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Stay up to date on everything happening with the Game Developers Conference, the Independent Games Festival, the Game Developers Choice Awards, and more through our online blog. To get GDC updates sent straight to your mailbox, subscribe to our GDC Newsletter.

2009 IGF Announces Record Entries For Main, Student Competitions

November 21, 2008

The organizers of the 2009 Independent Games Festival have announced a record turnout for this year's IGF competition, with a total of 226 entries in the Main Competition (an increase of 30% on last year's 173 entries), and a total of 145 Student Showcase entries (up over 15% on last year's 125 entries).
Information on the 226 separate IGF Main Competition entries, including screenshots, descriptions, and links to official game websites, are now available to view on the official IGF website.
Examples of the entries span already announced indie titles, including Jason Rohrer's Between, alternate reality RPG Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden, visually lush point and click adventure Machinarium, and art-game I Wish I Were The Moon, through previously little-discussed titles such as Pieces Interactive's "first walk'em up" Walkie Tonky, new Nifflas-designed title Night Game, and Lexaloffle's "ecological action game" Conflux.

2009 GDC Canada Announces Dates, Calls For Submissions

November 19, 2008

Think Services, co-organizer of the Game Developers Conference Canada has announced that next year's inaugural expo will run from May 12 - 13, 2009 at the Vancouver Convention and Exposition Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The organizers have also opened the call for proposals on lectures, roundtables, and panel sessions, and will accept submissions through midnight, Friday, November 28, 2008.
GDC Canada, which has an extensive local advisory board including representation from BioWare, EA Black Box, Threewave, Radical, Next Level Games and more, will emphasize the challenges and opportunities of creating games with long production cycles, large development teams, and multi-platform releases.

Bosslady Blog: Welcome to GDC 2009

By Meggan Scavio |  October 29, 2008

[In her first post for the GDC weblog, Game Developers Conference event director Meggan Scavio welcomes you to this year's event.]
A new GDC season is upon us, the 23rd to be exact and my 10th. What milestones have we crossed over the last 23 years? Quite a few actually.
Let me take you back to 1987, when we were called the Computer Game Developers Conference and we were in a living room with a few names you might recognize: Don Daglow, Tim Brengle, Chris Crawford and Gordon Walton, to name a few. Fast forward through Milpitas, Santa Clara, Long Beach, and San Jose to our current landing spot: San Francisco.

GDC 2009 Opens Registration, Debuts New Summits

October 27, 2008

Game Developers Conference organizer Think Services has opened registration for next year's GDC event, to be held in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.
Also announced was the addition of new summits falling under the GDC umbrella. These summits, which take place on the Monday and Tuesday of GDC week, are aimed at providing specialized coverage for various crucial development categories and practices.
In addition, the traditional Wednesday to Friday main conference, including major keynotes and existing Audio, Business, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts tracks will continue for 2009.
Newly established Monday-Tuesday summits include the AI Summit and Localization Summit, bringing the total summit count to nine, as follows:

LittleBigPlanet Creators Mark Healey & Alex Evans Set to Deliver Opening Keynote at Paris GDC 08

April 22, 2008

Mark Healey and Alex Evans, co-founders of Media Molecule, will deliver a keynote speech titled, “Media Molecule, Little Team, Big Ideas,” at this year’s Paris Game Developers Conference (Paris GDC). Healey and Evans will address the breadth of ways in which game developers can incorporate creativity into their designs. From god-games and sim-games to full-on modding, they will discuss the past, present, and future of user-generated content as illustrated through the story of Media Molecule’s conception and its first title, LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3.

EA's Executive Producer of Battlefield Franchise, Ben Cousins, To Keynote Paris GDC 2008

April 15, 2008

Ben Cousins, Executive Producer of EA DICE’s Battlefield franchise, will deliver a keynote titled, “Scenes from the Battlefield: The Present and Future of Core and Casual,” at this year’s Paris Game Developers Conference (Paris GDC). Cousins will address the business and consumer trends that have led to the creation of the new Battlefield Heroes service and will share his thoughts on the future crossover of core and casual gamers and the supposed death of the PC as a gaming platform. Paris GDC, the second French edition of the Game Developers Conference, the premier event for developers and publishers in the videogame industry, is scheduled for June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris.
As Executive Producer for Battlefield titles at DICE in Stockholm, Sweden, Cousins most recently led the development of Battlefield Heroes, EA’s first “Play 4 Free” game. Cousins recent history involves work exclusively on digitally delivered entertainment – serving as Creative Director on PlayStation Home, Design Manager for the EyeToy group and Lead Designer for Beats at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
“The game industry is in a state of rapid and exciting change today, as developers grapple with adapting to free to play models and bringing gameplay to universal audiences,” said Jamil Moledina, Executive Director, GDC Events. “Ben has a successful history of coaxing our industry into the 21st Century, and we expect that his experiences fomenting evolution with Battlefield Heroes will prove highly illuminating to our audience.”

Paris GDC Reveals Content for 08 Session Lineup

April 1, 2008

Paris Game Developers Conference 08 (Paris GDC) has published its roster of featured speakers and sessions. The second French edition of the Game Developers Conference, the premier event for developers and publishers in the videogame industry, is scheduled for June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris. More than 50 sessions designed for developers looking to expand their expertise, network, and learn from their peers will be presented by industry experts and thought leaders at Paris GDC 08.
Highlighted sessions from the call for papers include:

  • The Right Tools for the Write Job, by Mac Walters, Bioware
  • Your Music Is the Game: Designing PHASE, the Other Project at Harmonix, by Chris Foster, Harmonix Music Systems
  • The Free to Play Revolution, by Howard Marks, Acclaim
  • Tackling High Level, Scalable Physics for Next Generation Game Engines, by Adam Moravanszky, NVIDIA

“It’s a very exciting time right now in the game industry, as developers are creating blockbuster hits for both the core market and for those who don’t call themselves gamers,” said Jamil Moledina, Executive Director, Game Developers Conference Events. “This cross-section of the sessions we intend to field in Paris should provide a taste of the range of global breakthroughs that are driving European development today.”
Sessions were selected by the Paris GDC advisory board, composed of international experts of the game industry, as well as the event organizers Think Services and Connection Events.

Director's Cut: GDC Fast Forward

By Jamil Moledina |  February 12, 2008

Good morning everyone! I haven't updated my column here recently, it's been a bit crunchy for us around here with the final load-in on GDC. However, it's all locked down, and there's only a few remaining things to mention, all of which revolve around bringing the GDC firmly into the 21st Century.

Maximizing your GDC Session Experience

By Staff |  January 30, 2008

This year the GDC is setting up ALL the tutorial, lecture, and panel classrooms with super fancy HD projectors. These projectors will provide more detailed and brighter images. We want the visual presentations that speakers deliver at the GDC to be as good as the verbal content they provide. And, as usual, the classrooms in the Audio Track with have Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

Director's Cut: Japanese Developers Take GDC

By Jamil Moledina |  January 22, 2008

Good morning everyone! One of the traditions we work hard to present at GDC is the tremendous wealth of Japanese developers on site. We've already talked about developers from Nintendo and Square Enix, but we've got a few more luminary folks to share with you. I'll go through them quickly, as there's a lot to cover.

Director's Cut: Brains

By Jamil Moledina |  January 17, 2008

Hello everyone! A rare Thursday update from me, largely because we're going to push the schedule live early next week (yes, it's true), and we have a handful of interesting talks that need to go live beforehand. I know a lot of folks out there like these updates to have a theme, and so it strikes me that the common theme on these late arrivals is, well, brains.

Top GDC Tutorial Picks

January 16, 2008

I'm sure you're all scrambling to get your registrations in before the early registration deadline (tonight) - thought it might help to provide a few tutorial suggestions. Just in case you can't decide on what to pick to associate with your pass...here are few of the top rated tutorials:
Audio Boot Camp

Director's Cut: The Return of Nintendo

By Jamil Moledina |  January 15, 2008

Hello everyone! So two very important bits of information are going out today. One is the Wednesday keynote announcement, which I'm not going to talk about here because that actually goes live later this morning. The other is a trio of Nintendo talks going live today, which we're very excited to host at GDC.

Director's Cut: The Past, Present, and Future of Broad Appeal

By Jamil Moledina |  January 8, 2008

Hello everyone, welcome back from the break! I had hoped to get an update out to you last week, but I had to focus on actually developing GDC. In the meantime, I hope you had a chance to check out our Thursday keynote announcement of luminary futurist Ray Kurzweil, who we've challenged to propose the next 20 years of games.

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