game-studios
(2)
Volkan Gurel
Volkan Gurel is the co-founder and CEO of Layer, an AI operating system for creative teams in gaming and entertainment. An MIT-trained engineer who has built distributed systems and machine learning pipelines at Hunch, eBay, Airware, and Coinbase, he holds four UAV patents from his drone-engineering years. In 2023 he co-founded Layer with Burcu Hakguder to let game studios generate performance-ready images, video, 3D, and audio without scaling headcount or outsourcing. The company is backed by a board of gaming heavyweights including King co-founder Riccardo Zacconi, and serves studios like Zynga, King, and Peak Games.
Matt Booty
Matt Booty is the EVP and Chief Content Officer of Microsoft Gaming, overseeing content strategy and development across nearly 40 studios including Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, and King. A Purdue-trained engineer with an MFA, he began his career at Midway Games in 1991 - working on Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam - before rising to CEO of Midway in 2008. He joined Microsoft in 2010, led the Minecraft global team, and has since orchestrated some of the largest acquisitions in gaming history, including the $7.5B ZeniMax/Bethesda deal and the $68.7B Activision Blizzard King acquisition.