GameBiz Lab: Expanding Your Game’s Reach through Culturalization

GameBiz Lab is bringing education and consulting around the business side of video games. Join us for our next event! Join us for this program helping new and aspiring video game studio owners or anyone interested in the business of video game development. NMM is excited to have Kate Edwards share about culturalization for market expansion. With over 30 years of experience in video games as a geographer and culturalization strategist, Kate Edwards has been involved in the creation of many games, including titles such as: Halo, Fable, Age of Empires, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Tomb Raider, Apex Legends, and many others. She has witnessed creative teams struggle with a wide variety of issues, such as cultural representation, geopolitics, and human representation (also known as "culturalization" issues) that were often overlooked during the game's creation and negatively affected the game's ability to be viable across all possible markets. Kate will provide an overview of culturalization and the complexities that come with striving to build game worlds while maximizing the global reach of your creative vision. Takeaways: Attendees will learn the details of how cultural and social issues impact the perception and reception of their game content on a global scale, and will be provided with a clear framework for how to proactively account for these concerns during development, and beyond the game's release. Event Agenda: _ _______________________ Tues, Nov 17, 2026, 5:30 PM StudioLab xR, 201 Portage Avenue #c100 5:30 - 6:00pm Doors open and networking 6:00 - 6:15pm Welcoming remarks 6:15 - 8:00pm Session and Q&A by Kate Edwards 8:00 - 8:30pm Wrap up & Event concludes _ _______________________ Haven't visited StudioLab xR before? See directions to our space here: https://www.studiolab-xr.com/directions Speaker: Kate Edwards Kate Edwards is an award-winning 30+ year veteran of the game industry, and the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which innovated game culturalization, as well as the CXO and Co-Founder of SetJetters, a screen tourism app. She is also the former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and the Global Game Jam. Following her 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted on over 300 game titles for Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, SEGA, Sony, Square Enix, LEGO, and many other companies. In addition to serving in several board and advisory roles, she is a geographer, writer, and corporate strategist. Kate is the recipient of the Game Developers Choice Awards 20th Annual Ambassador Award, and in 2021 she was included in the Forbes' "50 Over 50" Vision List as well as being inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame. Join us for this free session! New Media Manitoba is thankful to those that have supported GameBiz Lab since its launch in 2024: the Canada Media Fund, the Government of Manitoba, the Government of Canada, and Ubisoft.