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GDC Europe 2013 organizers have announced new talks covering the visually stunning lighting of Crysis III, AMD's next-gen powering GPU architecture, and Housemarque's tips for staying independent and flexible for almost 20 years.
These sessions will be part of the Visual Arts, Business, and Programming tracks, accessible to VIP and All Access Pass holders for GDC Europe 2013. The event will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany -- just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event.
In 'Shining the Light on Crysis 3,' Crytek senior lighting artist Donzallaz Pierre-Yves will demonstrate to attendees how Crytek achieved its highly acclaimed visuals for the FPS, explaining the lighting pipeline from 2D concept artworks and prototypes to final, fully-lit-in-real-time 3D scenes.
For a detailed discussion of programming game visuals of the future, AMD developer relations manager Layla Mah's Powering the Next Generation of Graphics: The AMD GCN [Graphics Core Next] Architecture' is a can't-miss session. Mah plans to go into very low-level detail about the GCN architecture's compute and functional units' capabilities; considering AMD's technology will power the PS4 and Xbox One, this talk is definitely a must-see for graphics engineers wanting to know how to take advantage of next-generation consoles.
Finally, CEO Ilari Kuittinen of notable Finnish developer Housemarque (Outland, Super Stardust) will share how the company has maintained independence and survived for nearly 20 years in 'Adaptation and Antifragility: Life of an Independent Studio.' The lecture will focus on building 'antifragility' into the company's DNA, so that it "withstands any high-impact crisis."

GDC Europe 2013 organizers have announced the latest additions for August's show in Cologne, Germany, with Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey speaking on the challenges and opportunities virtual reality can pose for game devs, Riot Games devs on attracting and encouraging offline player evangelists, and Top Eleven studio Nordeus's tips on tutorials and player retention.
These talks are part of the business, programming, and design tracks in GDC Europe 2013, which will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany -- just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event.
In the Oculus VR session 'Virtual Reality Gaming and Game Development', founder Palmer Luckey and VP of product Nate Mitchell will speak about the challenges virtual reality presents for game devs, why VR will change the way games are played, and what VR means for the industry.
In addition, the company's product - the Oculus Rift VR headset - is currently planned to be playable in a booth on the GDC Europe show floor on Monday and Tuesday, August 19th and 20th, giving attendees the chance to check out the latest demonstrations on the unique hardware.

Organizers of GDC Europe 2013 have announced its latest talks for this August's Cologne event, including GOG.com's Trevor Longino on what developers need to build buzz on their game, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm's Brian Kindregan on cinematics for storytelling, and Epic's Chris Mielke on outsourcing to external art teams.
These talks are part of the business, programming, and design tracks in GDC Europe 2013, which will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany - just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event.
While cinematics has been under fire as an effective storytelling tool in games, Warner Bros. storyboard artist turned Blizzard lead writer Brian Kindregan will make his best case for them in 'How Hard Could it BE? The Story of a Cinematic.' He will discuss multiple versions of a scene from StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, covering the distinctions among them, the choices that were made, and how they impacted the story.
Next, digital game distributor GOG.com's head of marketing & PR Trevor Longino will explain the three things developers will need to build buzz around their title in 'PR Quest! The Adventure to Make Your Game Famous' Longino will "discuss three different approaches to adding a human face to your digital business (honesty, humility and delight), and how if you focus on these touchstones, you're sure to find yourself well-equipped for your own PR Quest."

GDC Next organizers have announced the first talks for its inaugural 'what's next?' game conference in Los Angeles this November, revealing a 30% event discount limited to the first 500 online registrants.
The first talks revealed for GDC Next, illuminating the future-leaning plans for the new event, are Google on the first six months of its Play service, thatgamecompany on its design philosophy & future, Disney on theme park design lessons for game developers, and Adam Orth on reforming toxic online behavior.
As evinced in these selections, GDC Next, the spiritual successor to GDC Online, aims to highlight the future of video games, and is taking place alongside the App Developers Conference on November 5th-7th, 2013 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Throughout the months leading to GDC Next, organizers will announce exciting talks selected for the conference's six tracks: The Future of Gaming, Next Generation Game Platforms, Free-to-Play & New Business Models, Smartphone and & Tablet Games, Cloud Gaming, and Independent Games.
First up, Thatgamecompany (Journey) studio manager Sunni Pavlovic will discuss the award-winning team's underlying design philosophy in 'An Experimental Approach to Interactive Entertainment.' Pavlovic will explore how to engage first-time and hardcore players and "everyone in between," while being mindful of changes in input technology and social dynamics.

Organizers have confirmed a classic postmortem of Kick Off from Dino Dini for August's GDC Europe in Cologne, also adding talks on Warface's optimizations for low-end PCs and Heidi McDonald on stirring up romance games.
These talks are part of the visual arts, programming, and design tracks in GDC Europe 2013, which will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany - just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event.
Notably, organizers are revealing an in-depth postmortem of seminal soccer game Kick Off from original creator Dino Dini as this year's European-centric Classic Postmortem, following last year's classic postmortem of GoldenEye.
Much beloved among European players and developers, Dino Dini's top-down arcade soccer games Kick Off 1 & 2 were released by Anco in 1989 and 1990 respectively, and were made available for a host of platforms, including the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST.
In the talks, Dino Dini himself will explore the making of the entire series of soccer-related games he made in the '80s and '90s. He'll include analysis into the design evolution that made the original game, including the 'kick ahead' mechanic, so successful, and add insight into its sequels and related titles. These include Player Manager (the first soccer game to twin management and a soccer game engine) and his later title Dino Dini's GOAL!.

In order to capture the games business as it is before GDC Europe 2013, conference officials are once again polling past and present attendees about their roles in game development and their thoughts on where everyone is headed as an industry.

GDC Europe 2013 organizers have added new lectures for its August event, covering Halo's first episodic multiplayer content, Top Eleven's emerging market efforts that led to 11 million monthly active users, and Bigpoint's C++-to-web tech overview.
These talks are part of the programming, design and business tracks in GDC Europe 2013, which will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany - just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event.
In 'The Making of Halo 4's Episodic Co-op Adventure: Spartan Ops,' 343 Industries' lead designer Chris Haluke will share his design details behind Xbox-exclusive franchise Halo's first ever episodic multiplayer content.
This talk will outline some of the key pillars Haluke stood by, including maintaining accessibility, creating compelling but bite-sized chunks of gameplay, and ensuring that fiction is continually tied to the adventure.