November 2008 Event Report

IGDA San Francisco
November 19, 2008 event report

Starting a Game Studio

Speakers:
Jeremy Gordon, founder Secret Level (Sega San Francisco)
Daniel James, founder Three Rings Design
Charlie Cleveland, founder Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Steve Demeter, founder Demiforce LLC

Location:
Dolby Labs Theatre
After-party at Il Pirata

The IGDA San Francisco met for its third time this year at Dolby Labs Theatre on Potrero Hill. Over 80 local developers came together this Wednesday evening to listen to four local game studio owners share their experiences starting, and successfully running, their own studios.

Our four panelists spanned a range of experience in the industry. Jeremy Gordon founded Secret Level (now Sega San Francisco) in late 1999 as a console game tools and technology company. Daniel James founded Three Rings Design in March 2001, launching web-based puzzle/MMO Puzzle Pirates in December 2003. Charlie Cleveland founded Unknown Worlds Entertainment in 2001 and launched the very popular Half-Life mod “Natural Selection” in October 2002. And Steve Demeter worked in the game industry in the 90’s and then spent some time away, but recently launched Demiforce LLC with his highly successful iPhone game Trism.

Over the ninety minute conversation, our panelists spanned a wide range of topics, including why they were inspired to start a studio and how they started out, adventures in raising funding, how to work with game publishers, how to effectively grow a studio from the basement to multiple teams, and tips for people looking to start their own company. At times the similarities between the experiences the panelists had gone through was pretty remarkable; watch the videos of our event for all the details.

This was our first session with open Q&A throughout the evening, and after ninety minutes had gone by we realized we could probably go on for quite awhile longer, but pizza and drinks were awaiting us at Il Pirata, our traditional after-event location. The conversation was continued over refreshments.

Our next meeting is currently in the works. Stay tuned to our blog, the forums and mailing list for announcements regarding the date and topic. Thanks to our excellent panelists, and to Dolby, Autodesk, Green-Ear, and BitTorrent for sponsoring IGDA-SF!