Speaker: Nate Olson

Date: April 4, 5-6pm, EAE Game Studio(Bldg 72, 2nd Floor)

Talk title: Art vs Production: Why you(Mostly) Give in to the Fans

Description: If you build it, will they come? If you want to design exactly the game you want to AND make money, what should you factor in? Whose game is it anyways? We will explore a few cases of recent video game companies from my direct experience who wrestled with these issues and discuss artistic integrity and vision versus economic reality.

Bio: Nate Olson has 20 years of experience in media design, marketing, distribution, and monetization. He has spent the last decade or so working with entertainment companies, primarily in the animation industry, but also video game and toy companies. For six years, he was head of marketing and licensing for Frederator. Nate worked on the debut of Frederator's cartoon Bravest Warriors and others as part of launching Frederator's YouTube Channel Cartoon Hangover. He was the architect of the Bee and PuppyCat Series Kickstarter campaign, the biggest web series crowdfunded at the time. Nate also helped found the Channel Frederator Network of 3000+ YouTube channels highlighting animators and artists. He was intimately involved in the development of the Castlevania series for Netflix and the Costume Quest series for Amazon. Nate is now an independent consultant helping develop transmedia intellectual property. Nate studied Media Arts at BYU, did graduate studies in Instructional Technology at Utah State, and also studied Digital Media Design at Georgia Tech.