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[In her Bosslady Blog update for the 2012 cycle, Game Developers Conference events GM Meggan Scavio details the extent of the Advisory Board's work honing next March's Main Conference lectures.]

Although you may think there's a few months to go before GDC 2012, we're already well underway in working to hone lectures for the show. Here's what happened so far...

Three weeks ago, the Game Developers Conference 2012 Main Conference call for submissions came to a close. By midnight, September 6, a grand total of 722 session proposals were in the system.

During the following two weeks, multiple members of the main GDC advisory board, including almost 20 notables like Clint Hocking (Far Cry 2), Soren Johnson (Civilization IV), Mark Cerny (Marble Madness), and a host of other discipline-specific experts reviewed, commented on and rated each of these submissions.

Along the way, the board members read the abstract, and looked at the attendee evaluation history of each speaker (The GDC keeps all speaker ratings and attendee comments dating back to GDC 2000, and uses them to vet speakers). They also reviewed the supporting material that was uploaded with the submission (slides, videos, PDFs, audio files, all stored thanks to the new GDC submission and rating tool we've created this year). And they followed the URLs provided and used their extensive industry knowledge and online information to evaluate each submission.

Then last week, the 20+ board members all flew into the San Francisco Bay Area and gathered at a hotel for three days to select the submissions that would move forward. During two full day meetings, each track (Audio; Business, Marketing & Management; Game Design; Production; Programming; Visual Arts) met independently to discuss the submissions within their track.

The submissions were sorted by average board member rating in descending order, and discussed one by one starting from top rated. It's here that the track members determined which submissions would move on to what we call 'Phase Two'.

Telltale Games' director of design and adventure game veteran Dave Grossman recently shared his thoughts on player choice in game design, noting that designers need to strike a balance between complete player autonomy and complete authorial control.

Grossman has more than 22 years of experience writing, designing, and directing story-centric games, including classic LucasArts titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, and is well-practiced in telling stories through games.

At next month's GDC Online, Grossman will host a lecture in the Game Narrative Summit dubbed, "The Hand of Fate: Authorial Voice in Game Design," in which he will discuss the relationship between the developer and player when crafting interactive stories.

In anticipation of his talk, Grossman spoke out on the importance of balancing player freedom and creative control, and what implications this balance can have on game design.

What sort of tactics to you use to convey a story when players have control over the pacing and flow of a game experience?

Dave Grossman: Writers in other media use pacing and sequence of events to great effect, and it can be kind of disorienting to work in games, where a lot of control over those things is given to the player. Fortunately, there are plenty of other tools one can apply to create drama, tension, and story, including things you'd find in film like sound design, lighting, and camera work, and some elements that are particular to games, like play mechanics and the overall structure of challenge and reward.

Also, it's worth noting that players don't generally have absolute control over pacing and flow -- the game can exert influence on those as well, maybe a little, maybe a lot, and how a designer arranges that is part of what I mean when I'm talking about authorial voice.

How do you balance the control of the authorial voice with player autonomy?

DG: Carefully, I hope. We're talking about interactive media, so both the author and the player (or players) need to take control of some aspects of the experience. The challenge for the designer is to figure out which things to control strongly, and which not to. Some of the tools available are inherently subtle, some are not, but all are useful in various contexts.

The balance is probably not unlike being a parent, where you typically want to establish some clear rules, provide opportunities and context, and intervene where necessary, but if you try to manage your child's actions too closely, you'll both go nuts.

With GDC Online just around the corner, event organizers have debuted eight new lectures for the October show, with session topics ranging from monetization strategies in Firefall and Combat Arms, to breaking into Asian mobile markets, to the capabilities of Sony's PlayStation Vita.

GDC Online will take place next month, from October 10 through October 13 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas, and these talks come from throughout GDC Online's numerous tracks and Summits, with nearly 150 sessions and 230 speakers on tap.

Many of these new talks fall within the show's Main Conference, which features tracks covering Business & Marketing, Customer Experience, Design, Production, and Programming, as well as a sponsored track on Monetization.

The show also includes three dedicated Summits, which offer specialized talks covering Smartphone & Tablet Games, Virtual Items, and Game Narrative.

Here are the newest sessions to be revealed for the show:

- In the GDC Virtual Items Summit, Mark Kern (Blizzard veteran and founder and CEO of Red 5 Studios) will host "Firefall - Free2Play Reborn," a session that examines the monetization techniques Kern's studio will use for its upcoming persistent online shooter (pictured).

- Another lecture in the GDC Virtual Items Summit, "Combat Arms Postmortem: The Art of Selling Guns," will feature Nexon America managing producer Jungsoo Lee, as he explains how the company completely re-vamped the monetization model for its popular shooter Combat Arms when bringing the title to the U.S.

- As part of the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, a panel of family-focused industry experts will host, "Kids, Tablets and Family: Social Gameplay at Home," which will look at the ways in which tablets and other mobile devices are changing the ways families play and enjoy media together.

- The Business & Marketing track will feature "Rift: Surviving and Thriving in Today's MMO Climate," in which Trion Worlds executive producer Scott Hartsman will look back on the studio's experience with Rift to offer tips on creating a successful MMO in today's competitive market.

With just two weeks to go until GDC Online, event organizers have detailed the show's Game Career Seminar, a one day event targeted at students, graduates, and other individuals looking to build a career in the games industry.

Taking place Wednesday, October 12, the Game Career Seminar will allow attendees to network with industry professionals, and listen to HR representatives and top developers as they share their insights on what it takes to break into the games business.

This seminar will run as its own dedicated track alongside the Main Conference tracks at the show, which cover Business & Marketing, Customer Experience, Design, Production, and Programming, as well as a sponsored track on Monetization.

Unlike the other tracks at GDC Online, the Game Career Seminar is open to those who purchase the special one day reduced-price Game Career Seminar Pass, as well as All-Access Pass holders. Those who purchase Game Career Seminar passes will also gain access to a keynote from PopCap co-founder John Vechey. To register for a GDC Online pass, please visit the official GDC Online website.

Here are the all the sessions to be announced so far for GDC Online's Game Career Seminar:

- As game education programs become more prevalent, it's important that students understand the challenges and requirements these programs present. In "Surviving an Education at a Game School and Graduating Employable," the Academy of Interactive Entertainment's Christopher Erhardt will go over the essential facts on game education programs, covering the pros and cons of online versus brick-and-mortar classes, what employers look for in graduates, and more.

- As with most professional careers, creating a good resume is key to nailing your dream job in the games industry, and Obsidian Entertainment's Jim Rivers will offer some useful tips and guidelines in, "What to Do Right on a Resume, Cover Letter and Website." Rivers serves as Obsidian's hiring manager -- effectively making him one of the gatekeepers for new developers in the industry -- and he will use his expertise to help attendees improve their resumes, cover letters, and websites.

This week, GDC China has debuted new talks within its Mobile Games Summit, featuring an in-depth look at Lima Sky's Doodle Jump, a breakdown of Gamevil's strategy for global success, and a glimpse at Halfbrick's plans to develop the Fruit Ninja IP.

Taking place November 12-14 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center in Shanghai, China, the event will once again serve as the premier game industry event in China, bringing together influential developers from around the world to share ideas, network, and inspire each other to further the game industry in this region.

This year, the show will feature two Summits in addition to the Main Conference, covering Independent Games and Mobile Games.

The following are the latest lectures to be announced for GDC China's Mobile Games Summit:

- Igor Puisenjak, creator of the iOS smash hit Doodle Jump, will offer an in-depth look at the game's development and success in, "Doodle Jump - the Story Behind the Legend."

Puisenjak will explain how he and his team at Lima Sky have used frequent updates, direct player communication, and a number of social networking tools to keep this arcade platformer near the top of the App Store charts.

- Elsewhere, Brian Oh of Korean mobile game publisher Gamevil (Air Penguin, Zenonia) will host a talk dubbed, " Sharing with Developers the Vision and Ideas to Achieve a Successful Global Mobile Game," in which he will address the company's approach to global game distribution. Oh will detail how Gamevil works with its developers to share ideas and ensure that each product can succeed in Korea as well as other global markets.

The GDC Vault service has debuted its second group of free lectures from last month's GDC Europe, this time featuring Douglas Wilson on intentionally broken games, Digital Chocolate on Zombie Lane, and Braid creator Jonathan Blow on truth in game design.

In addition to these and other videos, slides for all of GDC Europe's sessions are now available for free, providing a glimpse into the wide range of notable topics discussed at the show.

GDC Vault also hosts videos from previous conferences, including the classic postmortem series from GDC 2011, and other recently-debuted free videos such as this trio of strategy game lectures from some of the industry's top developers.

The following are the newest free videos to make their debut on GDC Vault:

- As part of the show's Independent Games Summit, Copenhagen Game Collective co-founder Douglas Wilson hosted a lecture titled, "Intentionally Broken Game Design and the Art of 'Deputizing' Players," exploring how "incomplete" games can still be successful. Drawing from his experience working on the IGF finalist B.U.T.T.O.N. and titles like Johann Sebastian Joust, Wilson explains how games can encourage players to improvise their own rules.

- In the Social Games Summit, Digital Chocolate's Rob Unsworth provided an in-depth look at the development of the studio's hit Facebook title Zombie Lane. The session, dubbed, "The Evolution of Zombie Lane - How to Successfully Develop a Casual Social Game with a Hardcore theme," examines the studio's "rigorous end-user focused creative process," and how it helped the team create a game that appealed to seasoned and novice gamers alike.

GDC Online 2011 organizers have announced that renowned writer Neal Stephenson will keynote the October show's Game Narrative Summit, where he will take part in an on-stage Q&A with game journalist Geoff Keighley.

The keynote, titled "Music, Movies, Microcode, & High-Speed Pizza Delivery: A Conversation with Neal Stephenson," will delve into a host of writing and game-related of topics, including Stephenson's new novel REAMDE, which is set against the backdrop of the game industry. In addition to the keynote, Stephenson will host a special book signing elsewhere in the show (location and time to be determined).

Stephenson's previous work includes novels such as Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Zodiac, the three-volume The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) and Snow Crash, which was TIME Magazine's named one of the 100 all-time best English-language novels. He is known for exploring and redefining genres ranging from cyberpunk to the historical epic.

Keighley, who will host the Q&A, has spent more than half his life covering the video game business as a journalist, TV personality, and producer. Currently, he serves as host and executive producer of Spike TV's Gametrailers TV, which is consistently the highest rated video games show on television. Keighley is also a freelance writer, whose work has appeared in publications such as Kotaku, Business 2.0, and Entertainment Weekly.

This keynote will take place within GDC Online's ever-popular Game Narrative Summit, which includes numerous lectures, panels, and more from some of the industry's most respected professionals -- featuring speakers from Valve, BioWare Austin, Telltale Games, and more. In addition to the Game Narrative Summit, GDC Online will feature two additional Summits covering Smartphone & Tablet Games and Virtual Items, respectively.