Meet the People Shaping Games
Meet the first SPLITSCREEN speakers, with many more names to be revealed in the coming weeks.
Patrice Desilets
Creative Director & Co-Founder - Panache Digital Games
Patrice Désilets is a Canadian game designer, creative director and co-founder of Panache Digital Games.
Best known as the creator of Assassin’s Creed, he served as Creative Director on Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and directed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
He later created Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey and is currently leading development of 1666: Amsterdam.
A longtime supporter of Croatia’s games community and frequent visitor to the country, Patrice is also an official Friend of Croatia.
Fawzi Mesmar
Creative Director - Ubisoft
Fawzi Mesmar is an award-winning Creative Director, game designer, author and speaker with over two decades of global industry experience at Ubisoft, EA, Activision Blizzard, Gameloft and Atlus.
His work includes titles enjoyed by millions of players across the Beyond Good & Evil, Mario + Rabbids, Battlefield and Star Wars franchises.
He is the author of Al-Khallab in the Art of Game Design, the first Arabic-language textbook on game design and “demystifying creativity on originality in game development”.
In 2024, Fawzi received the Ambassador Award.
Kim Nordström
Co-Founder - Smultron Ventures
Kim Nordström is a games industry executive, advisor and author with three decades of experience.
His career includes leading Pet Rescue Saga at King, serving as Chief Strategy Officer at Paradox Interactive and as CEO of PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions, alongside earlier work at PlayStation.
He is the author of UP DOWN UP, exploring the successes, failures and lessons of building game companies through interviews with more than 100 industry founders and CEOs.
Rocío Tomé
Creative Tech. Director & Co-Founder - Patattie Games
Rocío “Rothio” Tomé is the Creative Technical Director and co-founder of Patattie Games, creators of the award-winning game Wax Heads.
A programmer with a PhD in Psychology, she is known for her expertise in Godot and for making educational content and open-source tools for game developers.
She also speaks on engine architecture, accessibility and the psychology of game development, and won a GameDevHeroes award in 2026.
Bérenger Dupré
Marketing Director - Evil Empire
Bérenger Dupré is Marketing Director at Evil Empire, in charge of promoting their games including Dead Cells, Brotato, The Rogue Prince of Persia and Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.
He also helps bring independent games to the spotlight through the triple-i initiative.
Bald and proud.
Rebecca Lautner
CBO - Landfall / Evil Landfall
Rebecca is the Chief Business Officer at Landfall and Co-Founder of Evil Landfall, a small indie studio based in Stockholm, Sweden and the dev behind games such as Stickfight, TABS, ROUNDS, Content Warning, Haste and most recently PEAK.
As CBO she is responsible for everything related to brand- building, business development, external partnerships and platform relationships.
Evil Landfall also functions as an investor for external indie games and has supported projects such as Webbed by Sbug Games, Sulfur by Perfect Random and R.E.P.O. by Semiworks.
Callum Underwood & Alex Nicholson
Founders - UWU Biz
Callum Underwood and Alex Nicholson lead Uwu Biz, where they help studios manage the business side of games including Gang Beasts, Sledding Game and titles from Bippinbits and Team Terrible.
Callum is Uwu Biz’s CEO, a co-founder of IndieBI and an advisor to Kepler Interactive; previously, his company Robot Teddy worked with Among Us, Vampire Survivors and SUPERHOT.
Alex is Uwu Biz’s co-founder and a former Operations Director at Modern Wolf and co-founder of Sondog Studios.
Justin Woodward
Founder - The MIX & MIX Games
Justin Woodward is a game developer, creative director and co-founder of The MIX and The MIX Games, helping independent developers gain visibility and business opportunities worldwide.
His credits include Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland and Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch.
He also co-founded Black Voices in Gaming and served as lead advisor to Humble’s Black Game Developer Fund, supporting Black developers through funding, mentorship and industry access.
Benjamin Laulan
Co-Founder & COO - Evil Empire
Ben is the co-founder and COO of Evil Empire, the studio behind work on Dead Cells, Brotato, The Rogue Prince of Persia with Ubisoft, and Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse with Konami.
He also co-created the triple-i initiative, a showcase celebrating the best independent games.
Astrid Refstrup
CEO - WINGS Interactive
Astrid is the CEO of WINGS, an investment fund for games by studios founded or co-founded by women and gender-marginalized devs.
Previously CEO and Founder of Triple Topping Games, she was an advisor to Kowloon Nights and served on the board of Global Game Jam.
She's also a part time law student, because why not.
Yury Zhdanovich
Founder & Game Director - SadCat Studios
Founder and game director at Sad Cat Studios. Creator of REPLACED.
Focused on creating story-driven single player experiences with a touch of cinematic presentation.
Christoffer Bodegård
CEO - Sudden Snail Games
Christoffer Bodegård is the creator of Esoteric Ebb, a text-heavy CRPG about goblins, politics, and table-top dice rolling.
Working in Skövde, Sweden, he is always obsessing over interactive writing as a growing art form and wants to talk about it as much as possible.
Ilari Kuittinen
Co-founder - Housemarque
Ilari Kuittinen is the co-founder and former MD & Studio Head of Housemarque, Finland’s oldest game studio and part of PlayStation Studios.
With over 30 years of experience, he has built expertise in entrepreneurship, studio management, and strategic leadership.
His focus is on guiding creative teams and shaping long-term success in the games industry.
Daniel Lyozov
Head of Business Development & Scouting @ Oro Interactive, a publisher of games like Super Battle Golf, Roadside Research, Machine Party, Casualties: Unknown, etc.
Pretends to know what he’s doing for all of his 10+ years in gamedev.
Head of Scouting & Business Development - Oro Intereactive
Argo Tuulik
Game Director - Summer Eternal
Argo Tuulik is a BAFTA award winning writer who was a senior writer and worldbuilder on Disco Elysium and its universe for 20 years.
Since 2025 he’s a game director at Summer Eternal developing the new RPG project Red Rooster.
Katarina Leskovar
President - CGDA / COO - Good Game Global
Katarina has been building her career in the video game industry for more than a decade. She focused on building strong business networks, fostering innovation, and developing gaming communities.
As Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Good Game Global, the biggest esports agency in Croatia, she oversees business operations, strategic partnerships, and the delivery of large-scale esports projects globally.
As President of the Croatian Game Development Alliance (CGDA), she represents and supports Croatia’s game development ecosystem by advocating for the interests of the industry.
Tom Kaczmarczyk
Founder - IndieBI
Originally a co-founder and business head of a successful indie games studio, Tom has spent the last few years running IndieBI, a company built to help developers and publishers sell more games with evidence-based best practices and commercial strategies.
Today, IndieBI provides a sales data platform and catalogue management services for developers and publishers behind thousands of games grossing over $3bn a year on Steam and consoles.
Fully funded by other games companies and industry friends, IndieBI aims to be a meaningful force for good in the industry, delivering increased revenues and new paths to liquidity for games companies of all shapes and sizes.
Rami Ismail
Rami Ismail is a Dutch-Egyptian industry ambassador & independent games developer with over 20 genre-defining & award-winning titles across PC, console, web, and mobile.
His development of tools like the industry-standard dopresskit.com, his prolific & popular public speaking, his work with governments and communities on all continents, and his highly-regarded consultancy and insights have helped shape industry opportunities for game communities & independent game developers of any kind, in any situation, and anywhere.
Tea Stepanic
Lead Producer - Blackmill Games
Tea Stepanić is a video game producer at Blackmill Games, where she leads development of the WW1 Game Series.
Having worked in game design and QA before moving into production, she knows the full path a game takes from first design decisions to publishing, as well as how to unite its creative vision with the demands of genre and technology.
Beyond development, she is an active participant in the Croatian games industry, collaborating with local studios and sharing her experience as a mentor and speaker.
Ste Curran
Ste is a game designer, writer and broadcaster from London, England. He’s been making fun, surprising things with and for people for over 20 years.
His talks have been variously described as "life changing" and "an hour of nothing".
He also runs Maraoke and has at least three stupid games / apps you haven't seen yet (his words, not ours).
