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Games Industry Galore!
20 Feb 2007
AIE Students yesterday had the rare opportunity to get up close and personal with two game industry heavyweights, Chris Whaley and Anthony Whittaker, from RZ2 Games. Chris and Anthony spent over an hour answering questions from both first and second year AIE students, and all students were extremely impressed by their openness and insights into life in the games industry. The students were also well prepared, firing off questions on a variety of topics, including how to improve their portfolios, working overseas and technical issues affecting next-gen game development.
RZ2 Games is based in India, and are currently working on projects for Sony PS3 and a PC based MMO, along with various mobile games. Chris Whaley, President of RZ2 Games, is a 15 year veteran of the games industry and has produced more than 50 titles for various platforms, including the acclaimed NFL Game Day franchise. Chris Whaley’s games have been the recipient of a variety of industry awards as diverse as “Sports Game of the Year” (NFL GameDay) to “Educational Game of the Year” (Body Illustrated). Anthony Whittaker is Chief Technology Officer with RZ2 Games and has served on the technical teams that developed titles such as X-Men Legends, Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Doom 3 and Quake IV.
AIE Students were also recently treated to guest lectures from John De Margheriti (CEO) and James Sutherland (Producer) from Micro Forté Games. John and James talked to the students about some of the history behind games in Australia, where they see the industry heading and offered some tips for students on polishing their demo reel and getting their foot in the door of the industry.
Micro Forté is one of Australia's veteran game studios, with over twenty years experience in the game development industry. Micro Forté have worked on numerous titles for various publishers including: US Gold, Panasonic/Ripcord, Electronic Arts, Interplay, THQ, Universal Interactive and Microsoft and are currently have two studios, Canberra and Sydney, working on their own soon-to-be-announced project.
Image 1: Chris and Anthony from RZ2 fielding questions from AIE students. Image 2: John De Margheriti, Microforté CEO, talking to AIE diploma students.
