Name: Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025
Start: 2025-03-17T15:00Z
End: 2025-03-22T00:00Z
Location: Moscone Center

GDC Online Speaker Spotlight: BioWare's Levy Talks Dragon Age: Legends

October 7, 2011

BioWare San Francisco producer Ethan Levy recently looked back on the Google+ and Facebook-based Dragon Age Legends, noting that brand recognition, core-focused gameplay, and some key marketing tactics helped the game find a dedicated audience on social platforms.

The game launched this March alongside Dragon Age II, and serves as a turn-based spinoff of the mainline Dragon Age series. As of this writing, Dragon Age Legends sees more than 220,000 monthly active users, according to AppData.

Levy played a key role in the game's creation from day one, and in fact was the first employee to join the BioWare San Francisco studio (formerly known as EA2D). Previously, he served as lead producer on the game's predecessor, Flash game Dragon Age Journeys, and has experience working at casual game poublishers like PlayFirst and iWin.

At next week's GDC Online in Austin, Texas, Levy will host a metrics-heavy talk titled, "Dragon Age Legends' Road to 100k Likes," which will go over the successes and lessons learned for the game's pre and post launch marketing strategy.

In this interview, Levy speaks out on some of the other key factors that contributed to Dragon Age Legends' success, and discusses the ways in which social games can reach out to core players.

What factors do you think most contributed to Dragon Age Legends' success?

I would cite two key factors in contributing to Dragon Age Legends' success. The first is being tied to a big brand in Dragon Age, and having strong support from the core franchise owners in BioWare's Edmonton studio. Being closely tied to the HD game's release and having custom items players could earn in Dragon Age II by playing Dragon Age Legends was a key part of our early momentum, and being part of the Dragon Age brand meant we received a lot more notice from fans and press then if we were just some startup releasing "Dragon Puncher" on Facebook.

The second factor I would cite is the game's core gameplay loop. At the time we released Legends, and still to this date, few social network games feature what a core gamer would recognize as gameplay. Many social network games more closely resemble activities or addiction machines in the eyes of gamers. By having a strong gameplay loop with fun and meaningful combat, we were able to create a game that was accepted by BioWare and Dragon Age fans as authentic.

What were some of the marketing tactics you employed for Dragon Age Legends? Which ones did you find most useful?

Pre-launch, we employed some tried and true tactics from the console marketing world. This included press releases, a cinematic trailer, a closed beta program with beta key programs on major enthusiast outlets, email marketing and cross promotion with other EA games and communication channels.

Of these, we were especially happy with the results of the closed beta program, which helped drive a lot of excitement and awareness of Legends. The cross-promotional and email marketing efforts driven by EA's Play4Free publishing group have also been a bright spot for Legends, as they have allowed us to derive a lot of value from EA's existing player base.

Reminder: GDC Online Offers Free Expo Passes To Students, Professionals

October 7, 2011

With the Austin-based GDC Online just days away, event organizers have issued a reminder that the show is offering free Expo Passes to students as well as professionals and job seekers in the games and tech industries.

This offer comes as part of GDC Online's new outreach programs to the local Austin and Texas community, whether it be to larger tech companies in Austin and elsewhere, or local students interested in getting into the video game industry.

These programs are open to students and game & tech professionals/jobseekers, respectively, and interested parties can apply online via the Student Outreach and Games & Tech pages on the official GDC website.

For those interested in applying for a free GDC Online Expo Pass, here are some of the notable events you will be able check out at the show:

- Perhaps most significantly, Expo Pass holders gain access to GDC Online's Expo Floor on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 11th and 12th, which will host a number of the most influential companies from all realms of the industry.

The Expo Floor is a great place to make new connections and learn more about the latest tools and techniques used in game development. For a full list of Expo Floor exhibitors, check out the official GDC Online website.

- Expo Pass holders can also visit the Expo Networking Lounge -- located on the show floor itself -- or attend the GDC Online Opening Party and the GDC Online Happy Hour, all of which are great opportunities to rub elbows with indies, social game devs, and traditional game developers.

GDC Online Reveals Sims Social, Ankama Talks, Reminds On Deadline

October 6, 2011

With less than a week to go before GDC Online, show organizers added a talk for the breakout Sims Social from EA, also highlighting Dofus creator Ankama and one day to go until the pre-show registration deadline.

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

Show organizers would also like to point out that attendees can save up to 25 percent on a show pass by pre-registering before midnight EDT on October 7. In addition, students and industry professionals can receive free Expo Passes to the show through GDC Online's Student Outreach and Games & Tech programs.

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

- As part of the GDC Virtual Items Summit, EA Playfish executive producer Tom Mapham will host, "The Sims Social: Deepening Interaction with the World's Most Unpredictable Social Game." Here, he will discuss the game's highly-engaged user base, and will outline the monetization techniques and design decisions that helped encourage early adoption.

- In the Main Conference's Customer Experience track, David Calvo of Ankama will discuss key transmedia strategies in, "Chaos in Motion: Transmedia as a Living Community Experience." Using examples from Ankama's own transmedia properties like Wakfu and Dofus, Calvo will point to the company's successes and lessons learned, noting the importance of entertainment that extends beyond video games.

- Finally, new details on the sponsored "Building Iconic Online Games Tutorial Day" from GameSpy have been revealed. The event will open with a preview of Warm Gun from Emotional Robots and Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave from Trendy Entertainment, both of which use GameSpy Technologies for their online features on smartphones.

Following the event's opening session is a talk with author Ernest Cline on his new novel, Ready Player One, which is set within the an MMO and provides a unique perspective on the structure and implications of online entertainment.

GDC China 2011 Debuts Square Enix, Kabam, HTML5 Sessions

October 5, 2011

This week, GDC China has debuted new batch of lectures for the show's Main Conference, featuring Square Enix CTO Julien Merceron on tech development for major publishers, Kabam on blending MMOs and social games, and a notable panel on the future of HTML5.

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's Main Conference will feature three primary tracks, covering Online Game Development & Business, Global Game Development, and Social Games.

Here are the latest talks to be revealed for the upcoming show:

- In the Global Development track session, "Designing a Technology Strategy for a Large Publisher," Square Enix (Final Fantasy, Deus Ex) worldwide technology director Julien Merceron will examine the ins and outs of technology development at a large publisher.

Drawing from his experience working at companies such as Ubisoft and Eidos, Merceron will look at the ways in which technology impacts major publishing strategies, and will call attention to the web and mobile trends developers should keep an eye on.

- Elsewhere, in the Social Games track, Kabam's Andrew Sheppard (Dragons Of Atlantis) will host a talk dubbed "Creating MMOs for Social Platforms." Here, he will explain how Kabam strives to combine MMO gameplay with the interaction models found in social games, offering insight into the company's overall strategy for the social market.

GDC 2012 Bosslady Blog: The State Of (Lecture) Submissions

October 4, 2011

[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'.

GDC Online Debuts Bissell, Broken Sword, Co-Op Talks In Game Narrative Summit

October 4, 2011

With GDC Online just a week away, show organizers have debuted several new lectures in the show's Game Narrative Summit, featuring talks on the 10 commandments of game writing, top industry reporters on innovation in interactive storytelling, tips on writing co-op campaigns, and much more.

Now in its sixth year, the Game Narrative Summit will return to the Austin-based conference with a broad range of sessions on the art of game writing, with lectures from experienced writers, panels with industry professionals, and in-depth interactive workshops for developers of all skill levels.

The Game Narrative Summit will run alongside GDC Online's Main Conference for the first two days of the four-day conference, from Monday, October 11 through Tuesday, October 12 at the Austin Convention Center.

Here are the latest sessions to be announced for the Game Narrative Summit:

- In "The Ten Commandments of Good Video-game Storytelling," Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, and Immaterial co-founder and consultant Rob Auten will go over the key principals for effective game writing, all modeled on the biblical ten commandments.

- Elsewhere, Carbine Studios senior writer Cory Herndon will host "TweetQuest: Telling Stories in 140-Character Chunks," which will outline how Carbine's upcoming MMO WildStar uses art, design, audio, and a 140 character text limit to convey key story details to the player.

- In "Microtalks: 6 Critics' Views on Great Gamewriting," six top games reporters will talk about what they look for in game narratives, and where they anticipate innovation in the future. Speakers include Hit Detection's N'Gai Croal, CBS Interactive's John Davison, Gamasutra's own Leigh Alexander, among others.

- Broken Sword creator and Revolution Software co-founder Charles Cecil will host a session dubbed "Blurring Fact and Fiction: Adventures in Writing Games that Draw on Historical Themes," in which he will examine how writers can draw from historical events to create interesting stories and gameplay opportunities.

GDC Speaker Spotlight: Telltale's Dave Grossman On Authorial Control

September 30, 2011

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.

GDC 2012 Announces Two New Summits, Opens Call For Submissions

September 29, 2011

GDC 2012 organizers have opened the call for submissions through October 31 for the show's specialized Summits, revealing new Games For Change and Game IT Summits for the March 2012 event.

These Summits will kick-off Game Developers Conference 2012 during the first two days of the conference -- which runs March 5th-9th, 2012 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Summit events will cover pertinent topics in emerging sectors of the games industry, particularly focusing on broadening the scope of the medium to encompass new audiences, new platforms, and of course new gameplay ideas.

This year, GDC will add two brand new events to the existing lineup for the March 5th-6th Summits: the Games for Change @ GDC Summit and the Game IT Summit.

Games for Change @ GDC is an event hosted in partnership with the Games for Change non-profit organization, which facilitates the creation and distribution of games that exist for humanitarian or educational purposes.

This new GDC event, which complements the annual Games for Change Festival in New York, will allow funders, educators, governmental agencies, and other organizations to interact with indie and commercial game developers to help leverage interactive entertainment for social good.

The latter Game IT Summit is a daylong event, curated by notables such as Jane McGonigal, Ian Bogost and Ben Sawyer, that explores how video games can be used to tackle common organizational goals, encouraging discussions about the link between games and the technology-oriented practices used by today's forward-thinking organizations.

"The introduction of the Game IT Summit and the Games for Change @ GDC demonstrates how the Game Developers Conference continues to offer attendees a unique opportunity to participate in diverse conversations that will shape the technology landscape for years to come," said Meggan Scavio, event director.

GDC Online Reveals New Combat Arms, Firefall, Playdom, Rift Sessions

September 28, 2011

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.

IGF China 2011 Announces Main Competition, Student Finalists

September 27, 2011

The Independent Games Festival China has announced the Main Competition and Student finalists for its third annual awards ceremony celebrating the most innovative indie and student games from throughout the Pan-Pacific area.

This year, the finalists offer an extremely broad range of game types and genres, from action brawlers like Pixel May Cry to mobile arcade titles like Super Sheep Tap, with developers hailing from throughout China and its surrounding regions.

Drawing from a prize pool totaling 45,000 RMB (roughly $7,000), IGF China's Main Competition will give away five distinguished awards, covering Excellence in Audio, Technology, and Visual Arts, as well as the Best Mobile Game and Best Game awards. In addition to the prestige and prizes, winners will also receive two All-Access Passes for the upcoming GDC 2012 in San Francisco.

Alongside IGF China's Main Competition, the ceremony will also host the Student Competition, which honors six of the top regional student games, with teams hailing from DigiPen Singapore, the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, and more.

This part of the competition includes two awards -- for Best Student Game and Excellent Student Winners -- and offers roughly 13,000 RMB (roughly $2,000) in cash prizes.

Winners in both competitions will be chosen by a panel of expert jurors including Kevin Li (CEO, TipCat Interactive), Monte Singman (CEO, Radiance Digital Entertainment), Xubo Yang (director of digital art lab and assistant professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Software), Haipeng Yu (producer, Tencent Shanghai), and jury chairman Simon Carless, IGF Chairman Emeritus and EVP of the GDC shows and Gamasutra.

This year's IGF China will take place on November 12, 2011 alongside GDC China, which will be held at the Shanghai Convention Center in Shanghai, China.

Here are the finalists for this year's IGF China:

Main Competition

Billy Makin Kid!, by SLAB Games, Indonesia [Website, Video]

Clay's Reverie, by SuperGlueStudio, China [Video]

FTL (Faster than Light), by Matthew Davis & Justin Ma, China [Website]

One Tap Hero, by Coconut Island Studio, China [Video]

Pixel May Cry, by Feng Li, China [Video]

Pocket Warriors, by WitOne Games, China [Website, Video]

Super Sheep Tap, by aBit Games, China [Website, Video]

The Line HD, by Ant Hive Games, China [Website, Video]

GDC Online 2011 Reveals Game Career Seminar Sessions

September 26, 2011

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.

GDC Online Speaker Spotlight: BioWare's Zoeller On Iterative MMO Content

September 23, 2011

In the latest in a series of interviews with notable speakers from this October's GDC Online, BioWare Austin's Georg Zoeller speaks out on the processes and tools his team uses to generate and tune MMO content in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Originally hailing from Germany, Zoeller moved to Edmonton to join BioWare in 2003, and has since held a number of positions at the company, working on titles such as Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins. In 2009, Zoeller moved to BioWare Austin to serve as principal designer on The Old Republic.

Here, Zoeller provides an in-depth look at the BioWare's production processes in anticipation of his talk, "Rapid MMO Content Iteration and Validation with Spatial Analysis in Star Wars: The Old Republic," which will outline the various techniques the studio uses to test and validate the game's content.

What would you say are the biggest challenges facing MMO content generation?

Achieving the required -- and expected -- volume of content without compromising quality. MMO players are pretty unforgiving when it comes to quality - you usually get one shot to get it right. Your launch sets the trajectory of where your game is headed and quality of content, even more than quantity is a major contributing factor to success of failure.

Content wise, these games are insanely large undertakings. For example, in Star Wars: The Old Republic, the Planet Alderaan, which is one of 17 planets in the game, holds more creatures than the entirety of Dragon Age: Origins, a game offering 60-80 hours in a single playthrough that took us almost than 5 years to create.

We have thousands of differently voiced characters in the game, all with dialogs and quests that not only need to be written, recorded, staged, scripted and animated, but also tested and validated -- the most engaging quest isn't going to keep a player around if it fails to work.

In order to make the creation and validation of that much content manageable, you not only need more people, you also need to be a lot smarter in your workflows and tools.

GDC China Reveals Mobile Talks On Doodle Jump, Gamevil, Fruit Ninja

September 22, 2011

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.

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.

GDC Online Adds Playdom, City Of Heroes, Cloud Gaming Talks

September 20, 2011

GDC Online has debuted several new sessions within the show's Main Conference, featuring Playdom's Raph Koster on the convergence of games and social media, NCsoft West on making City of Heroes free-to-play, and a panel of notable speakers on the future of cloud gaming.

Taking place Monday, October 10 through Thursday, October 13, 2011 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas, GDC Online continues as the leading worldwide event dedicated solely to discussing the development and business trends surrounding connected games -- including casual titles, MMOs, virtual worlds, and social networking games.

This year's Main Conference will include tracks on Business & Marketing, Customer Experience, Design, Production, and Programming, as well as a sponsored track on Monetization.

As seen in the event's Schedule Builder, the following lectures are highlights from this year's Main Conference:

- In the Customer Experience track, Playdom's VP of creative design, Raph Koster, will host a lecture dubbed, "It's All Games Now! How Games and Social Media are Converging." Here, Koster will outline the "cross-pollination" between games and online services, explaining what this means for game developers and the future of connected gaming experiences.

- Also in the Customer Experience track, NCsoft's Ross Borden details how the studio turned the subscription-based City of Heroes into a free-to-play game in, "From Spark to Success: How Customer Influence Revolutionized City of Heroes." Along the way, Borden will detail the design and technical challenges involved with introducing a brand new business model to an existing online game.

GDC Vault Adds Free Jon Blow, Douglas Wilson, Zombie Lane Talks

September 19, 2011

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.

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