Austin Blanch

Making games for groups of 100+. In this talk, Austin Blanch will go through the process of brainstorming, creating, and facilitating games that can be played by everyone and their mother.

Austin Blanch is a Co-Founder of Trailhead Games, a company geared towards crafting narrative game experiences for summer camps, schools, and organizations. They have written and run over forty 100+ player programs, each with unique and relevant storylines and game mechanics.

The Future of Gaming is Empathy: The key to acquiring and retaining players

Joe Schaeppi

This talk will focus on the importance of understanding your players beyond behavior and the risks of armchair psychology. A deep psychological understanding of your players and your game’s ability to reflect as well as engage a gamer’s feelings and psychological needs is the key to unlocking high quality installs while creating long term, sustainable, engagement that’s healthy for both gamers and game developers.

Joe is the co-founder and CEO of 12traits where they believe that the path to a better future lies in unlocking the true potential of humankind through deep psychological insights. He is a startup advisor and a clinical counselor specializing in adventure-based psychotherapy as well as neuropsychology and published author on the Harvard Business Review. Previously, Joe was the head of UX at Big Fish Games, the co-founder of Epicstoke, and a UX director at McCann Erickson, creating experiences grounded in applied psychology for companies like Intel, Verizon, and Cisco. Joe has a M.S. in clinical psychology from Prescott College with a specialization in adventure-based psychotherapy and B.S. degrees in psychology and anthropology from the University of Wisconsin- Madison.