GDC Online Adds LocoRoco Talk, Turbine Free-To-Play Lecture, Networking Specifics

September 19, 2010

GDC Online has debuted partner content for next month's Austin show, including LocoRoco creator Tsutomu Kouno on PlayStation Home, plus Turbine's Kate Paiz on moving to free-to-play and subject-specific mixers from the Writers Guild, Epic, Crytek, hi5 and more.
The Austin, Texas based conference -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is sharply focused on the development of online games, and there are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the October 5th-8th event.
Following the confirmation of a keynote from Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), and track keynotes from Blizzard's Greg Canessa (on Battle.net), Playdom's Raph Koster (on social mechanics), and Bigpoint's Heiko Hubertz (on the rise of Europe in online gaming), organizers are revealing vendor-supported talks and receptions of relevance to attendees.
Some of the key new vendor-specific sessions and supported mixers, receptions and parties of relevance to all GDC Online attendees are as follows:
- As part of the recently confirmed GDC Online tutorials, Sony's full PlayStation Home day will include a keynote from LocoRoco creator Tsutomu Kouno on bringing the LocoIsland and Mui Mui Ship add-ons into Sony's PS3 online world.

GDC China 2010 Opens Attendee Registration For December Event

September 15, 2010

Organizers have opened registration for this December's Shanghai-based 2010 Game Developers Conference China, following earlier confirmation of Blizzard, Flagship and Cryptic alumnus Bill Roper as one of the keynote speakers.

Now in its 3rd year, Game Developers Conference China offers "valuable and timely insight into the world of game development in China for an audience of both local and international developers", according to its organizers.

As well as a robust, to be announced line-up of both Chinese and Western developers and businesspeople as speakers, the event offers simultaneous translation during all of GDC China's lectures, meaning both English and Chinese-speaking attendees can easily listen in on all talks.

The event will also feature the second annual Independent Games Festival China, showcasing the best gameplay experiences from the region's independent game development community.

The Festival will include the finalist games playable on the GDC China show floor, lectures relevant to indies, and a special IGF China award ceremony, honoring notable indie games from Asia and Australasia.

2010 GDC Online Adds Game Career Seminar Details

September 14, 2010

GDC Online organizers have debuted the line-up for the Game Career Seminar at next month's Austin event, including staffers from Obsidian, Big Huge Games, Foundation 9 and more at the career-building one-day event.

There are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials in total currently scheduled for the October 5th-8th Austin, Texas based conference. The event -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is sharply focused on the development of online games, including free-to-play titles, social network games, and traditional MMOs, in addition to having Summits on diverse other subjects.

But it also includes a one-day Game Career Seminar event on Friday, October 8th, designed for students and individuals interested in learning how to build a career in the video game industry.

Attendees for the specially priced Summit will experience interactive sessions, network with industry professionals, and hear HR representatives, top game developers and industry experts share their perspective and insights.

The freshly debuted lectures for GDC Online's Game Career Seminar include the following newly announced and publicized highlights:

- In 'Don't Be Stopped at the Gate!', hiring managers such as Jim Rivers from Obsidian Entertainment, Lindsey McQueeney from 38 Studios and Big Huge Games and Dino McGraw from Foundation 9 discuss "how to prepare yourself with tips, tools and straight advice" in an interactive session for those wanting to enter the game business.

- Game education veteran Jen Sward presents 'Show Me, Don't Tell Me: Portfolios and Resumes in the Game Industry', explaining of her lecture: "In this discussion, we'll look at various ways for both entry level and experienced developers to create an accurate and compelling resume and portfolio that hiring managers will notice."

2010 Game Developers Choice Online Awards Opens Audience Award

September 13, 2010

Game Developers Choice Online Awards organizers have announced the opening of the Audience Award, encouraging online game fans worldwide to vote for their favorite persistent online game from now until September 24th.

2010 IGF China Competition Reminds On Pan-Pacific Festival Deadline

September 13, 2010

The Independent Games Festival China, which runs in conjunction with Shanghai's GDC China this December, is reminding that September 15th is the final entry date for the pan-Pacific indie games festival -- which allows entries from any Asian or Australasian independent game.

Following on from its 2009 success, the Game Developers Conference China -- part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network -- will continue to host the three main elements of IGF China, including the Independent Games Summit, which provides valuable conference sessions specializing in the challenges of independent game development.

These include the Independent Games Festival China Pavilion, an onsite exhibition of the very best in local indie games, and the Independent Games Festival China Awards, which honors the work of the talented pool of local independent game developers.

The 2010 IGF Main Competition will give out awards in five categories, including Best Game, Mobile Best Game, Excellence in Audio, Excellence in Technology, and Excellence in Visual Arts. Finalists in all categories will receive VIP and expo passes to attend GDC China and the IGF awards ceremony on December 5, 2010.

Finalists -- who will compete for RMB 20,000 ($3,000) will be chosen
by a panel of expert jurors including Kevin Li (CEO, TipCat
Interactive); Monte Singman (Main Coordinator, IGDA Shanghai Chapter);
Xubo Yang (Director of Digital Art Lab and Assistant Professor; Shanghai
Jiaotong University's School of Software), and jury chairman Simon
Carless, IGF Chairman Emeritus and Global Brand Director of the UBM
TechWeb Game Network.

Last year's event saw more than 200 entries for the Main Competition
and the Student Competition, including entries from China, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, the Philippines, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan, Australia,
South Korea, India and more. Winners from last year include titles like
acclaimed Best Game winner Captain Forever (Farbs - Australia), Donovo (Magic Day Studio - China) for Excellence in Art Direction, HurricaneX2 (You Yun Tech - China) for Technical Excellence and Armor Valley (Protege Production - Singapore) for Excellence in Audio.

Key dates for IGF China include:

GDC Online Adds League Of Legends Postmortem, Facebook, CCP, Yahoo! Execs

September 10, 2010

GDC Online organizers have debuted new lectures for next month's Austin show, including a League Of Legends postmortem, secrets to long-lasting MMOs with CCP and Turbine, plus a monetization track with Playfish, Facebook, Adobe, and Yahoo! execs.

The Austin, Texas based conference -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is sharply focused on the development of online games, including free-to-play titles, social network games, and traditional MMOs, with a veteran online game industry advisory board evaluating and selecting the lectures.

There are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the October 5th-8th event. Following the confirmation of a keynote from Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), and track keynotes from Blizzard's Greg Canessa (on Battle.net), Playdom's Raph Koster (on social mechanics), and Bigpoint's Heiko Hubertz (on the rise of Europe in online gaming), organizers are revealing further new talks.

The newly debuted lectures include the following newly announced and publicized highlights:

- In 'League Of Legends Postmortem: One Year Later', Riot Games CEO Marc Merrill will look back at the last year of live operation on the popular multiplayer online battle-arena title, which is the most-nominated in the GDC Online Choice Awards taking place at the show.

Merrill will discuss "lessons learned and some key factors for developing, launching and supporting a core game that is operated as a live service", including surprises and challenges the team faced, spanning strategies to optimize the live feedback loop, key roles and live team structure.

GDC Vault Adds Free Guild Wars 2, ESA Talks, 65 New Lectures For Subscribers

September 8, 2010

GDC Vault has debuted both free and subscriber-only videos from August's GDC Europe event in Cologne. Free-to-watch talks feature ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 and notables from the ESA, Remedy and Crytek on building grassroots political support for games.

Following the successful Europe-wide developer event that ran alongside Gamescom last month, organizers of the Game Developers Conference series of events are making specially recorded versions of the talks available -- while also archiving all of the GDC Europe content in video form for future use and study.

These new free talks debut alongside an update making available over 65 lecture videos from GDC Europe for subscribers at the GDC Vault website. The site features video technology that allows users to simultaneously view a presenter's slides alongside video and audio of their presentation.

The two free GDC Europe-related videos currently debuting on the site are as follows:

- In 'Designing Guild Wars 2's Dynamic Events', ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 lead designer Eric Flannum and lead content designer Colin Johanson outline how the industry's attitude to content in games in the MMORPG genre has evolved over time.

The duo discuss the inspiration for -- and the implementation challenges of -- their Dynamic Events system in the much-awaited PC MMO, "with the goal of creating an exciting, living, breathing online world that encourages social interaction between players."

3D Stereoscopic Games Summit At GDC Online Debuts Line-Up

September 6, 2010

Taking place alongside next month's GDC Online event in Austin, TX, the 3D Stereoscopic Games Summit has revealed speakers from Disney, Sony, Blitz, Crytek and more on the rise of 3D gaming.

The Summit, taking place on Tuesday, October 5th and open to GDC Online All-Access Pass holders, as well as Summits & Tutorial pass-holders, will be the first GDC event to explore the world of 3D stereoscopic gaming in depth.

With 3D-capable movies such as Avatar and Alice In Wonderland topping the worldwide box office for multiple weeks and engine companies and console manufacturers alike touting the rise of 3D in gaming, we'll be gathering industry experts to explain and demonstrate the latest advances in the area.

Should you be building 3D support into your games now? What are the key hardware penetration and technical barriers to 3D becoming a defacto standard in the video game industry?

Speakers and advisors led by Blitz Game Studios' Andrew Oliver (Dead To Rights: Retribution) will be exploring these questions in the 3D Stereoscopic Games Summit. Some of the session highlights for the one-day Summit include the following talks:

- The lecture 'Implementing Stereoscopic 3D in Disney/Pixar's Toy Story Midway Mania' sees Walt Disney Imagineering and Schell Games creators examine the work done to create the motion ride and Wii-exclusive 3D game. Along the way, "...stereo rendering issues will be discussed such as ghost-busting, eye point issues, off-axis projection, and the creation of (and iteration on) content for a 3D stereo rendered attraction."

Reminder: Last Day To Early Register For GDC Online

September 1, 2010

GDC Online organizers are reminding potential attendees that today is the last day to save up to 40% on passes to the October 5th-8th event in Austin, TX, fully detailing the comprehensive exhibit floor, Summits, keynotes, a PlayStation Home developer day and more.

The Austin, Texas based GDC Online conference -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is mainly focused on the development of online games, including free-to-play titles, social network games, and traditional MMOs, with a veteran online game industry advisory board evaluating and selecting the lectures.

There are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the event -- including the recently announced keynote from Civilization II designer and now Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), and just-debuted track keynotes from Blizzard on Battle.net, Raph Koster on social design trends, and European browser game giant BigPoint on its rise to success.

These lectures join a full set of highlighted lectures including Main Conference talks on October 6th-8th from Relic, Sony Online, Carbine, KingsIsle, IMVU, Disney, Playdom, BioWare Austin, Hangout Industries, Broken Bulb Studios, CCP, Gaia Online, Playfish, InstantAction, Ubisoft and a host of other notable companies at the leading worldwide online game-specific conference.

One of the other major advantages of attending GDC Online is the comprehensive list of nearly 90 exhibitors with whom attendees are able to get product demonstrations, meet, and interact on the vibrant GDC Online Expo Floor. These include major firms like Epic, Rackspace, Gaikai, Offerpal, Vindicia, Trinigy, ARIN, Versant, Rixty, Softlayer, and many other notable companies in the space.

GDC Online Debuts Blizzard, Koster, Bigpoint Track Keynotes, Pre-Deadline

August 31, 2010

A day before the GDC Online early deadline, the major October 5th-8th Austin-based event has added track keynotes from Blizzard's Greg Canessa (on Battle.net), Playdom's Raph Koster (on social mechanics), and Bigpoint's Heiko Hubertz (on the rise of Europe in online gaming).

The Austin, Texas based GDC Online conference -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is sharply focused on the development of online games, including free-to-play titles, social network games, and traditional MMOs, with a veteran online game industry advisory board evaluating and selecting the lectures.

There are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the October 5th-8th event -- and following the announcement of a keynote from Civilization II designer and now Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), three track keynotes are debuting.

The brand-new track keynotes across the GDC Online Main Conference, which takes place from Wednesday October 6th to Friday October 8th, and for which majorly discounted passes are only available until Wednesday, are:

- In a production track keynote called 'Battle.net: A Postmortem', Blizzard's Battle.net project director Greg Canessa and technical director Matt Versluys will present an extremely rare lecture from the World Of Warcraft and Starcraft II creators, "sharing lessons learned from building and launching the new iteration of an online game service that connects and powers all Blizzard titles."

- Playdom's VP of creative design Raph Koster -- a stalwart of online game design from Ultima Online through Star Wars Galaxies to his current work in social games -- presents a design track keynote, 'Classic Social Mechanics: The Engines Behind Everything Multiplayer'.

APB Lessons, Habbo, Cow Clicker Talks Added To GDC Online

August 27, 2010

Organizers of this October's GDC Online (formerly GDC Austin) are rolling out more major new talks, including ex-Realtime Worlds exec Joshua Howard on 'self-inflicted wounds' in game creation, Sulka Haro on the $500 million Habbo Hotel economy, and Ian Bogost on his satirical Facebook title Cow Clicker.

The Austin, Texas based GDC Online conference is focused on the development of online games, including free-to-play titles, social network games, and traditional MMOs, with a veteran online game industry advisory board evaluating and selecting the lectures.

There are already more than 80 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the October 5th-8th event -- and following the announcement of a keynote from Civilization II designer and now Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), a number of other notable talks are debuting:

Some of the newly announced highlights from notable sessions across the GDC Online Main Conference, which takes place from Wednesday October 6th to Friday October 8th, and for which 'early registration' passes are only available until Wednesday, are:

- In 'Self-Inflicted Wounds: When We Are Our Own Worst Enemy', U.S.-based ex-Realtime Worlds executive producer Joshua Howard (APB) will discuss "common management and organizational failures that leaders talk themselves into accepting, which almost always end up impacting a game's success." Along the way, the former Carbonated Games exec "will provide techniques that anyone can use if they find themselves on a project that has already made one of these mistakes."

GDC Online Announces Keynote From FrontierVille's Reynolds

August 25, 2010

GDC Online organizers have confirmed industry veteran and Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds to discuss smash hit title FrontierVille and the future of social game design in a keynote at October's show in Austin.

In his keynote address, 'Bears and Snakes! The Wild Frontier of Social Game Design,' Reynolds will explain how his Facebook title FrontierVille "treads new territory" by combining the classic techniques of traditional game design with the social gaming expertise that Zynga has gained from their FarmVille and Mafia Wars titles.

Reynolds, whose career has spanned more than 20 years with companies such as Firaxis and Big Huge Games, and who has co-created titles including Civilization II, Alpha Centauri and Rise of Nations, will also confront the challenges of taking familiar social game models and making them more entertaining for gamers and non-gamers.

With the massive gains and rapid progress of the social game space, Reynolds will offer his take on why games like FrontierVille -- which currently has 30 million monthly unique users on Facebook alone, according to Appdata.com -- are only the first step towards other exciting opportunities for the video game medium.

Reminder: GDC 2011 Lecture Submissions Open Until August 25th

August 24, 2010

Game Developers Conference 2011 organizers are reminding that submissions for next February's historical 25th annual show are still being accepted through August 25th.

League of Legends Leads Finalists For The First Annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards

August 23, 2010

UBM TechWeb Game Network, organizers of the Game Developers Conference Online (formerly GDC Austin), have announced the nominees for this October's first annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards, revealing that Riot Games' League of Legends is leading the pack, having been nominated for a total of five awards.

Other titles being honored with multiple nominations include We Rule (ngmoco), Champions Online (Cryptic), Dungeon Fighter Online (Nexon) and Nightclub City (Booyah) with three award nominations apiece.

The all-star list of nominees also includes nominations in new game and in-operation game categories for top companies like Blizzard (for World of Warcraft), Playfish (for FIFA Superstars) and Zynga (for Farmville and Treasure Isle).

The Game Developers Choice Online Awards will be held on the evening of October 7, 2010 as part of the 2010 Game Developers Conference Online (GDC Online), which is taking place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas October 5-8.

The Game Developers Choice Online Awards - a sister event to the Game Developers Choice Awards which take place at GDC in San Francisco every year - is the first award ceremony honoring the accomplishments of the creators and operators of online games.

This includes categories around community support and continued innovation in the field with awards in audio, design, visual arts, among other categories. These categories are nominated and voted on by the game development community, with the distinguished GDC Online Advisory Board helping to pick the special awards.

The nominees of the Game Developer Choice Online Awards run the gamut of online titles, from expansive and hugely popular MMOs such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft, through addictive social network-based titles like Farmville by Zynga. The most honored nominee is Riot Games' critically acclaimed League of Legends, a multiplayer online battle-arena game that combines role-playing, strategy, and action elements to create a captivating online experience.

The complete list of nominees for the 2010 Game Developers Choice Online Awards are as follows:

Host Of iPhone, iPad Summit Lectures Confirmed For GDC Online

August 23, 2010

Organizers of this October's GDC Online (formerly GDC Austin) have announced key speakers for its iPhone and iPad Gaming Summits, including Words With Friends/We Rule's David Bettner, Pocket Legends' Cinco Barnes and more.

The two new Summits, focusing on Apple's portable gaming devices, take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 5th-6th in Austin, Texas alongside the larger GDC Online event, to provide a lexicon of key facts and advice for all those working in the iPhone and iPad game areas.

From key business learnings through top technical takeaways, some of the developers who are even now surging to major success on the iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms are shaping this inaugural GDC Summit on the subject.

Some of the newly announced highlights of this year's iPhone and iPad Gaming Summit talks, chosen by a distinguished Summit advisory board including Gamevil's Kyu C. Lee, Canabalt's Adam Saltsman, GeoDefense's David Whatley and Backflip's Julian Farrior, include the following:

- The lecture 'Turn Based: The Power and Potential of Asynchronous Gaming in Mobile' sees Newtoy co-founder David Bettner, one of the minds behind smash iPhone hits Words With Friends and We Rule, explaining why "turn based gaming, previously confined to the living room, has been liberated. At its core, it's gaming meets text-messaging and it allows you to play with your friends anytime, anywhere, in a way never before possible."

- Successful indie Arash Keshmirian of Limbic Software (Tower Madness) is presenting 'App Store Survival - Launching and Sustaining a Successful Franchise', outlining "strategies for developing a game that not only thrives at launch but holds players attention and can become an enduring franchise." Attendees will learn how to analyze and hone initial concepts (including revenue models) for the best chance of success, managing a launch and an ongoing marketing calendar, and a host of other notable tips.

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