Game Developers Conference continues to grow and expand as we get ready for GDC 2022. This includes the unveiling of two new GDC Summits, along with welcoming new members to several of our GDC Summit Advisory Boards.
GDC is constantly evolving, through embracing emerging technologies and visions of gaming's future. That's why GDC 2022 will host a brand-new GDC Summit dedicated to open source game development. In addition, the former Virtual Reality Developers Conference has been rebranded as the Future Realities Summit—covering the latest innovations in virtual reality, augmented reality, and human spacial computing.
Game Developers Conference takes place from March 21 to March 25, 2022. Head here for details on how to submit to GDC Summits—the deadline is Tuesday, October 5, 2021 at 11:59pm PT. More details on the new summits are below.
Open Source Game Development Summit
In the last 30 years, open source has gone from a curiosity to a pervasive way people build software, with many areas of software development working on technology stacks that are 100% open source. And for good reason! Community collaboration has led to the situation where the highest-quality library or tool for a particular purpose is usually an open source one.
Game development has always had its own software culture separate from the mainstream, and fast-moving technology has meant closed source engines have been the norm for building games. But here too, open source is catching on—constituting larger portions of a game's technology stack, and bringing unique advantages and challenges with them.
This one-day summit seeks to help game developers benefit from building larger portions of their game with open source technologies, and deal effectively with its challenges.
Summit Advisors welcome submissions in areas related to open source game development, for example:
• Studios that have shipped games with significant and/or new open source components that can tell us about benefits and challenges.
• Creators of open source technologies that speak about the difficulties of running an open source community, how to collaborate with users, and how to evolve software with so many interested parties wanting different things from them.
• How game developers can work better with open source technology creators. How to better fund open source development.
• Studios that have contributed significantly to existing open source projects they have adopted, and how that fits in their overall game development model.
• Studios that have made games that are entirely open source, and how that worked as a development and/or business model.
• How working in the open (on e.g. GitHub) helps or challenges game development.
• Talks on open source tools that are peripheral to the actual game itself—such as build and CI tools, testing tools, and tools related to maintaining an online service. With specific guidance on how these work better or worse for game development as opposed to the general software development for which they may have been created.
Future Realities Summit (Formerly VRDC)
Game and entertainment design opportunities in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and human spatial computing (HSC) are once again expanding as the technology of internet-connected societies continues to iterate. Exciting new opportunities are appearing in areas like online and social play, live music, fashion, and education as we connect with one another virtually through new hardware and software platforms. Continuing development is expanding opportunities in fields like travel, retail, fitness and wellness, product design, media, and sports entertainment, among others. If you're developing an immersive experience or application in gaming and beyond, we want to hear about it!
Summit Advisors are seeking submissions exploring VR, AR, XR, and other innovations in connected games and entertainment pertaining to topics across multiple disciplines—including Design, Narrative, Production, Programming, and Visual Art. We are especially interested in hybrid approaches in this space, as games become part of the larger push to virtualize and gamify in-person spaces, in order to increase access and maintain connection during the pandemic. Submissions should be representative of interesting and current work happening in these spaces, and have valuable, actionable, and/or inspiring takeaways for the GDC audience.
In all of these, Summit Advisors are looking for content that can help game developers make better games, not simple promotion of a particular technology or project.
We're also thrilled to welcome nine new Summit Advisors, who will help in shaping the program, vision, and goals of future GDC Summit events.
New Summit Advisors
Independent Games Summit
Justin Ma
Co-Founder, Subset Games (There Goes Design)
Felix Kramer
Studio Manager, The Game Band
Des Gayle
Founder and Producer, Altered Gene
Level Design Summit
Dana Nightingale
Campaign Designer, Arkane Studios Lyon
Jim Brown
Senior Designer, Epic Games
Future Realities Summit
Lauren Domingo
XR Developer, Advocate HP Inc.
Open Source Game Development Summit
Wouter van Oortmerssen
Software Engineer, Google
Production Essentials Summit
Lisy Kane
Production Director, League of Geeks
Visual Effects Summit
Veer Sharma
VFX Lead, ProbablyMonsters
GDC 2022 is seeking submissions for GDC Summits, Game Career Seminar, and Masterclass. Core Concepts submissions are closed, but if you're interested sending in a late proposal for consideration you can head here for GDC contact information.
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