Co-hosts Micah Porter and Dana Barrett welcome the following to the studio to discuss Atlanta Gaming Development:
Jesse Lindsley/Thrust Interactive
The driving force behind Thrust Interactive, Jesse Lindsley, started his company in 2004 with the vision that games can change the world.
Jesse and his talented team have put Thrust on the map by creating and publishing independent game titles including hits like Button Men and Boomblastica. In addition, Thrust has released 100+ third party games for clients such as the NFL, Cartoon Network, Mercedes, TBS/TNT, American Cancer Society, Autotrader and more.
Jesse has become a leader in the Atlanta Game Development community, where he founded the Unity 3D Atlanta User Group, runs the IGDA–Atlanta chapter and hosts the monthly Atlanta Game Developer Meet-up. He is an active board member of the Indie Developer Guild, APPNATION Atlanta and Digitainment Georgia. His industry experience and expertise have awarded him regular speaking engagements all over the country.
Jesse holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Tennessee Tech and plays and captains a five-time ALTA AA1 City Championship team along with two USTA (5.5 & 5.0) National Championship teams. In his free time, Jesse can be found taking his three dogs and cat (Gooch, Parker, Buckley and Slim), tenants at Thrust’s studio, out for a stroll in the Inman Park neighborhood.
Blake Lewin/TransGaming
As President of TransGaming’s digital home division Blake Lewin brings an extensive background to the company, most recently as VP, Media and Entertainment Platforms for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.) Platform R&D Group. Blake is the inventor of GameTap, Turner’s first broadband entertainment network, and was responsible for its design and development. He was executive producer on Cyan Worlds’ Myst Online: URU Live and on TBS virtual worlds launched within Kaneva; has filed three patents for Turner on iTV and broadband systems; has led the production and management of web and interactive TV applications on various emerging platforms over the past 17 years; and has licensed and produced CD-ROMs and games such as Hell Cab,Dinotopia, The Pagemaster and Carl Sagan’s Murmurs of Earth.
Early in his career, Blake was a musician with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music composition, a minor in electronic music, and an associate’s degree in audio technology from Indiana University. Blake worked for inventor Emmett Chapman (The Chapman Stick), did transcriptions for artists such as Frank Zappa and Allan Holdsworth, and served as music coordinator for major motion pictures, including Thelma and Louise, Company Business, and Man In The Moon.
Alan Wilson/Tripwire Interactive LLC
Alan Wilson has worked in Oil, Defence and Finance sectors over a 30-year “serious” career, before moving over to the games industry. Alan has also been a military historian, mixing that with game design over the same period. This led to the “Red Orchestra” mod in 2003. When the team won the MSU contest, Alan supported the creation of Tripwire Interactive LLC along with the other key players in the original team. Alan worked on the design, budgeting and planning of the development of “Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41- 45”, as well as focussing on raising the required funding for the company to develop the game completely independently.
RO scored in the top 10% on Metacritic for 2006 (81) and has now sold over 600,000 units on PC worldwide. Tripwire launched the hit co-op zombie shooter, Killing Floor in 2009, which went to #1 on Steam and Red Orchestra 2: “Heroes of Stalingrad” in 2011. KF has now sold over 1.5m units on PC, making it one of the top 50 selling PC games of all time.
Tripwire has pioneered selling games digitally, alongside traditional retail routes to market, with great success. Additionally, Tripwire has got involved with other independent developers, publishing Zeno Clash, The Ball and Dwarfs!?, as well as mentoring and advising startups.
Today’s show is brought to you by Minerva Planning Group.
