Tom Buscaglia, Foundation Chair and IGDA Board Member
Game Attorney, Industry Evangelist, and Hard-Core Gamer
Tom Buscaglia, The Game Attorney, practices law and provides Game Industry consulting services with offices in the Seattle, Washington area and Miami, Florida. Tom is dedicated to the computer and video game industry, assisting developers in all aspects of their legal and business needs and has been representing game developers from around the world since 1991. Tom chairs the IGDA Foundation and is a member of the IGDA Board of Directors. He has published numerous articles, inoculating a regular series of articles on Game Law for Gamasutra.com. Tom endeavors to assist those wishing to start their own game development studios and recently launched GameDevKit.com to further help start up game developers. Tom is a perennial presenter at the annual Game Developers Conference and the Indie Games Com and speaks at numerous other game related conferences. As FaTe[F8S] Tom plays online on a regular basis as the Supreme Warlord of FaTe’s Minions. Tom has a gamer’s appreciation and understanding of games and the game industry.
Tim Train, Foundation Treasurer and IGDA Board Member
Studio General Manager, Big Huge Games / THQ
As General Manager, Tim Train heads up the internal development of Big Huge Games, now a THQ studio. Tim’s career in computer games began at Microprose in 1991, as a team member on the original Sid Meier’s Civilization. During his career he has worked in virtually every genre of computer games in various capacities. After following Sid and Brian Reynolds to Firaxis from 1996 - 2000, Tim joined Brian, David Inscore, and Jason Coleman as founding partners in Big Huge Games. Tim served as Executive Producer on BHG’s first hit, 2003’s Rise of Nations, and also designed the “Conquer the World” single-player campaign game. Tim holds a bachelor’s in International Studies with a minor in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University.
Mitzi McGilvray, Foundation Secretary and IGDA Board Member
VP Casual Games, TikGames
Mitzi has been active in the game industry for nearly two decades. Her career started at the once well-known game company, Epyx. There, she spent two years on the phone listening to customers. Since then, she has held production roles at Activision, Maxis, Tengen, Electronic Arts, Slam Dunk Productions, TapWave and is currently the vice president of casual games at TikGames. Mitzi has produced over one hundred different games in varying genres including sports, RPG’s, action/strategy and mass market.
Neil Kirby, Foundation Trustee
Member of Technical Staff, Bell Laboratories
Neil is a member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories, the R&D arm of Alcatel-Lucent. He currently consults on CMMI, software architecture reviews, artifact flow-through, tool integration, and process improvement. He also teaches a two-day class, “Avoiding the Software Performance Crisis.” When not consulting, he develops .NET solutions. His previous assignments included building speech recognition software and teaching at the university level. Neil holds a master’s degree in computer science from Ohio State University. In his spare time he designs multi-player, tactical combat computer games and especially enjoys writing programs for computer opponents that play well without cheating.
Marty O’Donnell, Foundation Trustee
Audio Director, Bungie Studios
Marty received his master’s of music degree in composition, with honors, from USC in the early 80’s and since then he has written and produced numerous original scores for TV, radio and film. Some of his commercial work includes Flintstones Vitamin’s “10 Million Strong and Growing”, Mr. Clean, Principal Financial, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s and many others. In 1997 his company, TotalAudio, produced sound design, foley and final mixes for Cyan’s “RIVEN, THE SEQUEL TO MYST”, and all the original music, voices, and sound design for Bungie’s award winning “MYTH: THE FALLEN LORDS”. TotalAudio went on to produce the audio for Valkyrie Studio’s “SEPTERRA CORE, LEGACY OF THE CREATOR” and Bungie’s “MYTH II: SOULBLIGHTER”. In May of 2000, ten days after Marty accepted a full time position with Bungie Software focusing entirely on the audio production for “ONI” and “HALO”, Microsoft purchased Bungie and moved them to Redmond to develop games for the Xbox. The audio for “HALO” received numerous industry awards including The Game Developers Choice Award, The Edge Award, and Best Soundtrack of 2002 from Rolling Stone Magazine. In 2004, he composed the music and produced the audio for the highly anticipated “HALO 2″. Although still co-owner of TotalAudio with Mike Salvatori, who stayed in the Chicago studio, Marty is currently audio director for Bungie Studios at Microsoft.
IGDA Foundation announces first recipient of the Eric Dybsand Memorial Scholarship for AI Development
