Estevan Aviles

Estevan Aviles, a native Austinite and life-long gamer, serves as a Conference Programmer and Game Industry track lead at SXSW. Responsible for driving industry-leading conversations, Estevan leverages his extensive background in the game industry alongside the explosive creativity of SXSW to create one of the most unique conferences in the country. He also contributes extensively to the broader gaming community through several local and international initiatives which help to spread awareness and drive engagement for the game industry. Whenever he’s not working in a professional capacity, Estevan can be found happily enjoying the latest game releases at home with friends and family.

Chad Bonner

I have been playing games since I was 8 years old. Most of my friends are involved in the gaming industry. I went a different way for a while learning digital security and industry compliance. I have worked at IBM, Deloitte, Renewdata (now KLDiscovery) for data restoration and litigation security. I also was a PC tech at Hays County ISD while going to college at SWT (Texas State). Current job title "Corporate Technology Compliance Manager" at Cloud Imperium Games.

Tony Bratton

An Electrical Engineer turned video game developer, Tony has been making games and game-related technology for the last 26 years.

His career has taken him to Austin studios both large and small (Origin Systems/Electronic Arts, Titanic Entertainment, Digital Anvil/Microsoft, Junction Point/Disney), platforms ranging from PC to consoles (PS3/PS4/Vita, XBox/XB360/XB1, Wii/Switch) to mobile, and titles such as Ultima VII: The Black Gate, NetStorm: Islands At War, Freelancer, and both Disney Epic Mickey releases.

Tony is the Manager and Director of Technology for 22nd Century Toys LLC (http://22ndtoys.com), an Austin-based studio specializing in helping indie teams bring their titles to Playstation, XBox and Switch. Recent titles include Enter the Gungeon, My Friend Pedro, Untitled Goose Game, and Overland.

Eric Buxkemper

Eric started his professional game development journey at the local game studio Triseum after graduating from Texas A&M in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.

Eric currently works as a DevOps Software Engineer at Viasat. In his free time he programs C++ game-server backends and prototypes games to use those backends. A few of his other hobbies include making lists, reading lists, executing tasks on lists, striking out tasks on lists, and running.

Brian Graham

Brian is a 20 year game industry development executive who has successfully shipped over 40 AAA titles/skus. Most notably he ran development of the Madden NFL franchise at EA Sports for 5 years, NBA Live for a year, and the portfolio of EA Sports titles for another 3. He has spent a few years in mixed reality development with a startup, and is currently running game franchises at Playful Studios in McKinney Texas, most notably the 'Lucky's Tales' and 'Creativerse' franchises. He holds a Bachelors degree in Marketing and a Masters Degree in Management Information Systems from Northern Illinois University. Brian is pretty active in the community and interested in gaming "giving back" to its players, whether in knowledge or meaningful experiences.

Thomas D. Marshall

Over the past 10 years I have been a program manager, project manager, development manager, scrum master, and product owner working on a variety of risk mitigation, sustainment, game and software projects on Windows, OSX, iOS, and Android.

My most recent position was as a Game development project manager at BitLoft in Indianapolis where we built a platform for accredited game based courses for high school and games for Algebra, Biology, English, and US History.

I value working with project-based teams with an intense focus on developing and fostering work cultures centered around experimentation, iteration of processes, and measurable outcomes for our product's users.

Jeff McDougall

Serial technology executive and entrepreneur, PhD/MBA and avid student of life with an aptitude for strategy and analytical problem solving. Experience in various industries including enterprise software solutions, telecommunication, medical records, facility management, satellites, submarines and wine.

Jake Ross

Jake Ross currently works as Senior Producer of Publishing & Development for Cloud Imperium Games, Austin. Having worked on the world-record breaking project Star Citizen for nearly six years, he has been able to gain experience managing several departments, notably Art, Design, Programming (Backend Services, Game Code, Tools), and Animation. He has also been overseeing the Live Release Publish process for CIG for several years. Jake has experience as a hiring manager and oversees the Production team in both CIG's Austin and LA studios. Previously Jake worked for CGBot as a Client Producer, which allowed him to develop skills managing outsourcing teams across language barriers despite geographical separation and worked with Powerhouse Animation in the past on game titles such as Junction Point's Epic Mickey. A native Texan, Jake attended Texas A&M University and received a BS and MS in their Visualization program.

Sarah Spofford

I've been a software engineer at EA for almost six years now working at EA Sports. I attended grad school at Texas A&M in the viz program. I currently work in UI, but until recently worked on franchise mode, all on Madden.

Gordon Walton

Gordon Walton has been authoring games and managing game development since 1977. He is currently President of Art & Craft Entertainment, Inc., which is building the crowdfunded MMO Crowfall™. Prior positions include VP and Exec Producer at Playdom Austin, VP and co-Studio General Manager at BioWare Austin working on Star Wars®: The Old Republic™, VP, Executive Producer and Studio Manager at Sony Online Entertainment in Austin, working on an unannounced product and Star Wars Galaxies at Sony Online Entertainment, prior to this he was VP and Executive Producer of The Sims Online at Electronic Arts/Maxis, and in the same role for Origin Systems managing Ultima Online™; He also served as Senior VP and General Manager of Kesmai Studios, where he oversaw the development of several MMOGs including Air Warrior™ and Multiplayer Battletech™. Gordon has owned and managed two development companies and was development manager for both Three-Sixty Pacific and Konami of America, Inc. He has personally developed more than 40 commercial games and has overseen the development of more than 200 games. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M University with a minor in electrical engineering.

Mark Wolfenden

I have been working in the gaming industry for over 8 years. I started as a Game Advisor with Game Stop in 2011. I got a job as a Tech Advisor with EA in 2016 and have been here happily ever since.