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[In her latest Bosslady Blog update, Game Developers Conference event director Meggan Scavio makes her debut post of the 2010 GDC season to remind 2008 and 2009 GDC attendees to sign up for their discounted pass before December 22nd.] Yesterday, Chris Charla from Foundation 9 changed his Facebook status update to read “Only 83 days till GDC!!†After they revived me with smelling salts (who knew we kept those in the office?), I wobbled
Organizers of next March's Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco have revealed keynotes and first sessions for Summits, with notables including Facebook's Gareth Davis (Social & Online Games Summit) and Spider's Randy Smith (Independent Games Summit).
Taking place March 9-10th, the GDC Summits highlight the leading edge of game development in emerging and notable areas including; iPhone Games, Social & Online Games, Game Localization, Mobile/Handheld Games, Independent Games, Artificial Intelligence and Serious Games.
Of the major Summits, Facebook's platform manager Gareth Davis will deliver a keynote at the newly formed Social & Online Games Summit titled 'How Friends Change Everything'. It will discuss Facebook's massive disruption in who plays games, as well as how games are best discovered, distributed, designed and monetized on the service.
In addition, Randy Smith, owner and game designer at Tiger Style will keynote the Independent Games Summit. Tiger Style is the developer of the critically and commercially successful iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, named by Apple as their top-rated game of 2009. Smith, who is also a veteran of Thief creator Looking Glass, will deliver a broad keynote address, 'Increasing Our Reach: Designing to Grab and Retain Players.'
Alongside these notable announcements, all of GDC's market-leading Summits have announced initial lectures, with a large number of new speakers and topics now confirmed for the event.
Other notable featured talks at the one and two-day Summit events include:
Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have announced its first set of Main Conference lectures for the March 9th-13th event, with Uncharted 2, Braid and Brutal Legend-specific talks already confirmed.
As organizers of GDC 2010 start to announce the line-up, the new Social & Online Games Summit has revealed initial speakers for the March 9th-10th event, including Zynga, Playfish and IMVU execs talking Farmville, Spore Worlds and more.
Organizers have announced GDC Canada 2010's call for submissions, with the May 2010 Vancouver event looking for a wide array of lectures on game creation and business across AAA, digital, and social games.
The call to present content for lectures, roundtables and panel sessions for the 2010 Game Developers Conference Canada is open through midnight, Tuesday, January 5, 2010.
Montreal’s Kokoromi collective has announced its theme for Gamma 4, with game makers challenged to make "innovative, experimental new games played with just one button" to be showcased at Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco.
Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have announced the first set of tutorials for the March 9th-13th, 2010 event, with an all-star level design tutorial day and a full-day session on 'building an independent dev studio in 2010' among the initial tutorials revealed.
The organizers of the GDC 2010 event the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and largest festival relating to independent games worldwide -- are proud to announce record entry numbers for both IGF 2010's Main Competition and the IGF Student Showcase, with almost 500 games in total.
Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers are reminding potential Summit speakers that they have until Friday, Nov. 13th to submit lectures, with IGF Student and Mobile deadlines also impending.
Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have opened registration for the March 9th-13th event, confirming Social Game and iPhone Summits and revealing newly reduced price options for event passes.
Game Developers Conference organizers have announced that the call for submissions is open for the 2010 event’s suite of Summits, which take place on the first two days of GDC in San Francisco, March 9th-10th 2010.
Game Developers Conference China 2009 organizers have announced almost 3,000 attendees in total for the Shanghai-based event, which ended on Tuesday, revealing plans to hold GDC China 2010 next December.
The event ended on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at the Shanghai International Convention Center. According to organizers, it brought together over 900 conference, media, and speaking attendees and over 2,000 expo attendees.
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) Mobile, the premiere venue that celebrates creativity and innovation on handheld platforms, has opened submissions for its third annual festival.
Game Developers Conference China has announced its lineup of speakers from noted industry players including Blizzard Entertainment, Maxis, EA DICE and many more. Think Services, a division of United Business Media will present GDC China at the Shanghai Convention Center, October 11-13 of this year.
[In a regular column, Gamasutra publisher Simon Carless -- recently added as a member of the Game Developers Conference Advisory Board -- goes behind the scenes to explain some of the most frequently asked questions about how GDC 2010 is taking shape, from lecture submissions to rating and beyond.]
So it's only September, and the main 2010 Game Developers Conference is being held from March 9th-13th, 2010. How much work can actually go into the conference this early, you might be asking?
Well, those who noticed the Call For Papers that the GDC organizers already held, we get started pretty early with lecture submissions and grading. And that's a cue for me to boot up this column and explain what happens behind the velvet (iron? velcro?) curtain. I'll be updating regularly with the GDC Advisory Board's perspective over the next few weeks and months.
One initial point that is worth making strongly. I know that in some conferences (both outside the game industry and in), the Advisory Board can take a much smaller role in actually directly picking the content.
But one of the reasons that Game Developers Conference is so well respected, I believe, is that all of the talks are either empirically chosen from submissions, or carefully and specifically invited by the official GDC Advisory Board. The GDC organizers don't pick your talk -- key members of your own peer group pick your talk.
