Working in the Games Industry

Joshua Seaver

Joshua Seaver will informally present personal reflections and anecdotes of working for the last several decades at some of the most influential companies and institutions in the education, games, film and animation industries: from Minnesota to Australia to Texas to California and back again. With a focus on trends and behaviors he’s observed with our relationship to technology, he’ll specifically share an intimate glimpse (with a nod to the irony of being a game developer) into his family’s journey of growth surrounding his teenage son’s problem behavior with video games.

Joshua worked for half a decade at Academy Award winning Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California, collaborating across the studio on Presto: Pixar’s in-house, movie making software. Bookending his Pixar experience, Joshua was involved in two creative technology startups; as an art director and experience designer for San Francisco-based Weaver Labs, a predictive storytelling tool for the Apple Watch; and as a co-founder of Austin-based GameSalad, a platform democratizing game development for iPhone, iPad and the Web. From 1996-2006, Joshua was a new media manager/developer and an informal art & technology educator for the Science Museum of Minnesota. He is currently a lecturer in Animation, Film and Game Development for the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He received a B.A. with a focus on fine art from Macalester College, and a Masters from Carnegie Mellon University in Entertainment Technology.

Brock Thompson

NanoSeed Production Company is finally in full production! We are making a film and also want to develop a new engine for making Interactive Augmented Reality Pop-Out Book comics and stories, with potential to branch the technology into digital card games and education/instruction.