Game Hugs

Morgan Jaffit is the Creative Director of Defiant Development, the creators of the Hand of Fate series.

Prior to starting his own studio, Morgan was the Assoc Creative Director at Pandemic Studios, Lead Designer at A2M, Writer at Ubisoft Montreal, Game Designer at Relic Entertainment, and Game Designer / Writer at Irrational Games.

He is a pillar of the Australian games industry, having worked both locally and abroad for over a decade on such titles as Freedom Force, Homeworld 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Teen Titans, and Hand of Fate - the sequal to which will be released early next year.

Amy Potter is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of gaming location based tool Leaping Tiger.

Coming from a graphic design background working for such companies as Mitsubishi Electric and Cluster Creative, she also runs her own creative self titled company, and is the host of the kiwi gaming show 'Hot Chips Gaming'.

Bradley Jolly is a Twitch partner streamer known as DYoshi, who is also a casual assistant for Hanabee Entertainment.

He was previously a Sales Assistant and Shift Supervisor at Dick Smith Electronics for over 8 years, was a Presenter for Level 3 then New Game Plus, and was the PR and Community Manager for the Melbourne Anime Festival.

Sally Kellaway is the Senior Audio Designer at Zero Latency, Co Chair for the IGDA Virtual Augmented and Mixed Reality Special Interest Group, Technical Evangelist for Firelight Technologies (FMOD), and Sound Designer / Educator for her self named consultancy company.

One of the stars in the digital audio industry, she initially started as a QA Tester for the Creative Assembly, before moving on to become their Junior Audio Designer and Motion Capture Technician. She went on to be an Audio Assistant at SEGA Studios Australia, working on the London 2012 Olympic Games video game.

She has also worked as a Media Co-ordinator at Media Circus, Account Executive at OMD Australia, and Sales and Marketing Coordinator for Sound Librarian.

Stephanie Bendixsen, also known as Hex, is the co-host and presenter of the popular ABC TV shows Good Game and Good Game: Spawn Point. She has worked on the live Good Game events such as the Roffle Cup at the Sydney Opera House, Good Game Live as part of comedy festivals, and numerous appearances at conventions around the country.

She will also be featuring in the upcoming ABC show How to be a Fan with Hex.

Nic Watt is the Founder and Chief Design Officer at Sydney based developer and publisher Nnooo.

Originally developing games in the UK, he worked as an Artist/Designer for Supersonic Software, World Lead at Asylum Entertainment, Lead Designer at Visual Science, and Lead Designer at Electronic Arts.

Trent Kusters is the Co-Founder & Director of League of Geeks, the studio that recently released Armello.

Entrepreneurial by nature, he built and managing multiple companies before moving across to become a Lead Designer at Torus Games, then Creative Director at Divisive Media.

He is also currently an Industry Advisor for DiGRA Australia, Lecturer (Game Writing) for the Victorian College of Arts, and is a Board Member on the Freeplay Independent Games Festival.

Patrick "Patch" Kolan is the Co-Founder & Director of Reboot PR, an agency that represents clients such as Bethesda, QV Software, Plastic Wax, and Final Fantasy XIV among others.

Beginning a career as a freelance games writer while still in school, Patch wrote for such publications as HYPER, PC PowerPlay, GamePro, Official PlayStation Magazine, and more. After a brief time at Pulse Communications working on the launch of the Xbox 360, he was given the opportunity to be one of the founding members of IGN in Australia, eventually becoming the Entertainment Editor.

Working across many projects, he was was the Creative Director of Shotgun Cinema (now Shotgun Critic), founded the short lived PUG Consultancy specialist agency, was the Co-founder of the INSERT COIN(S) game and club events, and a Senior PR Manager at One to Another.

Christopher Yabsley is a Composer and Developer, currently the working on the soon to be released Dungeon League - a competitive dungeon crawler party game.

James Kozanecki is a Senior Account Manager at PPR, working across accounts such as Dell / Alienware, 2K Games, and Wargaming.

Previously an Account Manager for Double Jump Communications and Surprise Attack Consulting, he was also the Marketing Co-ordinator for Mindscape Asia Pacific (Konami), as well as a Staff Writer and Community Manager for Gamespot Australia.