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The GDC Vault service has debuted both free and subscriber-only videos from October's GDC Online event in Austin, Texas. Free-to-watch talks debuting include Brian Reynolds' keynote on lessons from Zynga's Frontierville, and Richard Bartle's acclaimed talk on the history of the Multi-User Dungeon (MUD).

Following the successful developer and business event that ran in Texas earlier this 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 Online content in video form for future use.

These new free talks debut alongside an update making available nearly 90 lecture videos from GDC Online 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.

Alongside free slides from GDC Online presenters, the two new free GDC Online video lectures are:

- In 'Bears and Snakes! The Wild Frontier of Social Game Design', Zynga's chief game designer Brian Reynolds -- formerly at Firaxis and Big Huge Games and notable for his work on titles like Civilization II -- discussed the launch of Zynga's game FrontierVille and work around melding social and traditional game design that went into it.

Reynolds' introduction notes of the lecture: "We'll look at key
features such as missions, 'doobers', and varmints and explore how they
take traditional social game models and make them more entertaining.
Well also look at the ways we took traditional social game interactions
and made them more social" for the title, which currently has over 30
million monthly unique users.

- Also featured in video form is the acclaimed lecture 'MUD: Messrs Bartle and Trubshaw's Astonishing Contrivance'
from Multi-User Dungeon co-creator Richard Bartle, who was voted the
first Online Game Legend during the debut Game Developers Choice Online
Awards at the Austin show -- a show that is also available for viewing at GDC Vault.

This December's Game Developers Conference China is debuting a host of new Chinese and Western speakers for its December 5th-7th Shanghai event, with all talks simultaneously translated between English and Chinese languages, and multiple new Summit speakers now confirmed.

These announcements, which include Angry Birds creators Rovio, Monaco's Andy Schatz, and Chinese indie Coconut Island Studio, are part of a GDC China Summits line-up which includes the Independent Games Summit, being held alongside the second annual IGF China, plus a Mobile Games Summit and a Social Games Summit.

Some of the the initial highlights for the Summits, which run alongside or preceding the major Online Game Development/Business & Global Game Development tracks, include:

- Independent Games Festival grand prize winner Andy Schatz will be presenting the cheekily named 'How to Win the IGF in 15 Weeks or Less' at the Independent Games Summit. He notes: "Monaco was entered into the IGF after 6 weeks of work by only one person. It became a finalist in the Grand Prize and Excellence in Design after 11 weeks of work. And it won both after 15 weeks."

In the simultaneously translated talk, the Pocketwatch Games one-man
team "will show how design-by-brownian-motion can not only lead to a
better finished product, but a faster schedule as well. Monaco's fanciest tech tricks and failed experiments will be revealed."

- The Mobile Game Summit talks include 'Angry Birds
- An Entertainment Franchise in the Making' by Peter Vesterbacka of
Finnish developer Rovio. He will examine the business and development
steps that led to massive success for the iPhone, iPad, and now Android hit, which has over 6.5 million App Store downloads as of August.

- In addition, Chinese-specific lectures in the Independent Games Summit include 'Surviving in the iPhone App Store - a Chinese Indie Story' by Wesley Bao, co-founder of Coconut Island Studio (iDragPaper,
which has 7 million downloads), as well as a research-oriented lecture
by Dongfeng Wang of 4399, examining indie opportunities in web
browser-based games, including "the common bottlenecks of developing web
games, what kind of gamers would like to spend money online while
playing."

Organizers have announced that registration and an improved hotel booking system have opened for next February's Game Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco, also reminding attendees of impending deadlines for GDC Summit lecture submissions and IGF game entries.

GDC showrunners have confirmed that passes are now purchasable for GDC 2011, which returns to the Moscone Convention Center from February 28th to March 4th for five days of summits, tutorials, lectures, panels and roundtable discussions presented by leading industry experts.

The first deadline for purchasing passes for this historic 25th GDC show is December 10th, for Alumni registration, and GDC 2010 attendees should be receiving an email with special registration codes in the next few days.

However, early registration passes -- with up to 35% off final pass prices -- can be bought by prospective attendees at any time.

In addition, GDC organizers have worked with lodging experts Passkey International to set up a special GDC-specific hotel finder, making booking your GDC 2011 hotel much easier. A dedicated site compiles space in all the hotel blocks for the show, making search and finding one or multiple rooms a single-step process.

Organizers of last week's GDC Online in Austin have revealed over 3,000 attendees for the online game-specific event, which concluded on Friday, also announcing a return to Austin on October 11th-14th, 2011.

Game Developers Conference sister website Gamasutra.com is in Austin, Texas all this week covering GDC Online, with a host of lectures on online games, iPhone/iPad and related product announcements already written up for the lead video game art and business website - and here's all the stories posted so far.

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 taking place during the October 5th-8th event, with almost 90 companies on the show floor.

The second set of highlights of content at GDC Online thus far, written up by Gamasutra editors from session coverage and official releases, include:

Session Coverage

- Playfish's De Halleux On Why The Next Blockbuster Will Be Online
"Playfish's Sebastien de Halleux discusses the ongoing evolution in the way games are monetized, the "massive" opportunity for developers -- and his view that the next billion-dollar game will be microtransactions-driven."

- BioWare's Walton - Studio Culture Is An 'Immune System'
"Gordon Walton, co-studio director at Star Wars: The Old Republic developer BioWare Austin, called culture an "immune system" that "recognizes you as something that belongs, or a foreign object that needs to be expelled."

- Brian Reynolds' Wild West In Social Design
"Zynga's Brian Reynolds talks his FrontierVille, ways he's discovered to make social gaming more fun and more truly social, and key lessons from AAA design for successful innovation in the space."

- Koster Shares Lessons Learned In Social Game Design
"Raph Koster, VP of creative design at Disney-owned social game developer Playdom, said that "console games are niche" and argued that the social gaming space is not going away, despite some who say otherwise."

- Ian Bogost's Troubling Experiences With Cow Clicker
"Ian Bogost talks to GDC Online audiences about his Facebook title Cow Clicker -- how an environment of fear birthed a satire, the surprises he received when the game took off, and how it's ultimately a 'tragic' story to him."

- Fallout: New Vegas' Gonzalez Talks Inspiration, Writing Process
"Obsidian's John Gonzalez talks at GDC Online's Game Narrative Summit on being the creative lead on Fallout: New Vegas, the game's inspiration, and key steps his team took during the writing process."

GDC Online organizers are reminding that this Friday is the final pre-show discount deadline for next week's Austin show, revealing a new Playboy/Bigpoint party and lectures from Civilization V creators along the way.

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. Highlights include 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 reminding that final registration discounts for the show, which kicks off next Tuesday, will run out this Friday, October 1st, with discounts of up to $200 still available for prospective attendees who register now, as opposed to doing so onsite.

At this late stage, several new announcements have debuted. Famed media brand Playboy, which recently announced a foray into digital gaming with partner Bigpoint, is co-hosting an official GDC party open to all GDC passholders at The Phoenix on Thursday, October 7th.

[As Game Developers Conference approaches its 25th anniversary next February, a series of posts will give insight into the process and history behind the show. This time, organizers take a look at the Main Conference submission process, as first-round acceptances are sent out.]

Although there's still plenty going on around other GDC shows -- with GDC Online taking place in a couple of weeks and GDC China still on the agenda for December, organizers are well into the process of picking talks for GDC 2011.

The 25th annual Game Developers Conference -- celebrating a quarter-century of existence giving inspiration and practical take-away by developers for developers, is being held in San Francisco's Moscone Center next February 28 through March 4, 2011.

Last year, then-board member Simon Carless discussed the background of how talks get picked for GDC, explaining at the time:

"One initial point that is worth making strongly. I know that in some conferences (both outside the game industry and in), the Advisory Board can take a much smaller role in actually directly picking the content.

But one of the reasons that Game Developers Conference is so well respected, I believe, is that all of the talks are either empirically chosen from submissions, or carefully and specifically invited by the official GDC Advisory Board. The GDC organizers don't pick your talk -- key members of your own peer group pick your talk.

So rather than being hands-off 'advisors', multiple Advisory Board members grade every single submitted talk. They also discuss submitted and invited talk specifics via email, phone, and during the course of multiple in-person meetings. Finally, they coach and mold conditionally accepted GDC talks into a better end product."

We're doing the same this year, and after submissions that ended in August, GDC 2011 lecture selection has again been extremely competitive -- with more than 800 submitters vying for the opportunity to present at the next Game Developers Conference.