GDC Russia Advisory Board

The founder and president of Nival Interactive and Nival Online, he is one of the most influential and famous representatives of Russian game industry. His first steps in game development Sergey made being a student at Calculus mathematics and Cybernetics faculty of Moscow State University. In 1996, he founded Nival Interactive. Releasing such famous games as Blitzkrieg, Etherlords, Rage of Mages, Silent Storm series, Night Watch, and its recent title Heroes of Might and Magic V, Nival Interactive took one of the leading positions in the game industry worldwide.

Dmitry was born in Moscow in 1966. He graduated from Moscow Power Institute majoring in physics of ultralow temperatures. In 1993, he took part in establishing Akella and since then has been leading development of game and multimedia products in the company. Dmitry has been involved in development and producing of more than 60 titles.

Dmitry preferred a career in game industry to jurisprudence. In 1999 he joined Noviy Disk, the leading publisher of children’s and educational software in Russia. Dmitry’s main goal in the company became the establishment of the game development department and leading it to success. Now, Noviy Disk is one of the top three Russian game publishers. It brings to Russian speaking countries game titles of such companies as Eidos, Midway, 10tacle, THQ, Ubisoft, BVG, Sunflowers, Koch Media, Capcom, Namco Bandai and other developers and publishers. At the moment, Dmitry heads game development department at Noviy Disk, manages development of new titles, and brings to the market a new premium label, ND Games. Dmitry is also a CEO of ND Videogames, an independent division of Noviy Disk publishing house, which became the exclusive distributor of Nintendo in Russia in 2006.

Andrew was born in Kaliningrad, Russia. He developed his first game back in 1987. Later on in 1995, he founded one of the first game development companies in Russia, K-D Lab. He was the author of the game concepts and supervised the development of such games as Vangers (1998, Buka), MOBL (GrandPrix at Enix Game Contest), Spanking Runners (finalist of GDC IGF), Perimeter (RTS, published by 1C and Codemasters; nominated at Develop Industry Excellence Award). In 2004, Andrew founded his first producers company, with its main office in Svetlogorsk, Russia, and called it KranX Productions. He is a CEO and producer at KranX Productions. At the moment, the company takes part in development of more than 15 game titles for different platforms at the same time.

Born in 1970, he graduated from the faculty of Computer science of the Russian State Humanitarian University. His career in the game industry began in 1994. Since 1996, he has been working with 1C. Now, he is the director of game and multimedia department that consists of 12 sub departments and more than 150 employees. As the same time, he heads the game development department. Yury has taken part in around 40 projects since 1996, starting from a lead designer and up to a lead producer.

In 1996, Michael founded and led one of the most popular websites dedicated to computer games and new technologies. Later on, he became one of the founders of DTF, the biggest portal of Russian game developers’ community. From 2000 and till July, 2007, he worked at Creat Studios, Inc. as a producer. With Michael's participation, Creat Studios became the first to develop console games in Russia, and since then, the company has created overwhelming majority of domestic console games, such as Smash Cars, American Chopper, American Chopper 2 and others. More than a million copies of American Chopper game series were sold in the US, and the title became the most successful console game made in Russia. Since July, 2007, Michael joined a Latvian company, CTXM, as an executive producer.

He is one of the veterans of the Russian game industry and has been involved with the industry since 1992. He worked at Buka as a head of sales department since it was founded in 1994 and up to 1997. He was responsible for organizing sales of such consoles and games for them as Sega Mega Drive 2, 3DO, Sony PlayStation, as well as PCs. From 1997 to 2000, he worked as a head of the international department, working on foreign sales of Hard Truck, Echelon and other games. During this period, he established relationships with licensees in more than 60 countries. From 2000 to 2004, Alexander headed the development department. He managed the development and localization projects for Buka. At the present time, Alexander is the CEO of the company.

Since joining SCEE in 1997, George has held several positions within the Technology Group - where he first served as Engineer working on PS one and the Net Yaroze platform and later Senior Engineer researching advance programming techniques for the PS2 platform. From 2004 to the European launch of PS3, George served as Developer Support Manager providing first class support services for all PlayStation family platforms. Having joined SCEE Third Party Relations department recently, George is now working closely with talented studios across Europe and Australasia as European Account Manager.

He graduated from Moscow Pedagogical State University and Institute of Modern Business. Alexey worked in a printing house that belongs to NPA publishing house. Then he joined the agency of S. I. Realty real estate. He has been in IT-industry since 1994 and joined Microsoft in 1996.

Has been working with EA for almost two years preparing for the start up of the EA office in Russia. Prior to this Tony has been involved in start up and business development projects both in Russia and the UK. Companies for whom he has worked include Lyons Tetley, Cadbury and event agency Matrix4. «I am honoured to be invited as part of GDC even though I am probably the least experienced gamer in the team. Hopefully experience gained in other industries can be of some value as the games industry continues to develop in Russia». Tony is also a songwriter and musician.

Dmitry is in charge of media services for computer and videogame enthusiasts. Current Division's portfolio includes four paper magazines (Страна Игр, PC ИГРЫ, PC GAMER, PSM), TV channel (Gameland TV), web portal (gameland.ru), online retail (gamepost.ru), and series of regular events (Gamers Parties, Gameland Award, and Game Industry Summit Russia). Dmitry's previous professional experience includes managing successful media and retail startups, brand consulting with BBDO, and business consulting with Arthur Andersen. Dmitry received his MBA degree at Oxford University and his BA at Moscow State University. He lives in Moscow with his wife and 3 children.