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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.

GDC Canada Reminds On Early Reg Deadline, Confirms FarmVille Keynote

March 30, 2010

GDC Canada organizers are remind prospective attendees that tomorrow, March 31, is the deadline for early registration for the May 6th-7th Vancouver event.
At the same time, Zynga vice president and FarmVille general manager Bill Mooney has been confirmed as the event's opening keynote, kicking off the event with a lecture on May 6.
Mooney's prior experience includes major game publishers like Activision and LucasArts, in addition to five years as a trial lawyer and stints as a television writer. At GDC Canada, he'll speak from his experience developing Zynga's social game hits Mafia Wars and FarmVille in a keynote entitled "Building Social Games: Games at the Speed of Light."
In addition to previously-announced talks from Obsidian, Telltale, Blizzard, Diner Dash creator Nick Fortugno and many more, a new set of featured speakers has been highlighted for the upcoming conference, slated to discuss key focal points for the event like new distribution models, developing new global titles, and managing established franchises - as follows:

GDC Vault Debuts Free Videos, Slides From GDC 2010

March 25, 2010

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have revealed plans for the GDC Vault, including free videos featuring Zynga, Ernest Adams and more, and regular free updates planned throughout the year.
The newly launched GDC Vault website is designed to hold free speaker slides from all GDC events, as well as specially synchronized video recordings of Game Developers Conference lectures and historical audio recordings.
The GDC Vault video technology allows users to simultaneously view a presenter's slides alongside video and audio of their presentation.
As an initial offering, the GDC Vault free videos section has made the 5 Expo Pass-included GDC 2010 sessions available for completely free viewing.
Free GDC 2010 Lecture Recordings
Free videos debuted thus far include the following notable hour-long GDC 2010 lectures, all available permanently online:
- 'Engineering Scalable Social Games' by Dr. Robert Zubek of Zynga, a programming talk in which the veteran developer "introduces best practices for building highly scalable infrastructure for social and web games" from the viewpoint of the Farmville creators.

GDC Canada 2010 Confirms Zynga, IUGO, Fortugno Talks

March 19, 2010

Organizers of this May's GDC Canada event in Vancouver, BC have confirmed the first social game and iPhone lectures for the event, with speakers from Zynga (Farmville), iPhone experts IUGO, and Diner Dash creator Nick Fortugno discussing major emerging markets.
Registration is now open for the event at the Vancouver Convention Centre, which talkes place on May 6th and 7th -- with early, reduced-price passes only available until the end of March.
This year, new tracks will focus on more hot games industry topics including digital distribution, social games, and iPhone games.
Some of the initially announced highlights for these vital tracks, many of which are bringing major creators to the Canadian market for the first time, are as follows:

GDC 2010 Gallery: Game Developers Choice Awards, Expo Floor

March 18, 2010

With this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco complete, organizers have been collecting the event's substantial volume of visual documentation.
This volume chronicles the Game Developers Conference's expansive expo floor as well as the star-studded Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, featuring big winner Naughty Dog (Uncharted 2), host Warren Spector, special award recipients Gabe Newell, John Carmack, and Penny Arcade, and more.
Earlier roundups from GDC collected images from the show's many notable speaker sessions, and the Independent Games Festival Summit, Pavilion, and Awards.
Game Developers Choice Awards 2010
These photographs highlight moments and personalities from this year's Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, drawn from the considerable official GDC photo archive.


Ceremony host Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Epic Mickey) sets a serious tone for the evening's proceedings.

GDC 2010 Gallery: Notable Speakers, Event Highlights

March 17, 2010

With this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco complete, organizers have been collecting the event's substantial volume of visual documentation.
This volume chronicles many of the speakers who highlighted the main conference tracks during GDC, part of the UBM Techweb Game Network (also this website's parent company), from inspiring creative manifestos to in-depth discipline-specific talks.
These include notables such as Blizzard's Rob Pardo and keynote speaker Sid Meier of Civilization fame, as well as last-minute secret speaker addition Will Wright (The Sims), and many more from the over 450 GDC speakers this year. An earlier roundup collected images from the Independent Games Festival Summit, Pavilion, and Awards.
Game Developers Conference 2010 Sessions
These pictures capture moments from a wide variety of talks, drawn from the considerable official GDC photo archive.


Firaxis design legend Sid Meier (Civilization, Pirates!) headlined this year's conference with his keynote "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)."

GDC Gallery: IGF Awards, Pavilion, Indie Games Summit, More...

March 16, 2010

Organizers of this year's Game Developers Conference and Independent Games Festival have been documenting the March 9th-13th San Francisco event in visual form, with the independent game-specific content at last week's show first to be examined.
The events -- part of the UBM Techweb Game Network, as are this website -- have put together a gallery of the Awards, Pavilion, Indie Games Summit, and more, highlighting this year's crop of top indies at work and play.
Independent Games Festival Awards
First, here's a look at pictures from the the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, where Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op caper Monaco was the big winner of the night, nabbing the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game in front of a crowd of over 3,000 GDC attendees.


The 2010 IGF hosts, Kyle Gabler (2D Boy) and Erin Robinson (Puzzle Bots)

igfbefore.jpg

IGF and Game Developers Choice Awards guests.

GDC Sees Record Attendance, Reveals 2011 Dates

March 15, 2010

Organizers of the 2010 Game Developers Conference, the world's largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, has announced an all-time record of 18,250 game industry professionals attending San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center for the March 9th-13th event.
Surpassing last year's total of 17,000 attendees, the event brought together experienced game developers, publishers, deal makers, industry aspirants and working press for more than 400 lectures, panels, summits, tutorials and roundtable discussions.
Offering a full five days of content, the event also hosted an extensive Exposition floor, featuring the biggest firms in the games space alongside the Career Pavilion and associated Game Career Seminar.
Also presented were the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival, the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, Game Connection America, and more opportunities for networking, discussing business, sharing knowledge, and meeting with equally-devoted fellow developers.
Following the success of the show, organizers of the Game Developers Conference have announced that GDC 2011 will return to the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco from Monday, February 28 to Friday, March 4, 2011, with a call for lecture submissions to open this Summer.

GDC 2010: The Announcements, The Top Talks

March 15, 2010

With Game Developers Conference 2010 now at an end, the event's sister editorial website Gamasutra.com has rounded up the top announcements - from Sony Move through OnLive's release specifics - and write-ups of the biggest talks into one handy news story.
The official GDC 2010 page on Gamasutra has more than 100 news stories on one of the biggest events of the gaming year, and Gamasutra is now highlighting the biggest product-related announcements of the show.
This will be followed by the site's pick of the top ten most intriguing write-ups from the more than 450 sessions on display at this year's GDC in San Francisco. Here's some of the top announcements and write-ups from last week's show, according to Gamasutra:
The Announcements
GDC: Sony's Motion Controller Is 'PlayStation Move'
"At GDC on Wednesday, Sony revealed more details about its PS3 motion controller, which isn't called Arc or Gem, but "PlayStation Move," a product Sony says will bring on 'the next generation of motion gaming.'"
GDC: OnLive Gets Launch Date, Reveals Initial Publishers
"Cloud-based game streaming service OnLive has announced an official U.S. launch date of June 17, 2010, including games from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment."
GDC: Microsoft Announces XNA Game Studio 4.0
"Microsoft has announced version 4.0 of its XNA Game Studio development package, which includes support for its new Windows Phone 7 Series, as well as enhancing features for Xbox 360 and PC game development."

GDC: Uncharted 2 Wins Big At 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards

March 11, 2010

Naughty Dog's critically-acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the big winner at the 10th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, presented at a ceremony this evening at UBM TechWeb Game Network's 2010 Game Developers Conference (GDC), receiving a total of five awards, including Best Writing and the coveted Game of the Year award.
Another major honoree, 5th Cell received the award for Best Handheld Game and the Innovation Award, for its creativity-fueled portable game, Scribblenauts. Zynga, creators of the wildly addictive and popular Facebook game, Farmville, received the honor for Best New Social/Online Game, marking the first winner for this inaugural category.
Other winners include Rocksteady Studios' dark and gritty adventure, Batman: Arkham Asylum, which won for Best Game Design. The Best Debut Game went to Runic Games' Torchlight. The Best Downloadable Game award went to thatgamecompany's Flower, marking the second such award for the developer, following their win in 2008 with fl0w.

GDC: Monaco Takes Grand Prize at 12th Annual IGF

March 11, 2010

Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op caper, Monaco, was the big winner at the Twelfth Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, which was hosted by the Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
Monaco received the top award at the ceremony, earning the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game, as well as the award for Excellence in Design.
Other IGF award recipients for 2010, as judged by over 170 industry veterans, independent developers and indie-friendly journalists, also include PlayDead's starkly beautiful silhouetted platformer, Limbo, which won the awards for Excellence in Visual Art and Technical Excellence. Closure Team's puzzle platformer, Closure, earned the award for Excellence in Audio.
Noted independent developer Cactus received the inaugural Nuovo Award for his abstract visual puzzle game, Tuning. The Nuovo Award honors "abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games."

Game Developers Choice, IGF Awards Partner With GameSpot, G4 For Coverage

March 3, 2010

Game Developers Choice and IGF Awards organizers have confirmed that next week's awards shows will be streamed live on GameSpot.com, with TV network G4 also present to capture highlights for a GDC special.
The major CBS-owned GameSpot.com website has set up a special Game Developers Conference 2010 landing page for its coverage, and will be exclusively live-streaming the awards, which take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 6:30 pm PT.
The ceremonies kick off with the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, this year presented by indie developers Kyle Gabler (World Of Goo) and Erin Robinson (Puzzle Bots), and honoring an outstanding set of finalists from the world of independent games.
With over $40,000 in awards given out, including the prestigious Seumas McNally Grand Prize, the Audience Award, and the 'art game'-centric Nuovo Award, as well as exclusive videos on indie games filmed by comedy troupe Mega64, the event should be a highlight of the awards calendar.
Following the conclusion of the IGF Awards, the live stream will showcase the Game Developers Choice Awards, now in its tenth year, and the leading mainstream game awards voted on by video game creators.

GDC 2010 Rounds Off Indie Coverage With Indie Fund Talk, Gamma, Nuovo Sessions

March 2, 2010

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have confirmed the final set of independent game-specific content, including Ron Carmel on the just-debuted Indie Fund, the Gamma IV party/showcase, and the EGW-replacing Nuovo Sessions game showcase.
The newly confirmed details round off a multitude of independent game-specific content at the March 9th-13th event, held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, including the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival -- featuring over 30 top indie games playable on the GDC Expo floor from Thursday 11th to Saturday 13th, as well as the major IGF Awards on Thursday 11th at 6.30pm.
In addition, the 4th Independent Games Summit on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th has added and clarified a number of sessions, with 2D Boy's Ron Carmel kicking off the event with 'Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked', now confirmed to discuss the new Indie Fund organization.
Another major new panel, 'Tripping The Art Fantastic', features Spelunky creator Derek Yu, Braid artist David Hellman and Super Meat Boy co-creator Edmund McMillen discussing "how each one of these figures influences the state of game art, from hand painted epics to short form experimental Flash games."

Borderlands, Mass Effect 2 Talks Showcased As GDC 2010 Deadline Nears

March 1, 2010

As Game Developers Conference 2010's online pre-registration nears its end, GDC organizers are highlighting talks on Borderlands, Mass Effect 2, and Unreal Engine 3's iPhone port, among others.
The conference, taking place from March 9th-13th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is closing its discounted pre-show registration at 1pm PT on Thursday, March 4th.
With nine notable Summits - spanning iPhone, social/online gaming, indie, GamesBeat@GDC and beyond -- and multiple tutorials on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th, followed by three days of Main Conference content from Thursday 11th through Saturday 13th, there are now more than 450 sessions in total.
The final set of highlighted sessions, including recently announced lectures and relatively unpublicized talks, include the following notables:
- In 'Where Did My Inventory Go? Refining Gameplay in Mass Effect 2', BioWare's lead gameplay designer Christina Norman "will discuss how a small vision shift lead to radical design changes in Mass Effect 2’s combat gameplay and RPG systems. Lessons learned will be presented, including the challenge of communicating gameplay changes to the existing player community."
- The audio track now includes a Rock Band Network postmortem, with Harmonix's Matthew Nordhaus and Caleb Epps discussing the creation of the still-in-Beta system which allows any musician to record and then sell their music in the Rock Band franchise, thanks to a complex user-created content pipeline.

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