GDC 2023 Welcomes New Members To Advisory Board

The Game Developers Conference will be returning to San Francisco, March 20-24, 2023, and organizers are excited to announce the dates when prospective speakers can send in their submissions—along with a group of new advisors who will be appraising some of those entries.

GDC 2023 has been accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, and panels for the Core Concepts section of the event.

This year, we’re excited to welcome the following industry leaders who are joining the GDC Advisory Board. Advisors work to support the show and evaluate submissions on one or more of the following topics in the Core Concepts program: Advocacy, Audio, Business & Marketing, Design, Production & Team Leadership, Programming, and Visual Arts.

Amy Ackermann—Senior Engineer & Designer, Stray Bombay

Amy Ackermann is an engineer, designer, and wearer of many hats. Most recently responsible for the brains of the AI Director behind The Anacrusis, she has had a broad impact on projects throughout her career. She had her start in 2007 when she founded Blind Mind Studios, producing Star Ruler and Star Ruler 2, and recently mentored the engineering team that built Sonic Colors: Ultimate.

Walter Williams—Principal Game Designer, Brass Lion Entertainment

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Walter Williams grew up in a library and wanted to be a writer to share stories with the world. In the 1990s he was introduced to JRPGs and realized the next great stories would be told in a different medium.

He entered the industry through Quality Assurance at Activision in the early 2000s, working in the basement of the building, over time he moved from QA into Game Design. Walter has had the pleasure of working with teams at Treyarch, Monolith, and Undead Labs over the past two decades. Currently he works at Brass Lion Entertainment to help create original content that tells the stories of those he grew up with.

Claire Hummel—Concept Artist, Valve

Claire Hummel is an LA-based art director and concept artist who has been active in the games industry for over a decade. She most recently shipped Half-Life: Alyx, and is still at Valve working on a lot of cool projects with a number of equally cool people.

Before that, she worked as the production designer on the Emmy Award-winning Westworld VR at HBO, as well as contributing concept art to a number of titles including Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, and Bioshock Infinite among way too many others. She spends her so-called “free time” designing posters for Fifty-Nine Parks and Mondo, as well as road tripping out into the desert to draw old buildings, and even older rocks.

Trent Kusters—Co-Founder & Director, League of Geeks

Trent Kusters is co-founder and director of Melbourne-based game developer League of Geeks, responsible for seminal digital board game, Armello. Previously he was the chair of Freeplay Independent Games Festival, inaugural videogame lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, and industry advisor to DiGRA Australia.

He is a Forbes, MCV and Develop “30 Under 30” honouree, two-time IGF host, and co-host of the AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, and frequently speaks and consults worldwide on game development and direction.

Trent is currently the studio and production director at League of Geeks, scaling the Triple-I developer whilst shepherding production and publishing of the studio’s two new IP.

Later this year, GDC 2023 will be accepting submissions to present lectures and panels for the Summits portion of the event, along with Game Career Seminar. Submissions will be open Thursday, September 1 through Friday, October 7 at 11:59pm PT. More information on how to submit for Summits and Game Career Seminar will be shared in the coming weeks.

GDC returns to San Francisco in March 2023, and the call for submissions opens this summer! For more information, be sure to visit our website.