The only annual, international games industry event with a focus on external development, XDS, releases its list of 26 reputable speakers to present on September 4-6, 2019 at Parq Vancouver. Each speaker was selected by the XDS Advisory Committee, equally representing both developers/publishers and service providers, with their experience varying from Senior Technical Animators, to company CTO’s.

Among the selected is 343 Industries’ (a Microsoft Company) Senior Producer, Casey Wu, who will be presenting on “Making Halo in a Distributed Environment: A Co-Development Story,” along with SkyBox Labs’ Principal Software Engineer, David Hiscock. They will be walking through how both studios evolved their culture, development philosophies and processes to become stronger partners.

This is my second XDS. Last year was fantastic and I’m looking forward to learning from the wealth of knowledge that will be there as well. There are so many excellent studios who present what worked and what didn’t work. It’s a great perspective for anyone who is involved with co-development and outsourcing. I’ve partnered with SkyBox leadership to ensure that our co-development is healthy and happy. And although we had similarities in our office culture, it is like a merging of two different families.” explains Casey.

Another speaker is Side LA’s Head of Studio, Jacquie Shriver Sladeck who will be delivering a talk on “Finite Resources and Infinite Possibilities – Where to Invest in your Dialogue Pipeline.” Jacquie will be discussing the points along the dialogue production pipeline where money and time are most efficiently invested.

This will be my first time attending XDS. I’m most excited to be a part of the greater development circle, sharing best practices and insight to new methods and priorities within the industry. As a service provider, our goals are to provide clients with exactly what they need, on time and within budget. Often, it’s those very goals that become our challenges with the rapid pace of video game development. We are constantly improving processes to make that last-minute scramble for scripts and materials a bit less stressful,” says Jacquie.

Virtuos, a long-time Presenting sponsor of XDS, will also be at the event for its seventh consecutive year. Its Director of Business Development, Jake Digennaro, comments on the event,

Virtuos has been sponsoring & attending XDS since its inception in 2013, and it’s been wonderful to see the show grow every single year both in size as well as overall quality.  The presentations continue to delve into new and compelling topics, the attendees are engaged and increasingly diverse, and the coordination by XDS gets a bit more refined each time. The annual presentations’ themes in particular have done a fantastic job of keeping the nature of the content fresh, and the Advisory Committee’s meticulous curation of the multitude of proposals they review each year has ensured relevance to both developers and service providers alike.

All that said, XDS is kinda becoming the “summer camp” for external development – it happens once a year, full of old friendly faces you don’t often get to see, get introduced to some new ideas and learn a couple skills, and just have a great time…also the weather in Vancouver come September ain’t too bad!

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About XDS

External Development Summit (XDS) is the only annual, international video games industry event with a primary focus on external development for art, animation, audio, software engineering, QA and localization. A professionals only event, XDS brings together a niche community of game developers and publishers, service providers, middleware providers, and trade organizations to advance the industry through collaboration, sharing of best practices, networking and the delivery of a high-calibre, educational program.

XDS 2019 Industry Insights Report: https://xdsummit.com/xds-2019-industry-insights-report-now-available/
View our 2019 Speakers List Here
View our Advance Program Here