran

Community Director
Innersloth

Jason Della Roca

Cofounder
Execution Labs

Carl-Edwin Michel

Founder & CEO
Northern Arena

Lucie Lalumière

President
Interactive Ontario

Marshal Carper

Founder
Carper Creative

Scott Nye

COO
Inflexion Games

Zack Pearlstein

VP Talent
Rumble Gaming

Keith Warner

CEO
New World Interactive

Astrid Rosemarin

Communications Director
New World Interactive

Kim Belair

Cofounder
Sweet Baby Inc.

Evan Narcisse

Narrative Designer

Felix Kramer

Studio Manager
The Game Band

Julia Minamata

Freelance Illustrator

Louisa Atto

Writer & Narrative Designer
Sweet Baby Inc.

Xalavier Nelson Jr.

Writer & Game Dev

Michael Metzger

Partner
Drake Star Partners

Bill Wang

Cofounder
Skystone Games

Jim Leedham

Sr. Partner Engineer
Unity Technology

Rebecca Vandersaleen

Senior Commercial Account Manager
RBC

Cameron Skura

Commercial Account Manager
RBC

Tyler Long

Market Lead of Games
Newzoo

Dan Ayoub

VP Of Canadian Operations & Toronto GM
Certain Affinity

Michelle Brandstetter

Senior Manager, Games Business Development and Strategy
Crunchyroll

Sean Gauthier Nelson

Business Development & Marketing, Co-founder
Pixel Audio

Benjamin Denis

Business Development
Edgegap

Nik Schmidt

Executive Producer
Game On

Michael Rodrigues

Director of Business Development
PleaseFix by Turbulent

Serge Landry, MBA

Business Development Manager
Ayming

Syifana Afiati

HR Manager
Brandoville Academy

Raissa Alexandra

Senior Business Development Officer
Brandoville Studios

Jeremy Anandajoo

CG Lead
Brandoville Studios

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