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With GDC Europe quickly gaining steam, show organizers have added 14 leading European game developers to the event's main conference and Summit advisory boards, where they will help program the lectures, panels and roundtable sessions taking place at this August's conference in Cologne, Germany.

The newest members to join the main conference advisory board for GDC Europe 2012 include former Battlefield Heroes developer Ben Cousins (now general manager of ngmoco Sweden), Playdead CEO Dino Patti (Limbo, pictured), DICE creative director Lars Gustavsson, and Christopher Schmitz, head of production at Ubisoft Blue Byte (The Settlers and Battle Isle).

All of these new advisory board members come from notable and varied backgrounds in the European development community, and given their range of expertise, they will be able to ensure that GDC Europe 2012 offers even more insightful content targeted at developers all across the continent.

Other new additions to GDC Euope's main conference advisory board include Crytek veteran and Yager Interactive design director Bernd Diemer, EA Phenomic VP Dirk Ringe, Kuju Entertainment COO Adrian Hawkins (Battalion Wars), Guerrilla Games technical director Michiel van der Leeuw (Killzone series), online game consultant Teut Weidemann, Secret Exit co-founder Jetro Lauha (Zen Bound series), and Sven Liebech, head of art at Bigpoint GmbH.

These developers will join continuing board members such as Remedy Entertainment's Matias Myllyrinne (Alan Wake franchise), Avni Yerli of Crytek, and Harald Riegler of Sproing.

Helping to program the increasingly vibrant GDC Europe submarket Summits will be Thomas Grip, one of the key creatives at Amnesia studio Frictional Games, who will join the advisory board for the Independent Games Summit, alongside Knap Nok's Lau Korsgaard (who previously worked on Die Gute Fabrik's B.U.T.T.O.N.).

Elsewhere, Jami Laes, general manager and co-founder of social game giant Playfish, and Henric Suuronen, head of studio at Non-Stop Games (and formerly at wooga) will both join the board of the Social & Online Games Summit.

In addition, Ansu Lonnberg, chairman of the board at Secret Exit, and Semyon Voinov, co-founder of Cut the Rope creators ZeptoLab will join notables such as Fishlabs CEO and co-founder Michael Schade (Galaxy On Fire) on the advisory board of the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit.

Following the debut of numerous GDC 2012 videos earlier this month, the GDC Vault service has debuted a trio of free video lectures from last March's show, featuring talks from the legendary Civilization creator Sid Meier, iWin VP Laralyn McWilliams on the importance of metrics, and White House analyst Constance Steinkuehler Squire.

These free videos join a host of other free and notable lectures already available on GDC Vault, including the recent release of classic game postmortems (Gauntlet, Harvest Moon and more) and track keynotes (from Blizzard, Plants Vs. Zombies creator George Fan, and more) from GDC 2012.

The following lectures provide a varied sample of the show's informative and inspiring content, covering in-depth design philosophies, tricks for data analysis, and even how the government is impacting games as a medium.

Here are the newest free videos currently available on GDC Vault:

- In Sid Meier's presentation, the acclaimed Civilization creator and Firaxis co-founder looks back at a statement he made at GDC in 1989, that "a game is a series of interesting decisions." Meier picks apart this statement, and explains how it applies to modern design, and why developers should keep it in mind when crafting their own titles. Along the way, he provides some useful tips on making a player's decisions more interesting. [GDC Vault free video]

- Elsewhere, iWin lead and former Free Realms creative director Laralyn McWilliams explains why metrics should play a role in nearly all forms of game design. That's not to say that metrics should drive a game's content and development, as it's the designer's job to guide how everything comes together. Rather, McWilliams argues that metrics can serve as an essential tool in understanding a product or its audience, thereby allowing studios to make decisions with more confidence. [GDC Vault free video]

- The final free video lecture comes from Constance Steinkuehler Squire, a senior analyst for the U.S. President's White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. During this lecture, she details the numerous ways in which the White House hopes to use video games as a means of addressing national challenges. Games can help inform and encourage the national public, and this presentation details how the industry and the federal government to bring these initiatives into fruition. [GDC Vault free video]

Organizers of the upcoming Games Developers Conference Europe are reminding prospective speakers that the submission deadline for presentations is Monday, April 16, and the show is currently seeking additional content for the growing Independent Games Summit.

This popular GDC Summit, a staple of the San Francisco event since 2007, first debuted at GDC Europe in 2011. When the show returns to Cologne, Germany on August 13-15, organizers expect the Summit to debut more notable content featuring the best and brightest of indie game development, and are especially looking for 25 minute and 50 minute talks from European and global indies.

Last year's successful Independent Games Summit at GDC Europe covered a wide swath of games, developers, disciplines, and issues, and featured talks from some of the most influential names in the indie game community.

For instance, the Summit featured an inspiring presentation from Independent Games Festival chairman Brandon Boyer on the importance of supporting indies.

There were also design-focused talks from prominent indie developers like Frictional Games studio head Thomas Grip (Amnesia: The Dark Descent) - whose acclaimed talk is streamable for free on GDC Vault as well.

In addition, Douglas Wilson, the creative mind behind B.U.T.T.O.N. and Johann Sebastian Joust (pictured), discussed the implications of breaking conventional gameplay tropes [GDC Vault link], German indie devs outlined the possibilities of public funding, and Tale of Tales' Michael Samyn (The Path) explained why indie devs might save the European games industry.

The GDC Vault service has debuted both free and members-only video, audio, and slides from last month's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, including free postmortem videos for games like Fallout and Harvest Moon.

Following the conclusion of the record-breaking 22,500-person conference, these Classic Postmortem sessions, along with many other notable talks, are now available GDC 2012's "Free Recordings" section on GDC Vault.

Now in their second year, the Classic Postmortem lectures stood out as a particular highlight from this year's show, as once again offered unique insight from some of the industry's most seminal game creators.

The series included notable talks from Frederick Raynal on the making of Alone in the Dark, Ed Logg on crafting the classic arcade game Gauntlet, Yasuhiro Wada on the quirky and successful Harvest Moon, and Tim Cain on the original Fallout, which spawned one of the industry's most popular RPG franchises of all time.

Also available for free is an intimate chat with Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson, hosted by SpyParty developer Chris Hecker. This session delves into Persson's creative process, and provides a look into the mind the indie game juggernaut.

In addition, GDC Vault has debuted a panel featuring Persson alongside industry figures like Jordan Mechner, Tim Sweeney, Adam Saltsman, John Romero, and Jane Pinckard on the budding indie renaissance. Elsewhere, GDC Vault visitors can check out a lecture from Plants vs. Zombies creator George Fan on the best ways to teach players via game design.

Other free Main Conference talks include a look at the art of Diablo III, an audio session on Supergiant Games' indie hit Bastion, and production tips from Bungie's Brian Sharp.

The UBM TechWeb Game Network, organizers of the industry-leading Game
Developers Conference, have announced the call for submissions for this
August's GDC Europe conference in Cologne, Germany.

GDC Europe, taking place Monday through Wednesday, August 13-15, 2012
at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost, will again provide the essential
pan-European perspective of game development and business trends
currently happening throughout the continent.

The conference is now in its fourth year, and will once again occur in the same week as the European gamescom
trade fair. With this pairing, GDC Europe can offer content to address
the development community at a central location in the heart of Europe
and reach the critical mass of the European games sector.

This year, the event's call for submissions for lectures includes
main conference tracks in Business & Marketing, Game Design,
Production, Programming, and Visual Arts. Organizers are looking for
leading practitioners to propose lectures and panels with major
practical takeaways for today's video game market.

Organizers are also accepting submissions for content for the three
GDC Europe Summits: the Social Games Summit, Smartphone & Tablet
Games Summit and Independent Games Summit, all of which were introduced
in 2011 and will be held concurrently with the main conference.

"GDC Europe offers the pan-European game development community a
unique opportunity to come together and dialogue about the local and
global changes happening in the industry, from their perspective," said
Meggan Scavio, general manager of all Game Developers Conference events.

"As the conference heads into its fourth year, we are pleased to be
able to return to Cologne and to continue providing a venue for
developers to gain priceless learning experience featuring leading
industry tools and techniques."

In anticipation of next week's Game Developers Conference, show organizers and independent artist group iam8bit have revealed a number of the featured artists drawing at this year's interactive art exhibit, the "Super Magnetic Game-O-Matic."

As previously announced, this event, taking place in the 2nd floor of Moscone West, features giant oversized poetry magnets, which GDC attendees can rearrange to create their own game ideas.

Throughout the show, notable industry artists will sketch their own interpretations of the most interesting concepts. The featured artists at this creatively driven event each offer their own unique artistic specialties, ensuring that the event will remain spontaneous, unpredictable, and fun.

Here are a few of the notable artists to be featured at the event during the week (with a number of additional guests to be announced on site):

- Ben Thompson is an artist at Blizzard Entertainment, and has worked particularly on the studio's MMO juggernaut World of WarCraft. His lively, detailed style should make for some interesting contributions to the exhibit.

- Levi Ryken is currently an artist at Double Fine Productions, and his creative work spans a number of the acclaimed San Francisco studio's most recent titles, including Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, Stacking, and Happy Action Theater.

- Greg Broadmore is a conceptual artist at the renowned Weta Workshop in New Zealand, and was the lead concept artist for acclaimed sci-fi movie District 9. He also created the Dr. Grordbort's universe (as featured in Team Fortress 2, and spawned into acclaimed physical raygun props.)

With just days remaining before the Game Developers Conference 2012, show organizers have chosen to detail a special workshop dubbed "Experimental Gameplay Sessions," which returns to GDC for its 10-year anniversary.

This jam-packed, two-hour session -- which takes place Friday, March 9 at 2.30pm in Room 3014 of West Hall -- will showcase an eclectic mix of unusual game prototypes that defy convention and explore new ideas and genres.

Led by Robin Hunicke (Journey) and Daniel Benmergui (Storyteller), it's an exciting opportunity for presenters and attendees alike to explore some brand new territory in game design.

In fact, a number of 'experimental' titles that debuted in previous years have gone on to become some of the most well regarded in the industry. Some of these standout games include Katamari Damacy, flOw, Braid, Portal, World of Goo and Today I Die.

This year, the session aims to recapture that innovative spirit with 11 titles from some of the industry's most creative developers.

Among the presenters this year are Douglas Wilson (Johann Sebastian Joust) and Bennett Foddy (QWOP), who will demonstrate a special enhanced version of one of Foddy's acclaimed physics titles. WallFour's John Sear, meanwhile, will show off a particularly unusual large-scale cooperative game.

In addition, developers such as Vlambeer's Rami Ismail will take a moment to go over some seemingly broken game ideas in GlitchHiker, and Kurt Bieg from Simple Machine will detail his studio's new Twitter-powered golf game.

The session will even highlight a number of more well known titles, including Jenova Chen and Nick Clark showing thatgamecompany's much-anticipated Journey, and Daniel Benmergui showcasing his IGF Nuovo Award finalist Storyteller.

Other participants including Shadow Physics co-creator Steve Swink showing a new title, Pietro Righi Riva and Nicolo Tedeschi showcasing Mirror Moon, Alex Kerfoot, Anna Anthropy, and Mars Jokela displaying Keep Me Occupied, part of the OAK-U-TRON 201X, Mathias Nordvall showing Sightlence, and Robin Arnott exhibiting the claustrophobic Deep Sea.

Since limited information on many of these titles is available online, the best way to see what's on offer is to check out the Experimental Gameplay Sessions for yourself. Attendees will also get the chance to actually participate in a number of these games, leaving plenty of opportunity for spontaneous mishaps and hilarity.