Latest News

This week, GDC 2012 has revealed three notable Main Conference sessions, featuring Valve on dynamic dialog systems, Double Fine on kid-friendly design, and Rocksteady on the soundtrack for Batman: Arkham City.

The 26th GDC show will take place Monday, March 5 through Friday, March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and the Main Conference (March 7th-9th) offers six tracks covering key disciplines in the games industry, including Audio, Business, Marketing & Management, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts.

The following lectures are the newest highlights for GDC 2012's Main Conference:

- In the Programming track, Valve's Elan Ruskin will break down the process the studio uses to create dynamic and responsive dialog systems in games like Left 4 Dead. The talk, dubbed, "AI-driven Dynamic Dialog through Fuzzy Pattern Matching. Empower Your Writers!", will delve into the mechanisms used to track thousands of possible scenarios and ensure that in-game characters always react appropriately.

Ruskin will also detail how this system allows writers to easily edit and add new lines of dialog without putting a heavy burden on the studio's programmers.

- Over in the Design track, Double Fine project lead Nathan Martz will host "Fun for Everyone: Lessons in Accessible Design from Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster." Looking back on the studio's recent Kinect-based children's game, Martz will explore how to best introduce mechanics and teach players about a game, even if it's the first one they've ever played.

- Finally, the Audio track will feature a Rocksteady-led lecture on composing the score for the studio's highly-acclaimed Batman sequel. In the talk, "Composition Process in Batman: Arkham City," audio director and composer Nick Arundel will offer some tips for composing a score that remains cohesive and fresh, even over the course of a 20 hour game. In addition, Arundel will look beyond Arkham City to examine whether formal musical development has a place within the game industry at large.

In addition to the above sessions, GDC organizers recently added new Main Conference talks covering the visual effects in Gears of War 3, a breakdown of our psychological need to play, and Ninja Theory's approach to motion capture. Show organizers have also announced new Summit talks featuring a look at the localization of StarCraft II, a talk from Triple Town creator Daniel Cook, and a series of mini AI lectures.

GDC 2012 organizers have announced a trio of new Summit talks for the upcoming show, examining the localization of StarCraft II, new online game genres, and the AI in titles like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, The Darkness II, and Skulls of the Shogun.

The GDC Summits will take place Monday, March 5 through Tuesday, March 6, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and will offer specialized looks into emerging or otherwise influential sectors of the games industry.

The latest sessions and lectures to be featured at the GDC 2012 Summits include the following:

- As a lead talk in the Localization Summit, Blizzard's senior manager of platform services, William Barnes, will host "StarCraft II - Carte Blanche Localization," offering a detailed overview of how Blizzard brought its newest RTS to a global audience.

Barnes will point to a number of anecdotes from "the amazing roller coaster ride that was the localization of StarCraft II" (pictured) to explain why comprehensive localization went a long way toward helping the game achieve worldwide success.

- Over in the packed multi-track Social & Online Games Summit, Triple Town co-creator Daniel Cook of Panda Poet developer Spry Fox will provocatively detail what it takes to carve out a new genre with an online game.

The talk, dubbed "Create New Genres (and Stop Wasting Your Life in the Clone Factories)," will encourage developers to seek out new and unexplored realms of persistent online game design, while simultaneously offering advice to protect new ideas from copycats and 'fast followers'.

- Finally, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit has announced its first sessions, starting with "AI Postmortems: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, The Darkness II and Skulls of the Shogun" -- featuring a trio of industry veterans as they reflect on the challenges and lessons learned during the development of three soon-to-be-released games.

Here, 38 Studios' Michael Dawe, Digital Extremes' Daniel Brewer, and Haunted Temple's Borut Pfeifer will each pick apart their respective titles, and offer insight on some modern challenges AI programmers should be aware of.

This week, Game Developers Conferece 2012 is revealing a trio of notable new sessions, including the first Western appearance of Space Invaders Infinity Gene and Groove Coaster's creator, product ownership as it relates to Dragon Age, and the music behind Journey and Monaco.

The 26th GDC show will take place Monday, March 5 through Friday, March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and the Main Conference (March 7th-9th) offers six tracks covering key disciplines in the games industry, including Audio, Business, Marketing & Management, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts.

The following lectures are the newest additions to GDC 2012's Main Conference:

- In a Game Design track talk simultaneously translated from Japanese, Taito chief game designer Reisuke Ishida will make his first ever Western speaking appearance, discussing his two recent signature titles in a lecture called "Five Techniques for Making an Unforgettable Game, Illustrated in Space Invaders Infinity Gene and Groove Coaster."

Using the examples of Space Invaders Infinity Gene a stylish, well-received 30th anniversary update of the classic game, and Groove Coaster a popular iOS exclusive music title, Ishida will explore the best ways to make a game stand out, even in the overcrowded market.

- Also added in the Production track is a talk dubbed "Ownership - Dragon Age Style," in which BioWare's Adriana Lopez will explain what "ownership" means, organizationally, in the context of handling a major video game franchise.

Using BioWare's acclaimed Dragon Age role-playing game franchise as an example, Lopez will detail the responsibilities of product owners and how they can leverage their control over a franchise to better manage their projects and maintain a fully-engaged team.

- Finally, in the Audio track session "Journey vs Monaco: Music is Storytelling," composer Austin Wintory will contrast two different video game scores he wrote in 2011, for both thatgamecompany's Journey and Pocketwatch Games' IGF-winning Monaco.

Wintory will detail the ways these two games use music to create narrative arcs and reconcile adaptivity, while also going over the audio production processes for both titles. Near the end of the talk, thatgamecompany's Jenova Chen and Pocketwatch Games' Andy Schatz will join the session for an audience Q&A on the construction of the games' audio.

Game Developers Conference 2012 organizers have revealed the first Summit sessions for the San Francisco show, with highlights including Playdom on the lack of iconic social game characters, SingStar co-creator Paulina Bozek on changing player behavior, and indie studio Untold Entertainment on Ponycorn Adventure's viral success.

The GDC Summits will take place Monday, March 5 through Tuesday, March 6, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and will offer specialized looks into emerging or otherwise influential sectors of the games industry.

This year, GDC will feature a total of eight Summits, with topics including AI, Localization, Education, Independent Games, Smartphone & Tablet Games, and Social & Online Games -- new to the show this year are the Game IT Summit and Games for Change @ GDC.

The initial sessions and lectures featured at the GDC 2012 Summits include the following:

- In the Social & Online Games Summit, Playdom VP and studio head Kenny Shea Dinkin will host "Character Assassination," a talk examining the (lack of) iconic characters in social gaming.

Dinkin will argue that while social games attract millions of users, there aren't many memorable characters in this space, especially compared to more traditional platforms. With this in mind, he will examine the narrative possibilities that exist within social games, and explore what it would take to make a beloved social game character.

- Over in the Game IT Summit, Paulina Bozek, SingStar co-creator and CEO of Inensu, will take a close look at how her company's fashion app modifies player behavior by encouraging them to embrace their own style over buying into the latest trends. The talk, dubbed, "Applying Game and Social Mechanics to Sustainable Fashion: Closet Swap Case Study," will examine the ways in which the social app Closet Swap works toward positive behavioral change while still creating an experience that is rewarding and fun.

- Finally, Ryan Henson Creighton, president of Untold Entertainment, will host the Independent Games Summit talk, "Ponycorns: Catching Lightning in a Jar." Reflecting on his studio's Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure (pictured), Creighton will outline how the game -- which was co-developed by his five year old daughter -- found viral success, noting the ways in which the team sustained excitement for the game via merchandising, contests, press outreach, and more.

Using this experience, he will teach other developers how to generate excitement for upcoming projects, maintain existing success, and turn surprise hits into powerful brands.

GDC 2012 has announced its second batch of lectures for the upcoming San Francisco show, featuring an examination of the crowd system in Hitman: Absolution, WB Games Seattle on maintaining the creative process, and mod creator Dan Pinchbeck on finding indie success.

The upcoming conference will take place Monday, March 5 through Friday, March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and will offer seven tracks covering key disciplines in the games industry, including Audio, Business, Marketing & Management, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts, with a sponsored track on Monetization.

The following lectures are the newest additions to GDC 2012's Main Conference:

- In the Programming track, Kasper Fauerby of IO Interactive will explain how the studio designed and implemented Hitman: Absolution's crowd system.

In the aptly named "Crowds in Hitman: Absolution," Fauerby will discuss the system's design and implementation, giving attendees some insight into the benefits and complexities involved in creating believable and dynamic virtual crowds.

- Elsewhere, in the Production and Business, Marketing & Management tracks, WB Games VP and general manger Laura Fryer will host "Kinematics and Other Techniques for Managing the Creative Process."

Here, Fryer will explore the best ways to balance creative freedom with the business necessities of game development, using examples from games such as Microsoft and Zipper's Crimson Skies, Monolith's Gotham City Impostors, and more.

- Finally, mod developer and thechineseroom creative director Dan Pinchbeck will host a lecture in the Game Design track dubbed "Dear Esther: Making an Indie Success Out of an Experimental Mod."

Reflecting on his experience working his critically acclaimed Source engine mod (supported by Indie Fund and debuting in an upgraded Portal 2 engine-powered commercial version soon), Pinchbeck will pick apart the relationship between mechanics and the game world, pondering some of the less-explored realms of game design and interactive storytelling.

Organizers of the 2012 Game Developers Conference have debuted initial full-day tutorials for the March event in San Francisco, featuring full-day sessions on game writing, level design, studio startups, and much more.

These first-come first-served tutorials will take place alongside the GDC Summits on Monday, March 5th and Tuesday, March 6th -- the first two days of the five-day San Francisco-based event.

The tutorials will be open to those with an All-Access Pass or Summits & Tutorials Pass, and those interested in learning more about either of these options can do so at the official GDC website's passes page.

The newly-announced tutorials for Game Developers Conference 2012, part of a growing selection, include the following:

- The historically well-received tutorial "Level Design in a Day: Best Practices from the Best in the Business" will return to GDC in 2012, offering an intense, full-day examination of the ins and outs of video game level creation.

Featuring speakers such as Bethesda Game Studios' Joel Burgess, EA's Seth Marinello, LucasArts' Mathias Worch, and Epic's Jim Brown, this tutorial will provide an inside look at the level design process for games and franchises such as Gears of War, Dead Space, and much more.

- LucasArts lead narrative designer Evan Skolnick will host the perennial, highly rated "Learn Better Game Writing In A Day" tutorial, which will offer a comprehensive primer for game writers, covering the basics of good story structure, character development, and dialogue writing.

Of course, developers in other disciplines will find a lot of useful information as well, as they will learn about a number of essential narrative concepts, including bridging the gap between game writers and the rest of the development team.

- In "The Game Dev Start-Up 2012: Issues and Practical Answers for the Rookie Studio," Hidden Variable Studios COO Amos Marvel, Loeb & Loeb partner Dan Offner, and attorneys Jim Charne and David Rosenbaum will go over the issues and complications that come with starting your own game studio. In addition, this session will cover pre-formation considerations all the way through the necessities of maintaining a successful business.