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On the Road to GDC

Hey gang,


With the Game Developer’s Conference happening less than a week from now, we’ve rounded up the Harmonix participants for this year’s event. Make sure to get your tickets to this conference if you want to attend sessions from Harmonix developers and industry professionals – we’re happy to share our experiences and knowledge with you! If you’re already gearing up to head over to San Francisco next week, here are some speakers and sessions you don’t want to miss.



Tuesday, March 15th


Through the Portal and Back: Designing VR Experiences for Public Spaces

2:10pm – 2:40pm


VR experiences designed for public spaces, such as museums or art galleries, present exciting new outlets for artists and creators. With room-scale VR more widely accessible, developers can further blur the line between physical and virtual environments by designing both spaces together. In this talk, lessons learned from presenting Across the Divide and Between Lands at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston will be shared. Both of these installations encouraged participants to communicate between virtual and physical realities. The challenges of creating an experience that is engaging for both active participants and members of the audience will be discussed. Jeff and Mike will share their discoveries in working with room-scale VR in a museum setting.


Takeaway:

Attendees will gain a better understanding of both the potential and the unique challenges of designing VR experiences for events in public spaces. Practical tips will be presented on how to effectively leverage room-scale VR, tracked props, and real world FX in ways that immerse participants and audiences alike.


Harmonix Speakers:

Jeff Hesser, Senior Artist

Mike Mandel, Designer



Wednesday, March 16th


The State of QA Roundtable: QA Career Trajectory: Day 1

5:00pm – 6:00pm


The oft-overlooked QA discipline is a vital perspective in the development of quality games. Like all disciplines, QA changes with every year and this year is no different. The new console generation, the current state of mobile and pc game development and the growth of VR/AR technology all contribute to a changing context in which we test, refine and ship our games. Through a collective conversation about the current state of the QA discipline we can continue to improve our skills and broaden our understanding of QA tools, methods and roles in the game development community. If you have any recent observations about your own organization's QA departments or are curious about the state of QA industry-wide this is a place to discuss.


Takeaway:

Attendees will leave with a better understanding of the current problems facing the QA discipline as well as a practical set of tools and resources for dealing with problems both new and old. This session will be a platform for discussing successes and failures within the discipline.


Intended Audience:

This is the talk for anyone looking to learn about the QA discipline or develop a QA career. It is also a good forum for anyone interested in learning how to work with or within QA teams more effectively or in learning more about the role QA will play in game development in the coming years.


Harmonix Speaker:

Nate Stoddard, QA Engineer



Thursday, March 17th


Maximizing Critique: Improving Communication for Everyone Involved in Critical Feedback

2:00pm – 2:30pm


Giving and receiving critical feedback about creative work is a vital aspect of video game production. Ideally, effective critical feedback leads to better products and increased team cohesion. However, all too often critical feedback can be unclear, misleading or otherwise ineffective. At its worst, the resulting wasted work and drift in creative vision can do serious damage to team morale and efficiency. This talk focuses on improving communication through effective critical feedback about art. The talk will provide clear, concise and practical strategies that can be used by anyone who needs to either GIVE or RECEIVE critical feedback about art in video game production. The methods described, analyzed and demonstrated will equip art leads, designers, producers, concept artists and production artists with tools they can use to be more effective team members.


Takeaway:

Participants will leave this talk with clear, concise and practical strategies that they can use to improve their ability to either GIVE or RECEIVE critical feedback about art in video game production.


Intended Audience:

The primary audience is artists at all levels, from junior production artists to art leads. Since the methods discussed will be valuable for anyone that needs to communicate with artists or discuss creative work, this talk will also be valuable for designers and producers. There are no prerequisites.


Harmonix Speaker:

Jeff Hesser, Senior Artist



Rocking On: Harmonix, QA and ‘Rock Band 4

3:00pm – 3:30pm


The makeup of the QA discipline at Harmonix adapted throughout the inception, production and shipping of Rock Band 4 to a changing environment and a rapidly-moving development cycle. In this talk you will hear a breakdown of the large organizational changes that occurred at Harmonix early in the development of RB4. You will learn how this new structure helped to facilitate the role that QA would eventually play in the development of the title and you will hear some specific successes of the Rock Band 4 team involving hardware, optimization, freestyle guitar mode and our internal engine. The ideas contained within this talk are intended to further the conversation about the role QA can play within high-powered development teams for shipping high-quality games.


Takeaway:

The value of QA extends beyond testing for bugs at the end of a project. People who attend will not only hear about a practical set of QA skills and the positive results of those skills on a project but also the organizational changes that helped facilitate those successes.


Intended Audience:

QA members or any that work with QA would benefit because the problems I describe are ones that are not unique to Harmonix or Rock Band. No prerequisite knowledge is required, but those with similar experience will probably be the ones to get the most out of the talk.


Harmonix Speaker:

Nate Stoddard, QA Engineer



The State of QA Roundtable: QA Tools: Day 2

5:30pm – 6:30pm


The oft-overlooked QA discipline is a vital perspective in the development of quality games. Like all disciplines, QA changes with every year and this year is no different. The new console generation, the current state of mobile and pc game development and the growth of VR/AR technology all contribute to a changing context in which we test, refine and ship our games. Through a collective conversation about the current state of the QA discipline we can continue to improve our skills and broaden our understanding of QA tools, methods and roles in the game development community. If you have any recent observations about your own organization's QA departments or are curious about the state of QA industry-wide this is a place to discuss.


Takeaway:

Attendees will leave with a better understanding of the current problems facing the QA discipline as well as a practical set of tools and resources for dealing with problems both new and old. This session will be a platform for discussing successes and failures within the discipline.


Intended Audience:

This is the talk for anyone looking to learn about the QA discipline or develop a QA career. It is also a good forum for anyone interested in learning how to work with or within QA teams more effectively or in learning more about the role QA will play in game development in the coming years.


Harmonix Speaker:

Nate Stoddard, QA Engineer



Friday, March 18th


The State of QA Roundtable: Org Structure: Day 3

11:30am – 12:30pm


The oft-overlooked QA discipline is a vital perspective in the development of quality games. Like all disciplines, QA changes with every year and this year is no different. The new console generation, the current state of mobile and pc game development and the growth of VR/AR technology all contribute to a changing context in which we test, refine and ship our games. Through a collective conversation about the current state of the QA discipline we can continue to improve our skills and broaden our understanding of QA tools, methods and roles in the game development community. If you have any recent observations about your own organization's QA departments or are curious about the state of QA industry-wide this is a place to discuss.


Takeaway:

Attendees will leave with a better understanding of the current problems facing the QA discipline as well as a practical set of tools and resources for dealing with problems both new and old. This session will be a platform for discussing successes and failures within the discipline.


Intended Audience:

This is the talk for anyone looking to learn about the QA discipline or develop a QA career. It is also a good forum for anyone interested in learning how to work with or within QA teams more effectively or in learning more about the role QA will play in game development in the coming years.


Harmonix Speaker:

Nate Stoddard, QA Engineer



It Takes a Village: Growing Vibrant Game Developer Communities

3:00pm – 4:00pm


It is no coincidence that cities with many successful game development studios and indies, also have thriving game development communities. What makes a vibrant community and how can you create one in your own city? This panel, comprised of key organizers from the Boston and Austin communities, offers the audience valuable insights into organizing events, meet-ups and co-working collectives which in turn fuel local industry growth for the future.


Takeaway:

The audience will gain insights about the logistics of game developer and artist community organizations and how they benefit local studios and developers.


Intended Audience:

Those who wish to learn more about game developer and artist communities and/or organize a new community in their own locality.


Session Speakers:

Elliott Mitchell, Co-Founder (Vermont Digital Arts)

Adri Mills, Full-Stack Engineer (Independent)

Dawn Rivers, Cinematographer (Harmonix)

Michael Carriere, Senior Beard (Zapdot)

Jono Forbes, Co-Founder (Defective Studio)

Andrew Eiche, Producer / Developer (Owlchemy Labs)




We can’t wait to spread the developer love! Hope to see you all at our sessions this year!