James is an experienced conference speaker and lecturer, and an organiser of large public events. In 2000 he set up Gameforce Ltd to run the series of Dragonmeet games conventions in central London, and was its director for the next four years before the company was sold to Profantasy Software. He is currently co-organiser of GameCamp and the Brixton Book Jam.

In the last few years James has spoken at the following events (links go to video or audio):

• Interesting (London, June 2008), on geo-mapping imaginary worlds;
• Playful (London, Dec 2008), on the games industry’s debt to French experimental writers;
• PDP Games and Simulations Workshop (University of Bedfordshire, Feb 2009), on building games and simulations;
• Playful (London, Oct 2009) on selling out;
• Jump! (London, Nov 2009), on games and creativity;
• Playful (London, Sept 2010), on developing games for Cadburys;
• GameCamp 3 (London, October 2010), running the Peoples’ Revolutionary Committee;
• Interesting North (Sheffield, Nov 2010), on controversial titles for works of fiction;
• GameCamp 4 (London, May 2011), multiple subjects;
• DiGRA Conference Netherlands (Hilversum, Sept 2011), panel on board-game design;
• StagConf, the Story And Game Conference (Vienna, Sept 2011), on emergent storytelling in interactive entertainment;
• LCC Futures (London, Nov 2011), on winning the 21st century;
• Dragonmeet (London, Dec 2011), interviewing Ian Livingstone;
• Bit of Alright (London, Feb 2012), on paper prototyping;
• GameCamp 5 (London, April 2012) on why you can’t rely on Stephen Fry and other lessons from advergame design;
• Geeky (London, May 2012) on how to write a novel in a week;
• Brixton Book Jam (London, July 2012), compere.

He was a lecturer on the BSc (Hons) Computer Games Development degree course at the University of Westminster (2008-2010) and has been a visiting lecturer at London South Bank University.