Jennifer Hale
If you’ve played a videogame or watched a cartoon within the past 20 years or so, you’ve no doubt come across a character or 2 voiced by this exceptionally talented woman. Jennifer Hale’s voice over work technically began in highschool when she got a spot on a local radio station, however her pedigree peaks as far back as 1994 when she was cast as Felicia Hardy, the sultry Black Cat in the Spider-Man cartoon on the Fox network. In ‘98 she got her first real network gig as series regular Ivy in the saturday morning cartoon Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?. Due to the success of the series, Hale was given the opportunity to also voice Ivy in a videogame based on the hit show.
After a slew of more cartoon gigs that included a few Disney princesses, a recurring role as Sedusa and Ms Keane on the highly successful Cartoon Network hit The Powerpuff Girls, and even a couple videogame roles in games such as Baldur’s Gate, in July of 2003 Hale gets cast in the role that, arguably, began her rise toward videogame voiceover royalty, Bastila Shan in the critically acclaimed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Jennifer has shown that she has an extensive range and brings a level of confidence to her roles that raises the bar and instills a high quality to the medium. Jennifer Hale is more than VA royalty, at this point she’s an icon.
Trixie Mattel
Special Cosplay Pageant Host!
Known for her life-in-plastic aesthetic, Trixie Mattel has been charming audiences for years with her unmatched performance style, razor-sharp reads, and off-color comedy as a dazzling host and emcee personality.
Accessories sold separately. Batteries not included. Ages three and up.
Jamin Warren
Jamin Warren founded videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen. Formerly a culture reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he serves as an advisor to MoMA’s department of Architecture and Design. Jamin also hosts Game/Show for PBS Digital Studios.
His thoughts on games and digital culture have been featured in the New Yorker, New York Times, Paris Review and others. Ebony named him one of their top tech leaders to watch and the New York Observer called him a “burgeoning media baron.” He’s also a frequent contributor to NPR, and has spoken at SXSW, the New York Film Festival, XOXO, and others.
Jamin lives in Brooklyn with his wife.
Robert Yang
Robert Yang is an indie game developer, academic, and writer, based in New York City. His work often focuses on first person level design, architecture as narrative, and game modding as a radical design practice. He regularly teaches game development and design within NYU Game Center at New York University, IDM at NYU Poly School of Engineering, and MFADT at Parsons the New School for Design.
He’s given talks at GDC, GDC Europe, Indiecade East, Queerness and Games Conference, Games For Change. He also occasionally writes about games for Rock Paper Shotgun and other British things. He has a B.A. in English Literature from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons the New School for Design.
Zach Weinersmith
Zach Weinersmith is the creator of the comic strip Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. He has a degree in literature and 3/8ths of a degree in physics. He published science fiction gamebooks entitled Trial of the Clone and as well as a collection of SMBC comics revolving around the theme of Science called Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543. A friend of gaymers and geeks worldwide, he runs one of the largest webcomics with over half a million hits a day and featuring non traditional couples (including gay nerds!). He also co-hosts The Weekly Weinersmith with his wife Kelly.
Dr. Rob Jagnow
Rob Jagnow currently works on virtual reality projects at Google. He’s also Founder and CEO of Lazy 8 Studios, best known for its award-winning indie games that include Cogs and Extrasolar. In this latter title, which launched in 2014, Rob served as the lead designer and also acted as one of the characters within a fictional space exploration company.
In his spare time, Rob dabbles with small games that address social issues like bullying, privilege, sexuality, and race.
Natasha Allegri
Natasha Allegri is a cartoonist most famous for her work as a storyboard revisionist and artist in Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. During this time she also created the gender-swapped protagonists Fiona and Cake who were featured in full episodes of the show, which led to comics of them being created by Natasha herself. Later, after a crowdfunding effort on Kickstarter reached over $850K ($200K+ above the goal) Natasha and Frederator Studios turned her short Bee and Puppycat into a miniseries on the Cartoon Hangover YouTube channel.
Will Shepherd
Will Shepherd is from Crawfordville, Florida, and has always been a massive fan of video games,as they distracted him from the nearly unbearable amounts of bullying he had to endure from his classmates and his father while growing up gay in the Deep South. He sought solace on the other end of the joystick, to this day he’s convinced video games saved his life. Will is one of the most famous gay gamers on Twitch, has been a huge part of the rising gaymer culture, and is one of the most recognized faces in the community. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his fiancé and their adorable German Shepherd, Dobby.
Ricki Ortiz
Ricki Ortiz is from Northern California and first made a name for herself in the Tekken scene. A fierce fighter, Ricki Ortiz has proven herself as not only one of the best players in the NorCal region, but also one of the best in the world. A veteran of the fighting game community for years, Ricki has been a force to be reckoned with in countless tournaments dating back to Capcom vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Naomi Clark
Naomi Clark is an independent game designer based in New York City. Over the last two decades she’s worked on a wide variety of games including early text-based virtual worlds, educational games on many subjects, game development tools for kids, and digital brick-building systems for LEGO. She currently teaches game design at the NYU Game Center, and recently co-authored a textbook on game design entitled A Game Design Vocabulary. Her current projects include a game about language with the Brooklyn Game Ensemble; a web game about data privacy practices; and Consentacle, a two-player card game of trust, communication and intimacy.
Anita Sarkeesian
Anita Sarkeesian is a media critic and the creator of Feminist Frequency, a video webseries that explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives. Her work focuses on deconstructing the stereotypes, patterns and tropes associated with women in popular culture as well as highlighting issues surrounding the targeted harassment of women in online and gaming spaces. Anita was the recipient of the 2014 Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award, she was given a 2013 honorary award from National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers and was nominated for Microsoft’s 2014 Women in Games Ambassador Award. Anita was named one of TIME 100 Most Influential People.
Anthony Burch
Anthony Burch is a writer at RocketJump. He used to work at Gearbox Software, where he was lead writer of Borderlands 2 and all of its DLC, and a writer on Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. He also co-writes and co-stars in a nearly-famous comedy series called, “Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’.”
Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler
Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler, founder of Trans*H4CK and cofounder of BlackStarMedia, is an Oakland based award winning artist, writer, filmmaker, activist and entrepreneur. He has produced dozens of films, is the director of the multiple award winning documentary, STILL BLACK, and was named one of the most influential African Americans by TheRoot100. Kortney’s best friend is a tiny dog named Dough.
Brandon McGill
Fascinated by the interplay between dark and light, Brandon McGill is passionate about creating interesting extremes. Vivid textures, daring prosthetics, and dashes of negative space live harmoniously with a bright color palate. Brandon has been featured on the cover of Echo Magazine, and won RAW Makeup Artist of the Year for Arizona.
2 Mello
2 Mello is a music producer who creates remixes and original compositions with equal passion. He began producing hip-hop in 2005, after learning the basics of composition, sampling and synthesis. After producing three albums with local friends and polishing many unreleased projects over 11 years, Mello was finally able to prove his talent to a wider audience after being signed to the online, non-profit record label Scrub Club Records off the strength of his debut solo album, Super Producer.
Mello’s first-ever mashup, Chrono Jigga saw Jay-Z’s lyrics mixed with handcrafted beats from the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, and gained Mello worldwide acclaim.
After being featured on many prominent gaming and music websites, Mello was hired as composer for Midboss Games’ indie cyberpunk adventure game Read Only Memories (2015). 2 Mello is looking forward to more solo work and becoming a game composer to remember.
The DoubleClicks
The Doubleclicks are two sisters who sing sincerely about the things geeks love: dinosaurs, super-villains, Dungeons & Dragons, and more. The duo has gained renown for their youtube videos including the geek girl song “Nothing to Prove,” for appearing on Wil Wheaton’s web show Tabletop, and for writing the theme song for Cards Against Humanity.
The Doubleclicks have toured nationally, performed at w00tstock and on the Jonathan Coulton cruise and their 2013 album “Lasers and Feelings” hit the top 10 on Billboard’s comedy charts. Their 2014 album “Dimetrodon” features song about burritos, dinosaurs and cats and was funded by an $80,000 Kickstarter project. Doubleclicks concerts are perfect for fans of cellos, of the 1995 BBC mini-series of Pride and Prejudice, and for people who want to learn more about dinosaurs.
SAMMUS
Sammus is an upstate NY-based rap artist and producer with Congolese and Ivorian family roots. Since joining NuBlack Music Group in early 2012, she has released two albums, a collaborative EP with nerdcore MC Random aka Mega Ran, a beat tape, and a Kickstarter-funded Metroid EP. Her production is characterized by her use of uniquely chopped samples, and video game-like synths.
She has been called the “rap Aisha Tyler” (MTV Iggy) because of her smart lyrics that often draw on her love of gaming. When she’s not rapping, she moonlights as a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
Super Soul Bros
Super Soul Bros are a collective of San Jose-based musicians, whose fusion of jazz & funk meets the familiar melodies of classic video games. Formed in 2012 by keyboardist Robbie Benson, the Super Soul Bros have become known for their dynamic musicianship, improvisation, and nostalgic grooves comparable to jamming a 70’s Herbie Hancock record into an Nintendo Entertainment System. Whether they’re taking requests on the fly, or the crowd’s busting into a full-on soul train, it’s always a party with the Super Soul Bros—one that could only receive the ESRB rating: FOR KIDS AND ADULTS
Team Hideo
Team Hideo gathers the best, most enthusiastic video game and anime-loving musicians, actors, and artists to produce all-original shows featuring video game and anime music performed live to a dramatic story. Their first production, Hideo – A Theatrical Concert of Music from Japanese Animation and Video Games, premiered at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall in 2010 to media attention from Destructoid.com, Wired.com, and NPR (both online and on the nationally-broadcast show All Things Considered).
The group has since been on stage for FanimeCon in San Jose, California, at PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington, and is a regular guest at AOD in San Francisco, California. They also release original anime and game music arrangements along with the sheet music via their YouTube channel and have produced two EPs (with a third in the works!): Songs from The Shiny Mug and An Evening at The Shiny Mug. Be sure to stop by their table as they’ll be playing throughout the convention and taking requests for your favorite anime or video-game tunes!
Donna “Danicia” Prior
Donna “Danicia” Prior is the Sparkly Princess of Social Media & Community Management in the video game industry. She is the Events Manager for Green Ronin Publishing and is the Executive Director of OrcaCon, the Inclusive Analog Games Convention in Everett, WA. Donna is on the Community Management Advisory Board at the Game Developers Conference. She has spoken about building communities, diversity, harassment, and accessibility at the Game Developers Conference, numerous times at PAX / PAXDev, Gen Con, Mensa Annual Gathering, NorWesCon, and the Community Manager Conference in Leipzig, Germany. Donna is a gamer and a beer geek, often combining both hobbies while teaching new people to game and appreciate beer. She’s also insists she is NOT a Hobbit. You can follow Donna on Twitter: @_Danicia_. Find her also on http://about.me/Danicia
Jeremy Crawford
Jeremy Crawford is the co-lead designer of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, the lead designer of the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, and one of the leads on the Dungeon Master’s Guide. He has worked on many other D&D books since coming to Wizards of the Coast in 2007. You can reach him on Twitter (@JeremyECrawford).
Joseph Carriker
Joseph Carriker is the developer for Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, as well as the adjunct Chronicle System line of game supplements. He has been writing in the gaming industry for fifteen years now, and has written and developed a variety of game lines over those years, including most of White Wolf/Onyx Path’s World of Darkness, Exalted and Scion lines, Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition line, and Green Ronin’s Blue Rose and Mutants & Masterminds in addition to his work on A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. He is an outspoken queer gamer, having helped organize and take part in the annual Queer as a Three-Sided Die panels at GenCon. Joseph lives in Portland, Oregon with his two partners A.J. and Chillos, and likes to believe he does his part in Keeping Portland Weird.
Steve Kenson
Steve Kenson is a designer with Green Ronin Publishing. He designed the Mutants & Masterminds Superhero RPG and the DC Adventures RPG (using the same system) as well as doing design and development work on Blue Rose, True20 Adventure Roleplaying, and A Song of Ice & Fire Roleplaying. An author and designer in the RPG field since 1995, Steve has worked on games such as Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Aberrant, and many others. He designed the Icons Superpowered Roleplaying game, which he published through his own imprint, Ad Infinitum Adventures. Steve maintains a website and blog at stevekenson.com.
Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-chief at Paizo Inc. and co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, F. Wesley Schneider is the author of dozens of Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons stories and adventures. Aside from having passionate opinions about horror, worldbuilding, and storytelling, he’s spoken at length on inclusively and LGBTQ topics in gaming. He’s currently co-authoring Dynamite’s Pathfinder: Hollow Mountain comic series and his first novel, Bloodbound, releases from Tor in December.