Warren Spector, Bungie and more round out Reboot’s ‘biggest wave of speakers’

Reboot, now in its sixth year, has quickly become one of the more recognized games industry shows alongside DICE and GDC. This year the show’s undergone an expansion and rebranding with Reboot Develop Blue 2019 taking place once again in Dubrovnik, Croatia (April 11-13) while Reboot Develop Red will take place in Banff, Canada in the fall. Organizers for Blue just announced another wave of speakers for the show, including Warren Spector and leaders from companies like Bungie, Oculus, Remedy and Square Enix.

Selected highlights provided by Reboot organizers include:

• Youichiro Miyake has been in development of video game titles while researching game AI technologies as the lead AI researcher at Square Enix. He developed technical design of AI for: Demon’s Souls, Armored Core V, Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XV, and Kingdom Hearts 2.8 among others.
• Warren Spector is best known for his work on the Deus Ex and Disney Epic Mickey games. He also worked on several entries in the Ultima series early in his career. Currently, he is Austin studio director for OtherSide Entertainment working on System Shock 3.
• Leigh Alexander writes futurist fiction and is a narrative designer with a deep passion for the craft of storytelling systems. She was narrative director on the acclaimed game Reigns: Her Majesty, and recently worked on Reigns: Game of Thrones, among others.
• Luis Villegas is the Director of Services and Infrastructure at Bungie, leading the team that ensures that every Destiny player has the best possible experience, and works with other leads at Bungie to keep improving the craft of Leadership.
• Saku Lethinen has worked for Remedy Entertainment since 1996. He has had a directorial role in many of Remedy’s games, most notably as Art Director for Alan Wake and Max Payne 2. His main focus is the overall game experience, especially when it comes to story-driven moments.
• Matt Conte and his team help developers ship their titles on all Oculus platforms at the highest quality. Prior to Oculus, he was engine programmer at Activision’s Vicarious Visions. He has nearly 20 years in the game industry under his belt as a programmer.

There will be over 120 speakers in total, with notable names such as Fumito Ueda (The Last Guardian), Hidetaka Miyazaki (Dark Souls), Hilmar Veigar Petursson (CCP Games CEO), Kiki Wolfkill (343 Studio Head), Suda51 (Grasshopper Manufacture), Joachim Ante (Unity CTO), Chris Avellone (former Obsidian founder) and many more. 

Reboot’s “Biz Dev Ninja” Pavol Buday talked briefly with GameDaily about the evolving nature of the Reboot conference series. “We are adding two more tracks for a total of nine, and for the first time ever featuring a dedicated tech track, [which] we are partnering heavily [on] with Croteam and Khronos Group,” he said. “Besides that, many more side events and summits, that usually existed at some other global events are moving to Dubrovnik for our conference. We are also adding more speakers compared to the last year, and in general making them way more high-end.”

Buday added that the speakers need to be “super relevant on very specific topics and trends in the industry today.” He also talked about Reboot’s continued plans around awards and honoring notable members of the industry.

“We are continuing to feature our Hero Award (a global lifetime achievement award that really goes to veterans of the industry that have devoted their careers to incredible achievements in it), Street Hero Award (that goes to a regional company that has done a lot to promote regional games industry) and then on top of it a huge, global Reboot Develop Indie Awards that this year is going to feature submissions [from] more than 200 indie studios / games from all around the world.”

Full Disclosure: GameDaily parent company Greenlit Content will be helping to cross-promote Reboot Develop Blue and Red.