2023

September 15-24, 2023

Online – Steam + Twitch

September 15-24, 2023

In Person – Columbia Memorial
Space Center, Downey, CA

September 23 & 24, 2023

2023 Partners & sponsors

Venue Partner

Niantic is the world’s leading augmented reality company with an initial focus on augmented reality games. We see a future where our technology paves the way for new entertainment experiences, advanced robotics, and scaled adaptive computing — and games are where we incubate some of our most audacious thinking.

Industry Sponsors

Conference

SCHEDULE

FRIDAY

September 22, 2023

online – swapcard + YOUTUBE

10:00 AM PT | 1:00 PM Et

RESPAWN DEVELOPER PANEL – (Ishita Parekh, Jake Rodriguez, Josh Gugliotta, Lauren Jacobs, Nate Brown & Nick Snow)

11:00 AM PT – 1:00 PM PT

swapcard only

RESPAWN RECRUITER NETWORKING SESSIONS – (Lauren Jacobs & Nick Snow)

11:00 AM PT | 2:00 PM ET

FIRESIDE CHAT – Latin American Games Showcase (David Lucio)

11:45 AM PT | 2:45 PM ET

FIRESIDE CHAT – (Hessvacio Hassan)

12:30 PM PT | 3:30 PM ET

MICROTALK – 5 Marketing Mistakes You’re Making (Sarah Ibañez)

1:00 PM PT | 4:00 PM ET

GAME FEATURE – Astrea Six-Sided Oracles

1:00 PM PT – 3:00 PM pT

swapcard only

RESPAWN RECRUITER NETWORKING SESSIONS – (Ishita Parekh & Josh Gugliotta)

1:45 PM PT | 4:45 PM ET

GAME FEATURE – Dino Hazard

2:30 PM PT | 5:30 PM ET

GAME FEATURE – GAL Ramírez’s LION

3:00 PM PT – 5:00 PM pT

swapcard only

RESPAWN RECRUITER NETWORKING SESSIONS – (Nate Brown & Jake Rodriguez)

3:00 PM PT | 6:00 PM ET

GAME FEATURE – Horla

3:30 PM PT | 6:30 PM ET

GAME FEATURE – Dark Tales from Mexico

SATURDAY

September 23, 2023

Columbia Memorial Space Center, downey ca

11:00 AM PT | 2:00 PM ET

Check In / Cafecito & Networking

12:30 PM PT | 3:30 PM ET

Opening Ceremony

1:00 PM PT | 4:00 PM ET

RESPAWN DEVELOPER PANEL – (Moy Parra, Desi Vargas-Garcia, Jen Vazquez, Daniel Suarez, Moderated by Danny Peña)

2:15 PM PT | 5:15 PM ET

MICROTALK – Bridge the gap between your games and the creator economy (Monica ‘Moni’ Mendez)

3:00 PM PT | 6:00 PM ET

WORKSHOP – Personal Branding: Leveling Up with LinkedIn – Arin Goldsmith

4:00 PM PT | 7:00 PM ET

RESPAWN ART PANEL – (Carol Torres, Danilo Athayde, Giovani Magana, Moderated by Jaime Ugarte)

SUNDAY

September 24, 2023

Columbia Memorial Space Center, downey ca

11:00 AM PT | 2:00 PM ET

Check In / Cafecito & Networking

12:30 PM PT | 3:30 PM ET

Opening Ceremony

1:00 PM PT | 4:00 PM ET

FIRESIDE CHAT – Built from Scratch: VO in Games & Entertainment (Tiana Camacho & Kayla Arenas)

2:00 PM PT | 5:00 PM ET

FIRESIDE CHAT – (Danny Peña & Carlos Lopez)

3:00 PM PT | 6:00 PM ET

Networking Break

4:00 PM PT | 7:00 PM ET

FIRESIDE CHAT – Navigating Mental Health in the Game Industry (Coraly Rosario & Carol Torres)

SPEAKERS

In – Person Speakers :

September 23 & 24, 2023

Arin Goldsmith

Talent Marketing Specialist

Arin Goldsmith is an award-winning Talent Marketing Specialist at Blizzard Entertainment. She is also a careers content creator on LinkedIn and has been recognized as a top contributor on the platform. Arin is very passionate about making the games industry and the path to fulfilling careers as a whole more accessible and transparent. Arin has been featured on Refinery29, Activision Blizzard Newsroom, LinkedIn News, and many industry podcasts. She has also been a featured speaker at John Hopkins University, Pace University, UC Irvine, and more. Additionally, Arin is a second-generation Mexican American.

Moy Parra

Animation Director

Moy lives and breathes animation in all aspects of the craft but particularly focusing on sincere and appealing performances in 3D animation. His passion for the discipline has led him through a variety of award winning AAA games that have gone on to entertain and engage millions of players around the world and continue to do so now as animation director at Respawn Entertainment. As one of the original developers for Apex Legends, Moy has been involved in this title since its incubation period to its current 18th season. His primary role as director is delivering consistency in quality and innovation for the animation component of the game. Outside of this, his roles at Respawn have largely expanded branching out from animation and becoming an active part of the marketing, branding, community and consumer product teams for Apex Legends, with the single goal of ensuring that any given vendor or product remains true to the brand, including trailers, action figures, costumes, comic books, magazines articles etc.

Outside of development he frequently engages with community members and creates online animations in his YouTube channel ToonCraft.

Coraly Rosario

Senior UX Designer for Games and Interactive Experiences | Executive Vice-Chairman of the PRGDA

Coraly Rosario is a Puerto Rican, senior UX designer with over a decade of experience working on games, apps, and web products. at companies like Niantic, Scopely, and other startups. She was also a co-lead of Nianticos –Niantic’s Latin American & Hispanic ERG– coordinating opportunities and events as well as collaborating with other ERGs and non-profits.

Currently, she’s the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Puerto Rican Game Developers Association (PRGDA), an initiative focused on growing and supporting the game dev community in Puerto Rico and beyond. As a diversity, inclusion, and belonging advocate, she’s actively involved in creating opportunities for underrepresented communities to find careers in the game industry.

Danny Peña

Founder and Host

As a gaming consultant, filmmaker, published author and Gamertag Radio’s founder and host, Danny Peña has been at the forefront of video games media for over 20 years. Known for his unmistakable voice and S-rank interview skills, Danny is an Inaugural Podcasters Hall of Fame inductee who is a regular panelist and keynote speaker for podcasting, gaming and radio events and conventions. Today Gamertag Radio – which has earned millions of lifetime downloads and is the first gaming podcast to reach 1,000 episodes in 2020 – is a well-respected and sought-after outlet for fans, developers and companies in gaming who routinely provide the podcast early samples of games and products to be reviewed on the show. Danny has been featured in Podcast Magazine, Forbes, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, MTV, Discovery Channel, Telemundo, IGN, Univision, and Paramount Plus content as a gaming industry expert. He has a unique interview style that draws out headline-making stories from games industry titans like Phil Spencer and Reggie Fils-Aimé. His other newsworthy interviews include Keanu Reeves, Giancarlo Esposito, Danny Trejo, and Michael K Williams, and Snoop Dog, to name a few. In 2018, Danny won Florida Supercon’s Best Feature Film for Gamertag Radio: A Podcast Story, and debuted his first children’s book Danny Loves Video Games which was co-created with his cousin Mr. Luna during last year’s Hispanic Heritage Month.

Carlos Lopez

Community Manager

Carlos has worked in and around the video games industry for ten plus years. A former video producer creating video content (Square Enix, Capcom, Nintendo), as well as a Community Manager (Funktronic Labs, Skybound Entertainment, SEGA of America), Carlos brings years of experience and a creative mind to all projects! Carlos has also worked on several campaign collaborations (Amazon, Arc System, SNK Corporation, Level-5 studios, SONY Pictures, Fox Studios).

On occasions, he curates indie video games with The MIx and Indie land . His curation have been featured on Kotaku, Destructoid, GoNintendo, LA Weekly, and the LA Times and has also been featured at galleries including JANM (Japanese American National Museum) and OMCA (Oakland Museum of California).

Jaime Ugarte

2D Artist

Jaime is a 2D artist that has worked designing merchandise for video games for over a decade, while collaborating with people all over the industry in various roles. A real love for the art of making visual arts that spawned the very first moment he picked up and NES controller to play Super Mario Bros.

Desi Vargas Garcia

Development Director

Desi Vargas is a Development Director working on Respawns Star Wars FPS title. She has been in the industry since 2019 and graduated with a BFA in Character Animation. As a Puerto Rican, she has been able to bring in her Hispanic roots to guide and inform diversity and inclusion for projects throughout her career. She provides production management and planning for art driven groups on the projects she has been a part of such as Character Art, Animation, Environment, and more.

Kayla Arenas

Voice Over Producer (Blizz) Owner, (GVS) VO Casting Director, & Coach

Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Kayla has been in the games industry since 2012. She got her start managing content creators, helping with brand sponsorships, PR, and events, staying close to the communities she’d come to know and love. In 2015, Kayla switched to full-time game production, leading her to step up and into the world of VO. By 2018, she took a break from game dev to work in esports for the Los Angeles Gladiators Overwatch Team, doing event management, but quickly realized that VO and Game Production was where she belonged. In 2019, she started at Riot Games as a VO Production Coordinator, under the guidance of David Lyerly, Alyssa Gentile, Tony Grinage, and Zach Betka, quickly moving her way up to Associate in under a year, and working on projects such as VALORANT, Arcane, League of Legends, Riot Forge’s The Ruined King & Convergence, Legends of Runeterra, and cinematics/trailers for Riot’s Cinematics Department. 2021 had Kayla in the casting chair at Keywords Los Angeles, finding new and diverse talent to fill roles for live action dubs, animated series, games, and movies. Being in such a role helped highlight the need to bridge gaps in the industry’s networks, provide accessible resources, and increase cross-discipline transparency. With this in mind, she and established VO Talent, Sara Secora, founded the Global Voice Over Society as a way to facilitate conversations around ethics, standards, change, and support for everyone involved. GVS also provides tools, resources, and accessibility assistance for members. But, Kayla can’t stay away from games – that will always be her home. So, in July 2022 Kayla accepted a role with Blizzard entertainment as World of Warcraft’s VO & Audio Producer, with Dragonflight being her first released expansion with the company. Now both trailblazing at Blizzard and running GVS, Kayla is using her platform to elevate the voices of those around her, as well as helping nurture new talent to foster growth.

Jen Vazquez

Build Engineer

My name is Jen, I am a Build Engineer on the Apex Legends team. I graduated from California Polytechnic State University with my Bachelors in Computer Science. I originally joined Respawn as a software engineering intern and then converted to my full time role in January of 2023.

Monica ‘Moni’ Mendez

Sr. Marketing Manager – Social, Community and Creators

Moni Mendez is a Panama native data-driven storyteller with half a decade of experience across the gaming industry, technology startups, and the creator economy. Her experience spans brand architecture, social media strategy, and community-tailored growth marketing. Today she leads marketing for Crowd Control, the leading gaming technology company bridging the gap between the creator economy and the global games market through interactive gaming.

Carol Torres

Environment Artist, Apex Legends

My name is Carol Ha-Torres, an environment artist with over 7 years of experience working in games, films and immersive media. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and attended Ringling’s Game Art program after high school. Since graduating, I’ve had the pleasure of working on projects such as Spiderman PS4, the Avatar Sequels (2 and 3), immersive content for LED dome displays, and now Apex. When I’m not working, I enjoy exploring music and vocal work, spending time with my pets, and catching up with my husband on the latest One Piece chapters.

Danilo Athayde

Principal Character Artist, Star Wars FPS Team

Danilo Athayde Is a Brazilian artist, currently working as a Principal Character artist at Respawn. With over 10 years of experience working in the industry, Danilo has contributions in a good variety of video games, from indie games to big blockbusters such as Naughty Dog`s The last of us Part I, Part II and Uncharted The Lost Legacy.

Giovani Magana

Senior Environment Artist, Star Wars Jedi Team

Giovani Magana has been working professionally as an environment artist for seven years with credits including The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, God of War Ragnarök and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. He also teaches Environment art at Escena Visual Art school in Mexico City. He is passionate about empowering the next generation of Latino game artists.

Giovani loves working on fantasy and sci-fi-style environments where he can take reality to the next level with his imagination. He enjoys making the large organic environments and also small props that tell a story through their unique details.

Giovani finds that being an environment artist gives him a greater appreciation for nature and has taught him to pay closer attention to how things work in the real world

Daniel Suarez

Senior Vice President, Studio Operations

Daniel Suarez joined Respawn Entertainment as Senior Vice President and Head of Operations in 2019 and oversees studio development functions for all of Respawn’s portfolio, including Apex Legends and the studios’ Star Wars titles.

As part of his role at Respawn, Daniel works to support and maximize effectiveness across the entire studio and optimize organizational capabilities within EA and Respawn to drive long-term innovation and growth and help make incredible AAA games.

Prior to joining Respawn, Daniel spent 14 years leading production on the Call of Duty franchise and also served as an executive producer on The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and senior producer on the Crash Bandicoot franchise during his time at Vivendi Universal Games.

Luis Nieves

Principal Character Artist, Star Wars FPS Team

Born and raised in Bogotá Colombia, after a decade working in advertising and graphic design, moved to San Francisco CA in 2007. I attended to the Academy of Art University, in the program of Animation and visual effects and specialized in 3D modeling. I moved to Los Angeles in 2011 and since, I’ve had the big fortune of building a career making collaborations in different renowned studios.

Some of my work credits include: Games: Star Wars FPS, Perfect dark, Squadron 42, Star Citizen, Forza Motorsport. Film: Avengers, Underworld Awakening. Cinematics: The Elder Scrolls, Far Cry. Tv: Arrow, Lucifer.

Online Speakers : September 22, 2023

Online Speakers

Andrea Treviño Gavito

AI Data & Applied Scientist, Xbox Gaming AI

Andrea is a Mexican data and applied scientist, working on pushing the boundaries of AI in gaming @Xbox. She is passionate about developing and integrating cutting-edge technologies to gaming and believes Artificial Intelligence is set to revolutionize and improve the experiences of the gaming community as a whole, gamers, developers, and studios included! Andrea was born and raised in Mexico, where she did her undergraduate in Computer Science and Applied Math at ITAM, before moving to the United States for her doctorate studies at Northwestern University. Before joining Xbox, she was part of Microsoft’s AI Development Acceleration Program. She has led several Diversity & Inclusion initiatives and is recognized as a strong advocate for the Latinx community and equal opportunities in science.

David Lucio

Executive Producer, Latin American Games Showcase

David Lucio is a film director and content creator from Panama. Has produced and built several platforms that better the visibility of the gaming industry, including both creators and developers, in the LatAm region.

GRACIE ARENAS STRITTMATTER

Supervising Director, Tiburon Technical Operations – EA SPORTS

Gracie Arenas Strittmatter is the Supervising Director of Tiburon Technical Operations for EA SPORTS at Electronic Arts (EA) based in Austin, overseeing operational aspects of technical delivery for the Orlando-based EA SPORTS portfolio (Madden NFL, College Football, and PGA Tour Golf). With 15 years of tech art experience on AAA titles, she is passionate about leadership/career development, problem solving, programming, art tools, team building, and effective communication. As the first female university graduate in her family, Gracie is a champion of education. She is a global advisor for SOMOS EA (Hispanic/Latinx Employee Resource Group), a 20-year volunteer with ACM SIGGRAPH, an industry board member for the Texas A&M Department of Visualization, a 2022 recipient of the HACR Young Hispanic Corporate Achiever Award, and a 2022 recipient of EA’s highest honor, the Purpose & Belief Award, for Culture Impact. She holds a BS, Computer Science and a MS, Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M.

Hessvacio Hassan

AR / VR Software Engineer

Hessvacio Hassan is the creator and lead developer of Webby-nominated Museum Multiverse, a VR series for HTC, Pico, and Oculus. His past releases include the highly popular VR experience, Don’t Look Away VR, which has been downloaded over a quarter million times to date. Hessvacio works with the independent game community of New York City. He currently helps build the indie community in the city and creates video games with the community. His experience in games has gone far and wide, spanning from arcade cabinet games at the Games Award Show for Schick Hydro to messenger games to promote Facebook’s gaming platform. He also has a personal site where he shares the latest projects he’s worked on Hessvacio.com. Hessvacio has been a developer for the past four years and has worked for companies like Microsoft and IAC. Previously, he worked in the civic technology space as a web developer for Microsoft, creating technology for good. Hessvacio also worked as the Founding VR developer at Praxis Labs alongside a very talented VR team developing immersive learning experiences paired with actionable insights to achieve more inclusive and equitable workplaces. Hessvacio is currently leading Made in Brooklyn Games, where he founded the game studio in order to make games and experiences with a team who strives to make rich, engaging content with a focus on social commentary to promote change and inclusion

Mauricio Castillo Rodriguez

Unity Programmer

Mauricio Castillo (he/him) is an independent game developer and community builder from Monterrey, Mexico. He got his start in developing independent games since 2017, and since then he’s worked in titles like Fostering Apocalypse, featured in the EGX Leftfield 2022 showcase, and the Cartomancy Anthology. Alongside his work in independent games, he’s also organized multiple events to further the game development and art community such as congresses, talks, workshops, meetups and game jams in his home state of Nuevo León, with a focus on empowering the humans behind the art and building connections between creators.“Mauricio Castillo (he/him) is an independent game developer and community builder from Monterrey, Mexico. He got his start in developing independent games since 2017, and since then he’s worked in titles like Fostering Apocalypse, featured in the EGX Leftfield 2022 showcase, and the Cartomancy Anthology. Alongside his work in independent games, he’s also organized multiple events to further the game development and art community such as congresses, talks, workshops, meetups and game jams in his home state of Nuevo León, with a focus on empowering the humans behind the art and building connections between creators.

Pablo F. Quarta

Narrative Designer & Producer

Pablo Quarta is a producer and narrative designer from Argentina and one of the founders of Matajuegos, a Latin-American indie game collective and workers’ co-op dedicated to creating games with social, cultural, artistic, and political perspectives that draw from our regional context and Latin-American identities. He is the producer of Atuel, an award-winning surrealist documentary game about climate change in western Argentina.

Sarah Ibañez Farga

Social Media Manager and Latinoamerican Ambassador

Sarah Farga is a Mexican woman that works in the indie game dev community as a Social Media Manager and Lead Marketer. She studied animation and game design at the University of Ibero Puebla and worked in the latin american game “Lonesome Village” by Ogre Pixel. She now works at Bright Gambit, a company focused on supporting indie games and sharing knowledge to help them survive the crazy world that is being an indie developer. She now is in charge of supporting and creating marketing strategies for games like A Tiny Sticker Tale, Super Adventure Hand, SANYA and Orten Was The Case. She has participated in events like Latin American Game Showcase, Pixelatl (as a nominee), and Sublime Jalisco.

Respawn Recruiter Roundtable

Friday | september 22 | 10 : 00 Am pt | online

Ishita Parekh

Senior Technical Recruiter, Apex Legends

Jake Rodriguez

Senior Recruiter, Next Gen Talent

Josh Gugliotta

Senior Recruiterr, Apex Legends

Lauren Jacobs

Senior Creative Recruiter, Star Wars Jedi

Nate Brown

Senior Creative Recruiter, Star Wars FPS & Jedi, New Game Incubation

Nick Snow

Technical Recruiting Consultant, Apex Legends

OFFICIAL GAME SELECTION SHOWCASE

Guillermo Vizcaíno

Head of PR & Marketing and Lead Writer

Aztech Forgotten Gods

Guillermo Vizcaíno is Head of PR and Marketing and Lead Writer at Mexico-based indie studio, Lienzo. In 2015 he co-founded the independent gaming outlet Gaming Frontier and in 2016 he joined Lienzo full-time in a variety of roles. In his time with the studio he has worked in the development of Hunter’s Legacy, the critically-acclaimed Mulaka and the upcoming Aztech Forgotten Gods.

Arcade Showcase

Remi Crespo

Creative Director/ Level Designer/ 3D Artist

Floppy & the Sleepy Planet

Remi has been working professionally in the game industry for the last 15 years, in roles ranging from Artist, Game Designer, Producer to Educator, Mentor, and Company Owner. He’s a lover of all things with unique game design and gameplay. Both versatile in his skills and extremely dedicated and passionate about his craft, you can always find him leading, working and designing on some new game he is working on.

Official Game Selection

A Tiny Sticker Tale

Ogre Pixel

Country

México

Genre

Adventure, Puzzle

Platform

Console, PC

México, 1921: A Deep Slumber

Mácula Interactive

Country

México

Genre

Adventure, Narrative

Platform

Dicefolk

Platform

Console, PC

Witches of the New World

Horizontal Entertainment

Country

México

Genre

3rd person, Action, Horror

Platform

Mortal Kombat 1

NetherRealm Studios

Country

USA

Genre

Action, Fighting

Platform

Console, PC

Arcade

Mahou Senshi Cosplay Club

Behold Studios

Country

Brazil

Genre

RPG, Turn-based

Platform

Pneumata

Deadbolt Interactive

Country

USA

Genre

Horror, Survival

Platform

Console, PC

Arctico

Claudio Norori, Antontio Vargas

Country

Nicaragua

Genre

Adventure, Base Building

Platform

No Sun To Worship

Merlino Games

Country

Genre

Action, Stealth

Platform

Dino Hazard: Chronos Blackout

Bone Collectors Studio

Country

Brazil

Genre

RPG

Platform

Console, PC

Josh Journey: Darkness Totems

Provincia Studio

Country

Brazil

Genre

Beat´em Up

Platform

Platform

Console, PC

Champion Shift

SRG Studios

Country

Puerto Rico

Genre

Action, Roguelike

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider

JoyMasher

Country

Brazil

Genre

Action, Fighting, Platformer

Platform

Console, PC

Thunder Ray

Purple Tree

Country

Argentina

Genre

Action, Arcade Boxing, Casual

Platform

Console, PC

The Pixel Pulps Collection

LCB Game Studio

Country

Argentina

Genre

Adventure, Visual Novel

Platform

Console, PC

Vlad Circus: Descend into Madness

Blowfish Studios

Country

Argentina

Genre

Adventure, Horror, Survival

Platform

Console, PC

It Comes In Waves

Merlino Games

Country

México

Genre

Action, Adventure, Combat

Platform

ProtoCorgi

Kemono Games

Country

Chile

Genre

Action, Shooter

Platform

Console, PC