Cohen, Risa (RC Productions)

"Who is the publisher? Financing and marketing within a changing value chain" Vortrag und Teilnehmerin Podium

Born and raised in New York City, Risa Cohen started her career in entertainment as a Playwright and Producer for theatre in Paris in 1989 and remained in France ever since.

She began working in games and multimedia in 1993 as content writer for a theatre game, and then “Top secret decoder” published by Haughton Mifflin (1994). In the 10 years following, she continued in interactive media as a producer working for Atari, Disney, Square Soft Japan, Namco US, NEC Japan, Microprose, Universal studios, Warner Bros, Moulinsart and ABC television.

In 2004 Risa started her own company, RC Productions, as an independent executive producer. In addition to her own co-productions and productions she works as an auditor for completion bonds for video games for International Film Guarantors (IFG), on the CNC board for preproduction grants to multimedia and videogame projects in France and is a member of the faculty and president of the educational steering committee for the multimedia masters program at the Institute International Multimedia in Paris.

Production credits include:

Dark Earth: Microprose; Martian Alert : Warner Bros./ Atari; Martian Revenge: Warner Bros./ Atari; Lucky Luke: On the Dalton Trail /Atari; Adventure of the Smurfs : Atari; Tintin: Moulinsart/ Atari; Loons: Warner Bros./Atari Piglets; BIG Game: Disney,/Take 2; ALIAS: Disney/ABC TV/ Acclaim; Rogue Trooper: Eidos/Completion bond FFI; Urban Chaos: Eidos/Completion bond FFI; Raven Squad: Southpeak/Evolved/BVT/Completion Bond IFG; Alone in the Dark 5: Atari; Jamie Oliver “What’s cooking” : Atari; “In the tracks of Gabriel Yared” Documentary film TPS France, RTBF BENELUX; “In the tracks of Maurice Jarre” Documentary film TPS France, RTBF BENELUX; “City Rats” Feature film Scanner Rhodes Productions; “Night Junkies” Direct to DVD, Scanner Rhodes productions

Coming up in 2010…

UBRAIN: Your Digital Tonic: Co-Production: (VG) online-application

“Journey of a winner: Portrait of world champion Jane Bridge” Documentary film, France, 2010

Summary of presentation

How do publishers and developers position themselves in the move from a traditional distribution to an online distribution ? Those distribution changes have a key impact on financing the projects, how much can we relate to the traditional models, what are the alternative financing models, and how the risks can be mitigated ?

But the impact is also on the marketing of the games, in terms of the online/offline communication and the involvement of the developer.