Think Services Game Group and Reboot Communications have revealed new details on this May's GDC Canada, including an advisory board including EA, Next Level Games, Radical, and BioWare execs, as well as a track line-up based around the production schedule of video games.
According to NPD Canada, the Canadian game industry grew by 23 percent in 2008, reaching C$2.09 billion in revenues. GDC Canada plans to serve this fast-growing region by providing a forum for Canadian developers to share best practices for fostering ingenuity and quality within their globally distributed games.
GDC Canada’s content lineup emphasizes the production cycle of game development, with lecture and panel tracks focused on the following stages of game creation: Concept/Preproduction, Production, Finalling and Post Launch/Analysis:
By organizing the conference tracks according to the stages of development rather than specific fields, participants can better understand production cycle efficiencies and their teammates’ point of view.
The advisory board for GDC Canada is composed of Canadian industry veterans including Deep Fried Entertainment's Brenda Bailey; BioWare's Ron Clement and Matt Robinson; Threewave Software's Dan Irish; Ubisoft's Derek Elliott; Pug Pharm's Steve Bocska, Electronic Arts' Dave Elton and Tabitha Hayes; Next Level Games' Douglas Tronsgard; THQ Canada's Tarrnie Williams; Radical Entertainment's Kelly Zmak; Disney Interactive Studio's Howard Donaldson; Gerri Sinclair of Great Northern Way Campus, and Jerome Kashetsky of the National Research Council of Canada.
"It oftentimes gets overlooked how much development activity occurs in Canada. With companies like EA, Activision, Disney Interactive Entertainment, and Ubisoft, responsible for production of major titles the region exerts a greater-than-realized impact on the global game industry," says Izora de Lillard, Event Director at Think Services Game Group.
"It’s important to bring to attention the work, developmental challenges, and opportunities of Canadian developers in a meaningful forum such as the Game Developers Conference."
GDC Canada will take place May 12-13, 2009 at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Center in Vancouver, British Columbia, and registration is now open at the official event website.