Chanel Summers

Chanel Summers has achieved success and renown in both the Seattle music scene and the video game industry, a unique perspective she brings to every Syndicate 17 program. Chanel began her career as a pioneering female game designer and producer, creating innovative products at early industry leading companies ranging from Mindscape, to Velocity (makers of the first networked video game) to Mattel Media, where she designed and developed everything from high-performance 3D vehicle simulations, to action/arcade platform games, to hardware peripherals. Recruited to Microsoft in the late '90s, Chanel was responsible for the release of that company's first multiplayer Internet game, Fighter Ace, an air combat simulation that prefigured the rise of mass online gaming. While working on Fighter Ace, Chanel became enamored of the company's transformative interactive audio technologies, and transitioned into a role as the company's first Audio Technical Evangelist, in which capacity she was responsible for launching DirectMusic, a revolutionary method of creating and delivering interactive music and sound design, and establishing programs to get audio professionals more involved in the design of Microsoft technologies. As a result, Chanel became a widely recognized figure in leading industry organizations, as well as the published author of a number of articles and technical white papers. With the inception of Microsoft's Xbox video game system in 2000, Chanel was tapped to help design and promote the audio capabilities of the new hardware platform and was instrumental in defining hardware capabilities and programming libraries, evaluating and selecting external vendors, and managing the creation of audio-specific demos that would showcase the console. As a result, Chanel discovered an untapped opportunity to secure video game industry mindshare by creating the industry's first support team for content creators: a team of graphic artists, sound designers, composers and game designers who would work with the development community, coaching game creators to take advantage of the capabilities presented by Xbox. The Content and Design Team's goal, and Chanel's mandate as its Worldwide Creative Manager, was to help game creators around the world apply technology and features into design in order to help usher in an era of future-generation games. After leaving Microsoft in 2002, Chanel focused her creative passions into drumming -- a lifelong aspiration -- and quickly est