Panel: AI in Game Development

From GAMES WEEK GEORGIA – SIEGE 2025

AI has been part of game dev since its earliest days, but Gen AI brings all new opportunities and problems. Join our expert panel for a look at just what it brings to a game studio, the ethics involved, and how to develop your own skills.

Dr. Victoria Lagrange is an Assistant Professor of Game Narrative and Acting Director of the Center for Interactive Media at Kennesaw State University. She also directs the Game Narrative Lab, where her team designs prosocial games such as Corporation, Inc., winner of an international critical thinking games award. Her research on interactive storytelling and audience engagement has appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences and PloS ONE. She is also a co-organizer of Transformer: AI and Games, in collaboration with the Georgia Game Developers Association. https://www.kennesaw.edu/research/cen...

Asante Bradford is a dedicated professional working for the Georgia Center of Innovation (COI), the forefront of business transformation and growth for the State of Georgia. With a strong background in Creative Media, Asante brings technical industry expertise to foster research collaborations and form strategic business partnerships, enabling the entertainment industries in Georgia to connect, compete, and thrive. A pioneering figure in digital entertainment and technology, Asante has dedicated his career to advancing Georgia's position as a hub for innovation. As the Digital Entertainment Project Manager at the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Bradford has been instrumental in attracting and nurturing cutting-edge projects in gaming, film, and interactive media, helping to shape the state's technological landscape. In addition, Asante plays a crucial role in educating potential prospects about the Georgia Entertainment Industry Incentives Act, providing valuable information to support and promote the growth of the Georgia entertainment industry. https://georgia.org/center-of-innovation

Dylan Goldblatt leads AI strategy at Kennesaw State University and works with large language models to support academic R&D. Before his current role, Dylan worked as a foundation models researcher supported by Microsoft and OpenAI. He is an applied researcher who builds software, 3D worlds, and moving images. He is currently developing a recommendation system to interpret player feelings to support the discovery of emotionally resonant content. Dylan experiments with AR and VR on Apple Vision Pro, is developing prototypes with gaussian splatting at KSU. He is a lifelong academic who earned a PhD from the University of Virginia. His areas of expertise include cognitive linguistics, language models, and human-computer interfaces. Previously, Dylan presented his work on interactive digital narrative at MIT. Nowadays he spends most of his time developing projects that change how people create, share, and develop ideas. His favorite games include Perfect Dark, Splatoon, Super Meat Boy, Red Alert, Gone Home, and Super Mario Sunshine.

Dov Jacobson learned game design in the golden age of the videogame arcade. After work in LA, NY and DC, he came to Atlanta to build a game studio for Ted Turner. In 2001, Jacobson pivoted from entertainment to learning. He founded GamesThatWork - dedicated to games that shape real-world behavior. In these games, kindergarteners brush their teeth, CIA agents avoid psychological traps, entrepreneurs build markets, Army captains influence society, aerospace engineers avoid screw-ups, travelers hear voices in tribal lands. The US Education Department, the ESA, the National Academy of Medicine, and many others have honored his games. His full-scale arcade game: Mike Builds a Shelter is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where it is now playable by 2 million visitors a year.. Jacobson's secret sauce is a lust for turning new technologies into new player experiences. In recent years, he's been exploring the potential of AI in game making and game play. He has led lively AI/Game workshops in the US, Canada and Ireland. See dov.jacobson.net

Shaun Sheppard, founder of Galore Interactive, is an indie founder and long-time multiplayer game developer across various studio settings. He worked on netcode for Party Animals, served as Lead Engineer for Smolbound, and was Technical Director on a warehouse-scale, tetherless VR platform with full-body mocap used by international government agencies. Shaun authored the GONet multiplayer netcode library and was the lead dev of DAJIMO, an FPS demo for GONet. He’s shipped multiple entertainment and simulation titles. https://galoreinteractive.com/