Event Programming
As the Founding Festival Director for IndieCade, and former Games Manager for Slamdance, Sam has programmed content for independent gaming events in 7 countries on 3 continents, featuring over 1000 distinct games and interactive experiences. The growth of indie games as a field that includes live immersive performance, multiplayer board games, single player digital games built around alternative interfaces, and video games exploring social and political issues is direct proof that IndieCade’s ongoing infusion of work from other fields into the indie game discourse has a direct and significant impact.
Curated Exhibits
Sam has worked with events and spaces all over the world to curate exhibits that bring innovative and artistic games to their local communities. This includes yearly curated events at the Electronics Entertainment Expo, IndieCade’s lNight Games, and themed exhibits at events and spaces as diverse as Game City, GaymerX, and the Museum of the Moving Image. Curatorialy, each exhibit is created to have connective tissue, an idea that animates what these different experiences have in common and can share.
Publishing
Sam’s efforts include two publishing ventures - Codename Games, an extremely early independent game publisher focused on virtual worlds and social platforms; and USC Games Publishing, an academic publisher for games that provides an outlet for artistic and academic work exploring what games can be. Both of these efforts learned from the community building curation of the IndieCade festival, and focus on using a targeted portfolio to build a brand that means something specific, and through them Sam has published such work as Cat and the Coup, Chambara, and COGS Home.
Streaming Production
Sam has created multiple shows for streaming platforms, working to curate content and content creators that build successful audience engagement in venues such as Iron Game Designer on Twitch and Maze on Planet 7 on Facebook Video. As an early streaming thinker, Sam has had the opportunity to experiment with what builds audience and what is sustainable in a live streamed format.