Digital Nationz reveals unreleased games preview details

Digital Nationz reveals unreleased games preview details

Preview biggest range of unreleased games at DIGITAL NATIONZ

Assassin’s Creed Unity/Rogue and Far Cry 4 at DIGITAL NATIONZ 2014!

This year’s Digital Nationz (DNZ) has New Zealand’s biggest gaming line up ever! The 27-28 September event at Auckland’s Vector Arena features a huge selection of unreleased games available to preview and play along with a LAN championship, world class speakers and pre-release technology products, showcasing an amazing breadth of content.

Gaming titles this year include Assassin’s Creed Unity, Assassin’s Creed Rogue, Far Cry 4, Alien Isolation, Fifa 15 and The Crew with more to be announced in the next few weeks making it the biggest range of unreleased games in New Zealand so far. DNZ will be the first place in New Zealand to experience these killer titles.

DNZ is premiering its first LAN event, incorporating the Big Pipe LAN Party and the Logitech G Power Pro Championships. Up to 500 players are able to compete in the championship for more than $30,000 worth of prizes. Nine games will be included in the Championship LAN, including favourites League of Legends and DOTA 2. Championship LAN tickets are available for $89 and $69 for the Big Pipe LAN Party.

This year DNZ also invites more than 10 speakers from around the world to share their knowledge with show-goers. The first selection of speakers confirmed for the LG DIGITALKZ speaker sessions are: David ‘DJ’ Johnson, Lead VFX artist at Infinity Ward, Jason Sussman, Environmental Artist at Bungie Studios, Fletcher Dunn from Valve, Josie Nutter, Software Engineer & UX Specialist at Technical Illusions, Dr Michelle Dickinson from the University of Auckland and Dmitry Selitsky from Thought Wired. The LG DIGITALKZ sessions will cover everything from game development to controlling apps and smart devices with mind control.

Technological advancements being achieved on a weekly basis and one of the most important areas of development and growth is electric vehicles which will feature at DNZ with its first electrical vehicle showcase. Three electric cars will be on show: the Tesla Roadster, Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV as well as a working drivetrain system to show the inner operations/workings of an electric vehicle.

“This year we are packing the show with content! DNZ will have a massive line-up of playable unreleased games, an array of impressive international speakers as well as new exciting technology and our first ever LAN competition. And this is just our first announcement, we have plenty more to come!” says Peter Hall, DNZ Event Manager.

Tickets are now on sale with prices starting from $19 for an adult general admission one day pass and $14 for a concession pass for under 15 year olds, students and over 65 year olds. A booking fee applies and pre-event tickets are available online from www.ticketmaster.co.nz, or at the door during the event weekend.

Speaker Bios:

David ‘DJ’ Johnson, Lead VFX Artist at Infinity Ward

David Johnson is the Lead Visual Effects Artist at Activision/Blizzard’s Infinity Ward Studio as a hands on artist as well as supervisor/coordinator to multiple ATVI studios. David has 15 years of computer graphics experience, of which 13 has been dedicated to video games. David has shipped a remarkable 15+ video games and contributed on some of the largest names in video game history including the Call of Duty and Halo franchises. The combined revenue of games David has worked on exceeds 3 Billion Dollars, and have broken multiple records for units sold. David is an active VES member as a Board of Directors alternate, and member of the education and membership committees.

Jason Sussman, Environment Artist at Bungie Studios

An Army veteran from Dallas, Texas, Jason Sussman brings 14 years of gaming industry experience to his role as Senior Environment Artist on Destiny. Of those 14 years, eight years have been spent at Bungie, creating single player and competitive multiplayer maps, and DLC environments for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach. Currently, Jason designs and creates destination environments for Destiny’s Mars location.

- Destiny (PS4, Xbox One, Xbox360, PS3)

- Halo: REACH DLC “Nobel Map Pack” (Xbox360)

- Halo: REACH (Xbox360)

- Halo: ODST (Xbox360)

- Halo 3: DLC Heroic,Legendary,Mythic map packs (Xbox360)

- Halo 3 (Xbox360)

Jason will be found around the Big Pipe – Media Design School stand to do more Q&A’s when he isn’t speaking and is coming courtesy of Media Design School.

Josie Nutter, Software Engineer and UX Specialist at Technical Illusions

Josie Nutter is a software engineer and UX specialist with almost two decades of experience in the video games industry. She has a B.S. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington, where she received the Undergraduate Award of Excellence for demonstrating special strength in innovation. Coming from a background in gameplay and tools programming at companies such as Crystal Dynamics, Snowblind Studios, and PopCap Games, she is now working on the software side of castAR (projected Augmented Reality) for Technical Illusions after helping launch a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $1M.]

Dr Michelle Dickinson AKA Nano Girl, University of Auckland

Michelle has a talent of being able to break pretty much anything put in front of her, which is lucky because that’s her job. As the director of New Zealand’s only Nanomechanical testing laboratory Michelle gets to make and break things on a daily basis.

With regular slots on National television and radio, Michelle is passionate about explaining complex concepts in everyday language and strives towards breaking down the barriers created by high walls of scientific and technical jargon. Lots of people collect things and Michelle likes to collect certificates, including one that says PhD and a couple of other postgraduate qualifications, the desire to keep learning and challenging herself never stops. With an internal compass that seeks out adrenaline and adventure, Michelle is often found salinating her skin while kitesurfing, exfoliating her fingertips on a rock climbing mission, or creating tree bark skin impressions from a mountainbike ride. Michelle tries to break all the stereotypes that are traditionally associated with the tech field, by bringing her high energy personality, an enthusiasm for gadgets and a style of presenting that will make you want to join in too!

Dmitry Selitsky, Founder and CEO, Thought-Wired

Dmitry founded Thought-Wired with the vision of making the world accessible to everybody. On their journey to develop assistive solutions based on direct brain interfaces and principles of user-centred design, thought-wired gained invaluable knowledge and expertise for working with the newest interfacing technologies. Now they want to share that knowledge with you.

Fletcher Dunn, Valve

Fletcher has been making video games since 1995 and has around a dozen titles under his belt on a variety of gaming platforms. He worked at Terminal Reality in Dallas, where as principal programmer he was one of the architects of the Infernal Engine and lead programmer on BloodRayne. He was a technical director for The Walt Disney Company at Wideload Games in Chicago and the lead programmer for Disney Guilty Party, IGN's E3 2010 Family Game of the Year. He now works for Valve Software in Bellevue, Washington. Oh, but his biggest claim to fame by *far* is as the namesake of Corporal Dunn from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Fletcher Dunn will be found around the Big Pipe – Media Design School stand to do more Q&A’s when he isn’t speaking and is coming courtesy of Media Design School.