Women Create Games – Milan – Friday, September 13
And now for something completely different… or is it? Anyone who has followed me throughout the years knows I have a past as a role-playing games creator and that I’ve never stopped being passionate about games and videogames, alongside collaborating with game designer Gabriele Gallo in speeches and in my two main books on innovation. […]
And now for something completely different… or is it?
Anyone who has followed me throughout the years knows I have a past as a role-playing games creator and that I’ve never stopped being passionate about games and videogames, alongside collaborating with game designer Gabriele Gallo in speeches and in my two main books on innovation. Now, the school I’m consulting for has organised a splendid event in September, celebrating the success, grit and professional accomplishments of women throughout the video game industry. It’s called Women Creates Games and will take place on September 13th in the school’s venue (via Teglio 13 in Milan, close to the Alcatraz event space).
Women are often downplayed as professionals, relegated to support roles and to the assistant’s cliché. According to the Society of Women Engineers, the videogame industry is amongst the tech that needs to change the most. Come with us in September to help propel that change at this extraordinary day-long forum featuring six women who code, design and produce projects in one of the industries that need to change the most.
The Guests
The Producer
What does a producer do in the video game industry? The proverbial dirty work, or so I’m told.
A video game producer is responsible for overseeing and coordinating various aspects of a game’s development from inception to completion, including scheduling, budgeting, and resource allocation, creating and maintaining project timelines, identifying milestones, and ensuring the team stays on track to meet deadlines. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? We might call it project manager.
Alessandra Tomasina calls herself “a seasoned adventurer in the perilous land of digital entertainment”, and she started her career over 18 years ago, covering various roles in game development, publishing, and marketing. She’s been a game producer for Digital Tales (Battleloot Adventure, Bravura Quest Rush), senior producer for the developer RaceWard Studio (RiMS Racing published by Nacon, and the celebrated TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 based on the famous Isle of Man Tourist Trophy motorcycle race). She currently works as a senior producer for Nacon Studio in the Milan division of the famous French company formerly Bigben Interactive. The studio is currently developing Terminator: Survivors, a solo or co-op open-world game set in the post-apocalyptic universe of the aftermath of Judgment Day.
The Game Designer
What’s a Game Designer’s instrument of choice? “The pencil,” might someone say. I guess it depends, but I’m told it’s the spreadsheet.
According to the job description at Computer Science, a game designer is tasked with creating “the defining features of video games, including characters, objectives, obstacles, levels and settings, and narratives.” If that sounds like a lot, it sounds right.
Carola Pettinato recently graduated in Computer Games Design at Staffordshire University and currently works at Criterion Games, a British video game developer founded in 1996 and acquired by Electronic Arts in 2004. The studio is responsible for developing the Burnout series, an arcade-style racing focused on high-speed gameplay and spectacular crashes which featured celebrated titles such as Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout Paradise. They’re also behind several entries in the Need for Speed franchise, like Hot Pursuit (2010), Most Wanted (2012) and Unbound (2022).
She’s also an ambassador for Women in Games.
The Programmers
Do you know how many programming languages exist out there? There is no definitive count, but estimates vary widely between the 700 programming languages listed and accounted for in Wikipedia, and other estimates being closer to 9,000. A list called HOPL (History of Programming Languages) puts the total number at 8,945 different programming languages.
Whatever the language, almost every aspect of a videogame needs programming: from the mechanics to the game loop, from the camera behaviour to the UI elements, such as menus, HUDs (heads-up displays), and other interactive components that players use to navigate the game. Both our guests work precisely in this field.
Irene Filoscia started as a Graduate Research Fellow at CNR (National Research Centre in Italy) and carried on as a Graduate Research Intern at IST Austria with interests in computational geometry, digital fabrication and geometry processing before landing as a gameplay programmer in Milestone, an Italian video game developer based in Milan, renowned for its specialization in racing games, particularly motorcycle racing titles.
Founded in 1994 by Antonio Farina, the studio originally operated under the name Graffiti and gained recognition with its first notable game, Screamer, a racing game for PC. It rebranded as Milestone in 1996 and leveraged the success of Screamer to secure publishing deals with major companies like Virgin Interactive and Electronic Arts. They obtained their license for MotoGP games in 2013.
Irene has been developing games with them since 2020, initially with a focus on GFX (Graphical Effects) and now focusing on User Interface programming (UI).
Elena Silletti has a hybrid background as a programmer and a technical artist, making her the perfect fit for such a role. She started as an UI Technical Artist for Ubisoft in Milan, working on titles such as Mario + Rabbids, and then moved to Lunar Great Wall Studios as a Senior UI Programmer. The studio is credited with developing Another Sight, a unique adventure game that blends platforming with puzzle-solving elements, and would later be associated with RaceWard Studio and incorporated into Nacon.
The Artists
Last but not least, the event features two professionals dedicated to developing the aesthetics of videogames, one of the three key components that help define the player’s experience and interaction with a game alongside mechanics and dynamics.
The first is Lisa Gobbi, a Senior Environment Artist at Avalanche Studios Group in London. She has a background in game development, and her expertise spans game asset creation to photogrammetry (the science and technology of obtaining reliable measurements from photographs, widely used as a support to surveys). She started working as a Junior 3D Artist and quickly moved to Milestone, where she worked on titles such as MXGP3, Gravel, and Monster Energy Supercross 6. For Avalanche Studios, she was the Senior Environment Artist for Call of the Wild: The Angler.
She has a degree in economics and currently serves on the Board of the Italian Videogame Tax Credit Commission for the Ministry of Culture.
Arianna Fusetti has a background in animation as a 3D generalist, focusing primarily on character and texturing art, and currently works as a Lighting Artist at Frontier Developments. During her recent interview with Insert Coin Here, she described her work as an artist emphasizing the importance of lighting in creating immersive and realistic game environments, and arguing that lighting artists are responsible for crafting the mood, atmosphere, and visual aesthetics of a game, just as it happens with lighting designers in the physical world.
For Frontier Developments, she worked on titles such as Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin and F1 Manager 2022.
The Hosts
The event is hosted by an exceptional couple of professionals, alongside in-house producer Fabio Cristi: Fiona Cherbak is the Lead Talent Program Manager at Xbox Game Studios, where she designs and drives inclusive hiring initiatives across the studios and a co-founder for Women in Games International and the Boston Festival of Indie Games; Micaela Romanini is a gaming professional with over 14 years of experience in communications, marketing, events, and business development, Women in Games Ambassador and Founder of Women in Games Italia, working as a consultant in the gaming and creative industries with a focus on Marketing Communications, Business Development, Sustainability and Diversity. She has served as International Coordinator of Xbox.com at Microsoft in England, and Deputy Director in the VIGAMUS Foundation, the first Italian video game museum, located in the heart of Rome.
Event Horizon School, my client hosting the event, is one of the larger video game schools in Italy, with multiple campuses located in cities such as Turin, Padua, Bologna, Rome, Jesi, Pescara, Florence and, of course, Milan. The school offers a variety of professional training programs aimed at preparing students for careers in the game industry, cinema, and digital arts.
The Partner: Women in Games Italy
The local chapter of a global non-profit organization dedicated to promoting gender diversity and inclusion within the video game industry, it was founded in 2009, and emerged in response to the underrepresentation of women in gaming, where they constituted only 6% of the workforce at that time. As of 2020, this figure has increased to an average of 22% globally, yet significant disparities remain, particularly in executive roles and esports participation, and their work carries on in advocacy to create a gaming culture free from gender discrimination. Women in Games hosts various events, workshops, and initiatives designed to empower women and promote their visibility in the industry, including mentorship programs and professional development opportunities.