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[In the second of a series picking out the most notable Game Developers Conference 2009 lectures, sister site Gamasutra examines the Visual Arts Track, which includes talks from the Gears Of War 2, God Of War and Braid creators on cinematics, animation, and art in their games.]
Game Developers Conference 2009 (organized by Gamasutra parent company Think Services) is set to take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.
With nearly 280 sessions now confirmed for GDC 2009, we'll be taking a track by track look at the conference's line-up over the next few weeks.
Second on the list is GDC's Visual Arts Track, which "delves into the nitty-gritty of the artistic side of games, and [also] offers longer format classes to allow speakers the time to walk attendees step-by-step through the latest tools and techniques."
Notable highlights thus far announced for this track, which takes place on the main Wednesday to Friday of GDC (March 25-27), are as follows:

The 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has revealed the finalists for this year's ninth installment of the pre-eminent indie game competition, with finalists showcased at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. From a record field of 226 entries, 30% over last year’s totals, a number of notable games scored multiple nominations this year.
These include orbital osmosis sim Osmos (3 nominations), abstract PSN action-er PixelJunk Eden (3 nominations), time-reversing guitar-compatible antishooter Retro/Grade (2 nominations), and atmospheric ball-ambulator Night Game (2 nominations).
Other examples of the finalists, which are viewable on the official IGF website, include charming exploration-game Blueberry Garden and music-based block puzzler Musaic Box, both double nominees, and several of the finalists for the new Innovation award, including Ratloop’s Mightier, Jason Rohrer’s Between and Tale Of Tales’ The Graveyard.
Finalists were decided by a panel made up of over 40 industry-leading game creators and journalists, including the makers of previous IGF honorees World Of Goo, Braid, Aquaria and N+; industry veterans from studios including Maxis, Big Huge Games, and SuperVillain Studios; and noted writers from Wired, Newsweek, and MTV.

[In the first of a series picking out the most notable Game Developers Conference 2009 lectures and reprinted here, sister website Gamasutra examines the Audio Track, which includes talks from the sonic creators behind LittleBigPlanet, Fable II, and the Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy series.]
Game Developers Conference 2009 (organized by Gamasutra parent company Think Services) is due to take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.
With over 230 sessions already confirmed for GDC 2009, we'll be taking a track by track look at the conference's line-up over the next few weeks.
First up is GDC's audio track, which "looks at the game development process from the standpoint of developing dynamic video game sound, and offers direction for developers who wish to understand complex sound composition strategies."
Notable highlights thus far announced for this track, which takes place on the main Wednesday to Friday of GDC (March 25-27), are as follows:
- Media Molecule's Kenneth Young will present 'User Generated Content - LittleBigPlanet's Audio Approach', highlighting the unique challenges of the PS3's signature holiday 2008 title, and focusing on "the thinking and methodology that lie behind its use of sound and music in the challenging landscape that is user-generated interactive entertainment."

Game Developers Conference organizer Think Services announced several speakers and sessions for next year's GDC event, to be held in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.
As part of the Game Design track, Lionhead Studios CEO Peter Molyneux will present 'Lionhead Experiments Revealed', a lecture on a range of experimental ideas and technologies at his company, and how they might might be incorporated into new Lionhead projects.
Other highlighted design sessions include "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: Design Lessons Learned from Rock Band" with Harmonix senior designer Dan Teasdale, and "Player's Expression: The Level Design Structure Behind Far Cry 2 and Beyond?" with Ubisoft's Jonathan Morin.
Other notable speakers in the Production track include Maxis producer Caryl Shaw on 'Spore: Fulfilling the Massively-Single Player Promise - How'd We Do?', Bungie producer Allen Murray presenting "a brutally honest look at the evolution of production at Bungie from Halo-s 1 to 3".

The 9th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards has launched a call for nominations for its three Special Awards, including Lifetime Achievement, Pioneer, and Ambassador Awards, with nominating power for Gamasutra members.
Voted on entirely by game professionals, next year’s 9th Annual Award Ceremony will be hosted on March 25th, 2009 in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, as part of Game Developers Conference 2009.
As the first part of this year's voting process, three special Choice Awards - the Ambassador Award, the Pioneer Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award - are available for nominations after logging on with your main Gamasutra.com user ID. (You can register for free if you do not currently have one.)
These special awards honor individuals whose achievements have made an impact on games and the game community as a whole, and not necessarily only over the past year:

Think Services Game Group, producers of the Game Developers Conferences, Game Developer Magazine, and Gamasutra.com, has announced it will present the second Game Developers Conference China (GDC China) in Shanghai from October 11th-13th, 2009.
Supported by an advisory board that includes representatives from Shanda, Epic Games China, 9you and DJL International and endorsed by key government agencies associated with the industry, GDC China will once again bring the GDC’s authoritative content and global reach to the region.
GDC China aims to advance the state of China’s game industry by featuring top-quality content and incorporating the GDC’s global development community perspective. The 2007 inaugural event was produced “by developers, for developers,” offering unique learning, sharing and networking opportunities for the Chinese market.

Think Services has announced its flagship European event, Game Developers Conference (GDC) Europe for August 17th-19th 2009, alongside new German consumer games event GamesCom, with former GCDC head Frank Sliwka joining Think Services to run the event.
Think Services also runs game industry events including next March's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and September's Austin GDC, as well as the recently announced GDC Canada, while also operating Gamasutra.com and Game Developer magazine.
Frank Sliwka, who formerly worked at GC organizer Leipziger Messe, where he was conference director for the GC Developers Conference (GCDC) and national/international advisor, will join the Think Services Game Group as Vice President of European Business Development and Event Director, GDC Europe.