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The 2012 Game Developers Conference is about a month away, and the event's lineup is still rapidly growing. Today, show organizers have revealed a trio of new programming-focused talks, featuring Epic Games on data analysis, DeNA on server optimization, and Naughty Dog on the effects in Uncharted 3.

These talks fall within the show's Programming track, one of seven main tracks at the show's jam-packed Main Conference. Here, industry leaders will examine the newest challenges presented by next and current gen development, detailing strategies for working on consoles, mobile, the web, and beyond.

Like the rest of the Main Conference, the Programming track sessions will take place Wednesday, March 7 through Friday, March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Those interested in gaining access to all the notable sessions within the Main Conference can do so by registering for an All Access or Main Conference pass at the official GDC website.

Here are the newest talks to be featured in GDC 2012's Programming track:

- In "Gameplay Data Analysis: Asking the Right Questions," Epic Game's senior web developer Ian Thomas will provide an in-depth look at how the studio collects and analyzes data to inform and improve its development pipeline. Along the way, he will showcase examples from Gears of War 3 and Infinity Blade 2, demonstrating how Epic uses game data to manage scalability, make post-launch decisions, and more.

- Elsewhere, Yoshinori Matsunobu, principle infrastructure architect at Japanese mobile gaming giant DeNA, will host "Scaling and Stabilizing Large Server Side Infrastructure." Here, Matsunobu will pick apart the idiosyncrasies of managing and optimizing online game servers, offering insight on the latest technologies that can help developers improve server performance, streamline maintenance, reduce costs, and leverage cloud-based computing.

- Finally, Naughty Dog programmer Marshall Robin will detail the technologies and tools the team used to create the numerous particle effects in Uncharted 3. The talk, dubbed, "Effects Techniques Used in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception," will showcase the studio's data-driven system and node based shader editor, offering a detailed overview of the tool pipeline behind one of 2011's biggest console releases. In addition, Robin will provide some technical insight to lift the veil on how Naughty Dog gets the most out of its visually stunning console titles.

With the 2012 Game Developers Conference inching ever closer, show organizers are highlighting new talks within the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, featuring Halfbrick on Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, PopCap on Bejeweled Blitz, and Pocket Gems on post-release development.

These talks join an already jam-packed lineup for the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, which will feature sessions covering the latest and most influential practices in mobile development, spanning platforms from iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and more.

All eight of GDC 2012's specialized Summits will take place during the first two days of the show -- from Monday, March 5 through Tuesday, March 6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Those interested in checking out these Summits can do so by registering for an All-Access or Summits & Tutorials Pass on the official GDC website.

Here are some of the newest talks for the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit:

- In a postmortem-style presentation, Halfbrick chief creative officer Luke Muscat will examine the ever evolving efforts to update and maintain some of the studio's most popular titles. His talk, "Iterating Design and Fighting Fires: Updating Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride," will cover some of Halfbrick's key lessons learned from updating its hit mobile titles, with anecdotes covering patches that crippled performance to updates that benefited millions of players.

- Elsewhere, PopCap's franchise business director Giordano Bruno Contestabile will host, "Setting Bejeweled Blitz Free: Lessons Learned Moving From Premium to Freemium on iOS." Throughout his presentation, Contestabile will pick apart how PopCap turned Bejeweled Blitz into a free to play game, detailing the studio's primary challenges, the game's integration with iOS and Facebook, and the most important elements of cross-platform social gaming.

- In an effort to examine the importance of post-launch support, Pocket Gems co-founder Daniel Terry will offer a session titled, "Hit Reset: Release is Day One of Development Cycle." Drawing examples from his studio's own Tap Zoo and Tap Pet Hotel, Terry will explain how consistent, long-term development efforts can breathe new life into a given title, and help it maintain its success for weeks, or even months at a time.

While just a few hours remain before early registration ends for GDC 2012, show organizers have debuted major new talks featuring the making of Portal 2 and Saints Row: The Third.
Firstly, GDC organizers are reminding that early registration for the March show ends tonight, February 2nd at 11.59pm ET, so interested parties should act now to save up to 35 percent on full price passes.

The 2012 Game Developers Conference has announced a number of new highlights, track keynotes, and the all-new 'Flash Forward,' ahead of the February 2nd early deadline for pass registration.

Sessions this year for the March 5th-9th San Francisco show include a lecture from Heavy Rain creator David Cage from developer Quantic Dream. In "Virtual Actors and Emotion in Games," Cage will give the first public demo of the new technology his studio is using to create emotional resonance, as well as discuss practices for capturing actor performances.

Game design legends Cliff Bleszinski, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux and John Romero will come together for a discussion on the key games that have and continue to influence them in the panel "Forgotten Tales Remembered: The Games That Inspired Leading Innovators."

Naughty Dog Lead Game Designer Richard Lemarchand will return to host the popular "GDC Microtalks," a one-hour session featuring ten prominent speakers with a variety of points-of-view, this year each considering the theme "Playing for Time."

Details on these and all of the 400+ sessions at GDC 2012 can be found at the official GDC schedule page, with final talk times due later this week.

In addition, this year, the Main Conference content begins on Wednesday, March 7, at 9:00am with the GDC's first-ever "Flash Forward" session. The Flash Forward gives all Main Conference speakers the opportunity to grab attendees' attention by taking the stage for just sixty seconds each to give a brief overview of their session.

The Flash Forward will provide the opportunity to hear first-hand what will be discussed in sessions taking place Wednesday-Friday, and allow attendees to decide which talks best suit their interests. The Flash Forward is expected to be a fun, fast-paced, can't-miss event.

GDC is also introducing a new format for its keynote sessions. Rather than one central main conference keynote, GDC will feature six Track Keynotes, one for each discipline on which the main conference tracks focus, and featuring industry luminaries like Plants Vs. Zombies creator George Fan, ex-EA and current Zynga COO John Schappert, Bungie lead engineer and attendee-favorite GDC speaker Brian Sharp and more. The track keynotes are:

The organizers of the 2012 Game Developers Conference are highlighting this year's Audio Track, covering Supergiant's indie hit Bastion, Crytek's big-budget shooter Crysis 2, and GDC's ever-popular Demo Derby.

These talks all fall within the show's Audio track, just one of seven main tracks at the show's jam-packed Main Conference. Within this track, the industry's top audio professionals will share their knowledge and experience, offering lectures that span production tactics, technical innovations, aesthetic design, and much more.

The Audio track -- along with the rest of the Main Conference, will take place Wednesday, March 7 through Friday, March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

To gain access to all the notable sessions within the Main Conference, please register for an All Access or Main Conference pass at the official GDC website. In addition, if you are just interested in the Audio track, a specialized lower cost Audio pass is also available.

Here are the notable talks newly featured in GDC 2012's Audio track:

- Looking back on the success of the indie darling Bastion, Supergiant Games' audio director, Darren Korb, will host "Build That Wall: Creating the Audio for Bastion." During this session, Korb will demonstrate how he oversaw and coordinated the game's eclectic music, haunting vocal tracks, and even the its dynamic narration and sound effects, all on a very limited budget.

- Four years after hosting an audio-oriented talk on Crysis 1, Crytek returns to host a follow-up session, "Crysis of Audio II." Here, R&D audio engineer Thomas Wollenzin and co-audio director Florian Fuesslin will pick apart the technology and implementation strategies powering the audio of the studio's recent Crysis 2. Along the way, the pair will present numerous audio and video examples, detailing their audio production process and the pipeline that kept the team on track.

- Elsewhere, the Game Audio Network Guild will once again host its Demo Derby event, offering budding audio professionals a chance to get feedback from top developers working at Valve, Loot Drop, Sony, and more. This year, GDC will feature specialized events for music and sound design, and all active, registered members of the Game Audio Network Guild are welcome to submit demos for panel critique -- of course, all other attendees are more than welcome to attend the session.

With the 2012 Game Developers Conference just over a month away, its organizers have announced an exciting opportunity to win an All-Access pass to the San Francisco show, revealing a continued onsite partnership with the game artist, marketing, and production group iam8bit for live-drawing of wacky game concepts.

This year, GDC will once again partner with the independent artist group iam8bit (creators of last year's 'Painting With Pixels' art exhibit) to bring a similarly inspirational and syntactical activity to the show.

In its own area on the second floor of Moscone West, iam8bit will host the "Super Magnetic Game-O-Matic" from Monday, March 5th to Friday, March 9th. In this area, GDC attendees will be able to use hundreds of oversized (and magnetic) words to pitch their next great concept for a video game.

Throughout the show, notable industry artists will take a few minutes to sketch their interpretations of some of the most interesting game concepts onto screens. In addition, show attendees will also be able to turn up to draw their own art on screens or paper, alongside the featured artist. (Schedules featuring the featured artists will be posted in the near future.)

GDC organizers encourage everyone to participate in this "social experiment of totally random proportions," since what happens during the event is completely up to the GDC community -- there's no way of telling what everyone will come up with! For more information on the Super Magnetic Game-O-Matic, please check out the event's official page on the GDC 2012 website.

As for the new contest, it hinges on getting creative with GDC 2012's brand-new set of game industry lingo magnets, which have already been mailed to a number of past event attendees. If you've never attended Game Developers Conference or haven't received a set of your own, don't despair, as anyone is welcome to participate.

Using either the physical magnet set or the PDF available online, you must arrange your words into the most creative game industry-related phrase, poem, haiku, or statement you can come up with. After doing so, please post a photo or screenshot of your creation on Twitter with the hashtag #GDC2012.

The 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), the peer-awarded highest honors in video game development, have revealed the recipients of two of its Special Awards -- the Pioneer Award, given to developers for creating breakthrough video game genres or concepts, and the Ambassador Award, given to those who have helped the game industry advance to a better place.
This year's Pioneer Award will be given to Dave Theurer, one of Atari Inc.'s legendary arcade game designers from the 1980s. Theurer created classic titles such as Missile Command, Tempest, and I, Robot, which helped create modern game genres and define the early days of gaming.
The Ambassador Award will celebrate Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, the First Amendment lawyers in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown, et al., v. Entertainment Merchants Association, et al., for their support and their fight for game developer rights.
Given away at Game Developers Conference every year as part of the Game Developers Choice Awards, the Pioneer Award celebrates individuals responsible for developing a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the many developers who followed them.
This year's honoree, Dave Theurer, began his trailblazing career in the video game world in 1980 with the release of Missile Command, a seminal trackball-based shooter that was a milestone in early computer games.
Following on from this in 1981, Theurer created the iconic, vector-based tube shooter release Tempest, the original psychedelic shooter, which inspired a slew of other innovations in arcade video games and was an early title to use 3D perspective in gameplay.
As his final title in the game industry before moving to a successful career in enterprise software, Theurer then designed cult, groundbreaking arcade title I, Robot. This 1983 arcade game, not commercially successful at the time, is legendary for being the first commercial video game with filled 3D polygon graphics, as well as being the first video game to feature camera control options -- and was years or even decades ahead of its time.
"It's very difficult to find a game developer who doesn't have a single memory of Missile Command or his other classic, Tempest," said Meggan Scavio, general manager of the Game Developers Conference. "We're delighted to honor Dave Theurer for his work as a designer which resulted in shaping so many developers' creative drive in the genre."
Also being honored at the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards are the recipients of the Ambassador Award, which recognizes individuals who have helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be advocates for video games to help further the art form.
This year, the Choice Awards Advisory Committee voted the First Amendment lawyers in the historic U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. EMA as recipients of the Ambassador Award. Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith led the legal team that convinced the Court that content-based restrictions on games are unconstitutional. The landmark ruling established First Amendment rights for those who create, develop, publish and sell video games, and is incredibly important to the past, present and future of video games as a creative medium.