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Organizers of this September's GDC Austin have announced a call for submissions for the first-ever Independent Games Summit there, also revealing the Advisory Board and topics to be discussed at the two-day Summit.
May 12th-13th saw the just concluded, successful first annual Game Developers Conference Canada, held at the new Vancouver Convention Center by Think Services in conjunction with Reboot Communications.
There was a general focus on higher-budget games for the first GDC Canada -- reflecting the output of many Vancouver-area developers like EA Canada, Relic Entertainment, Next Level Games, and Radical Entertainment, all of whom had representatives at the show.
2009 GDC Canada's relatively small size gave it an intimate feel, although the keynotes by Don Mattrick of Microsoft and Drs. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka of BioWare saw fully-packed rooms.
Think Services-owned editorial site Gamasutra had extensive session coverage from the two days of GDC Canada, including both keynote addresses - here's the highlights:
Microsoft's Mattrick Talks Distinctive Days, Pioneer Spirit
"In the first of GDC Canada's two keynotes, former Electronic Arts and current Microsoft executive Don Mattrick spoke with Victor Lucas about his history in the games industry, from Distinctive Software to Xbox. There was particular relevance to the assembled crowd -- after all, Mattrick can arguably credited with having sown the seeds for the now-thriving Vancouver-area game development scene."
BioWare Bosses Talk The Future Of Storytelling
"BioWare co-founders and medical doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk never have any shortage of things to say about interactive narrative, and that held true in the second GDC Canada keynote. The good doctors conveyed their studio's mentality towards game storytelling, from different player character perspectives to internal versus external narrative, to character archetypes."
GDC Austin organizers have announced an expanded Advisory Board for the 'connected gaming'-centric September event, adding Nexon, SOE and EA/Mythic notables to the filled-out board.
Game Developers Conference organizers have made free streaming video of two major GDC 2009 events, the Game Design Challenge and the inaugural Indie Game Maker Rant, available as part of the newly launched myGDC Vault service.
The myGDC Vault website allows GDC 2009 All-Access Pass holders to view hundreds of specially video-recorded sessions from this year's Game Developers Conference, with synchronized slides and easy one-click viewing.
In addition, organizers will be making select GDC lectures available for free to the general public, and the first set of GDC 2009 lectures are now available. These include the following talks:
- Game Design Challenge: My First Time
The popular Design Challenge series has spanned everything from an “inter-species game†to 2006's 'Nobel Peace Prize' challenge, won by Will Wright.
This year's Challenge saw Infocom veteran Steve Meretzky, Habbo lead designer Sulka Haro and last-minute substitutes Heather Kelley (Thief: Deadly Shadows) and Erin Robinson (Spooks) entertainingly twinning 'sex and autobiography' in their entertaining, warring game concepts for the theme 'My First Time'.
The second GDC China has opened up its call for submissions for panels, lectures, and tutorials, which remains open through May 22, 2009.
As previously announced, GDC China 2009 marks Think Services' return to the Chinese mainland; the event has the official sanction of Ministry of Culture of China.
The show itself will take place at the Shanghai International Convention Center from October 11 - 13, 2009. Its event director is Meggan Scavio, who serves the same role she does for the U.S.-based GDC, which took place last month in San Francisco.
For this year's recently concluded Game Developers Conference, Think Services' alt.gaming weblog, GameSetWatch, decided to try a little journalistic/interactive experiment.
They recruited Canadian author and game creator Jim Munroe, whom, as his Wikipedia page explains, is a former editor at Adbusters Magazine and a HarperCollins-published author ('Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask').
In the game field, he founded the Artsy Game Incubator project, and his poignant illustrated text adventure, 'Everybody Dies', took third place at IFComp last year and picked up a number of other media honors.
The organizers of Game Developers Conference Austin have started accepting submissions for the upcoming four-day trade show, to be held this September.
Proposals to present lectures, roundtables and full-day tutorials will be accepted for review by the GDC Austin advisory boards through Friday, May 8th.
Video game-oriented television network G4 will exclusively broadcast Game Developers Choice Awards highlights on U.S. television tonight at 6:30 and 8:00 PM ET.
The awards originally took place Wednesday, March 25 during Game Developers Conference 2009 in San Francisco.
G4's program X-Play, featuring host Adam Sessler -- and billed as "the most watched video game series on television" -- will air a half-hour highlights show of the proceedings beginning this evening.
The founding doctors of BioWare have been confirmed to deliver a keynote speech at the first Game Developers Conference Canada in Vancouver this may.
Dr. Gregory P. Zeschuk, BMSc, MD, MBA, Vice President, Entertainment and Miscellaneous, BioWare and Vice President, Electronic Arts, and Dr. Raymond A. Muzyka, BMSc, MD, CCFP, MBA, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, Electronic Arts, have titled their address "Emotionally Engaging Narrative: Gaming's New Frontier."
The talk will take place on the second day of GDC Canada, which runs May 12-13, 2009.
Edmonton, Canada-headquartered BioWare is known for its story-centered games; currently, it is known to be developing the single-player RPGs Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, and the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.
GDC Europe has appointed its advisory board, selecting industry execs, tech experts and consultants to ensure the event meets the needs of the European audience.
IGDA chair Bob Bates, a 23-year industry veteran, joins the board, and in addition to Stormfront Studios vet Don Daglow, Streamline Studio founder Alexander Fernandez is also participating.
The 2009 Game Developers Conference Canada, taking place from May 12th-13th in Vancouver, BC, has added a number of sessions featuring high-profile speakers from Electronic Arts, plus notable game writers Susan O'Connor and Marianne Krawczyk.
EA technical art director Richard Burgess-Dawson will present "Shooting in San Vanelona: the Visuals of EA's Skate," a talk for artists and visual engineers the paradigms, methods, challenges and tricks behind the visuals of EA's acclaimed skating title. Burgess-Dawson will explain how lighting, surfacing, geometry, post FX, shadows, streaming and particles contribute to the cohesion of the nine square-kilometer world.
Registration for the 2009 Game Developers Conference Europe is now open, organizers announced today.
The event takes place August 17 to 19 in Cologne, Germany. Registrations will be accepted until the second day of the conference, August 18. Discounts will be applied to those who sign up by July 29, said show caretaker Think Services.
The 2009 Game Developers Conference, held last week at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, saw attendance of more than 17,000.
That figure was released by conference organizer Think Services, which pointed to the results as indicative of the overall industry's fundamental strength.
"The success of this past week in San Francisco proves the resilience of the games industry," said event director Meggan Scavio. "It is a testament to the spirit of our more than 20 year old conference and community, and evidence of video games' continued evolution into a mainstream form of entertainment, that the various constituents of the industry were able come together at GDC as they did [last] year."
Bethesda Softworks' epic post-apocalyptic open-world adventure, Fallout 3, received the Game of the Year Award at the 9th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, presented at a ceremony this evening the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Bethesda also received the Best Writing award for the game.
Media Molecule's imaginative user creation-centric platform game LittleBigPlanet, which was first unveiled at GDC 2007, was the recipient of the most awards of the evening, taking four awards for Best Game Design, Best Technology, Best Debut Game and Innovation Award.
Other winners at the Tim Schafer-hosted event included Ubisoft's hauntingly beautiful update of the Prince of Persia franchise, which won the prize for Best Visual Arts, and Ready at Dawn's portable action-adventure, God of War: Chains of Olympus, winner of the Best Handheld Game award. EA Redwood Shores' shocking horror title, Dead Space, won the prize for Best Audio award.
Erik Svedang's Blueberry Garden, a charming exploration game set in an ever-changing ecosystem, received top honors - the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game - at the 2009 Independent Games Festival Awards.
The winners were announced this evening at the eleventh Annual IGF Awards ceremony, hosted by the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
The IGF awards are often referred to as the Sundance Festival of the video game industry, and offer both global exposure and over $50,000 in cash prizes to each year's winners.
Previous breakout IGF award-winners include titles such as Braid, Audiosurf, Castle Crashers, and World Of Goo, and this year's awards saw 226 Main Competition entries from all over the world - and over 450 entries in total.
