2025 Industry Update

11:20 -11:50 AM 

​Room 1/201

Nicholas Fortugno

Nick Fortugno presents on the current state of the industry as seen at GDC 2025, noting particular changes to workplace habits, successful game titles and platforms, and coming trends. 

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Includes Q&A

Prototype Like A Professional

11:55 AM -12:45 PM

Room 1/201 

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Joe Francia

What does it really mean to “prototype like a pro”? In this talk, game developer Joe Francia breaks down the common trap aspiring developers fall into—confusing prototypes with unfinished dream games—and shows how professionals use prototyping as a laser-focused tool to reduce uncertainty and pitch playable ideas fast. If you've ever felt overwhelmed trying to build something “complete” too early, this session will reframe your approach. You’ll learn how to scope like a producer, experiment like a designer, and iterate like an engineer—while gaining hands-on techniques for paper prototyping, one-pagers, and modular system planning. Joe has worked as a Unity engineer, designer, and project manager since 2016, with experience at studios like Nickelodeon, Gameloft, JamCity, and Series Entertainment, where he is currently employed as a senior technical game designer.

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Includes Q&A

Frameworks for Designing Varied Character Rosters

12:50 -1:20 PM

Room 1/201

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David Or

When designing an ensemble cast for video games, achieving a diverse and well-balanced roster is crucial for creating engaging and memorable experiences. This talk explores why variety is essential in character design. We'll break down the core reasons why variety matters and introduce practical frameworks to help ensure your roster maintains a strong sense of diversity.

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Includes Q&A

A Short and Very "Professional" Explanation of Guilty Gear's Story

12:50 -1:20 PM

Room 1/202

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Zahir Lara

Guilty Gear is known for a few things. Its high octane gameplay, banging soundtrack and beautiful art. It is not, however, known for a simple story. In this satirical presentation, watch as one man tries to explain the complex story beats of the series many love.

​Your Player Character & You: Tool or Avatar? Let's Find Out!

1:30 - 2:55 PM 

Room 1/201

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Skye Guan

This is an interactive workshop about player-to-player character relationships in MMORPGs that both introduces the concept of the tool-to-avatar typology and invites attendees to think deeper about their own relationships to their avatars. This session will begin with a short introduction to the Master's Thesis research study conducted by the speaker on this exact topic briefly, before presenting to the attendees a special short-form quiz version of the survey used in the actual study. The results of the quiz will describe what kinds of player-PC relationships the attendees have with their own player characters in MMOs, out of the many subtypes on the spectrum of utilitarian and self-representational. This workshop will end with another presentation of the results of the original study, and invites attendees to compare their own results to the data presented. From game designers to casual gamers, all attendees will walk away with new insights and perspectives on how identity impacts experience.

How to Support Your Team as a Gameplay Programmer

3:00 - 3:30 PM

Room 1/201 

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Josh Shucker

Gameplay Engineers and Designers are meant to be two halves of a whole that build the core structure of a game, but many times this relationship is skewed. Gameplay Engineering is often seen as the department in charge of "building the game," leaving Designers to simply plan out the structure of the game within design documents. This view can lead to bottlenecked development, discouraged designers, and overworked engineers. This session delves into how Gameplay Engineers can collaborate more effectively with their design department and how they can proactively build tools and features so that designers can work directly on gameplay within the engine.

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Includes Q&A

Spawn Point: A Beginner's Guide to Game Job Hunting

3:00 - 3:30 PM

Room 1/202 

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RJ Reyes

Do you want to work in the games industry, but don't know where to begin your search? Getting your first job in the games industry is tougher than ever, and some young devs struggle taking these first steps. Veteran game producer RJ Reyes wants to make the job hunt less intimidating. During this session, he will share some of the knowledge and resources he's amassed throughout his 20-year game dev career, including a spreadsheet of useful job sites and Discord communities he's used to research game companies, send applications, network, and land his most recent jobs. By the end of this session, attendees should learn the basics of how to begin their game job hunt, how to write a better resume, the importance of networking, and some other info that will hopefully be useful for them as they start their careers.

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Includes Q&A

Allegorical Distance: The Challenge of Creating Cultures in Games

3:40 - 4:20 PM

Room 1/201 

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Kate Edwards

We've all experienced great game worlds that display a rich in-game culture or present a real-world culture, past or present. Game creators use their inspiration from real-world experiences, but this often leads to unintentional mistakes - such as cultural appropriation. The key to managing this challenge is understanding to concept of “allegorical distance” - the degree to which your in-game implementation of culture is different from real-world inspirations.

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Includes Q&A

League of Legends Tribunal

3:40 - 4:20 PM

Room 1/202 

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​Daquan Griffith

Cory McKen

A theatric interactive session where people can bring their teammates to trial and get totally official legal decisions on who was right. Worlds 2023 merch available to participants!

Make Games for Yourself

4:30 - 5:00 PM 

Room 1/201

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Geneva Heyward

Games created with the intention to make the developer happy can be successful, but it can also be essential in the growth of a game developer's skills. In this talk, Geneva Heyward will talk about the importance of creating games that fill a special place in people's hearts - passion projects.

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Includes Q&A