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As Game Developers Conference 2010's online pre-registration nears its end, GDC organizers are highlighting talks on Borderlands, Mass Effect 2, and Unreal Engine 3's iPhone port, among others.
The conference, taking place from March 9th-13th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is closing its discounted pre-show registration at 1pm PT on Thursday, March 4th.
With nine notable Summits - spanning iPhone, social/online gaming, indie, GamesBeat@GDC and beyond -- and multiple tutorials on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th, followed by three days of Main Conference content from Thursday 11th through Saturday 13th, there are now more than 450 sessions in total.
The final set of highlighted sessions, including recently announced lectures and relatively unpublicized talks, include the following notables:
- In 'Where Did My Inventory Go? Refining Gameplay in Mass Effect 2', BioWare's lead gameplay designer Christina Norman "will discuss how a small vision shift lead to radical design changes in Mass Effect 2’s combat gameplay and RPG systems. Lessons learned will be presented, including the challenge of communicating gameplay changes to the existing player community."
- The audio track now includes a Rock Band Network postmortem, with Harmonix's Matthew Nordhaus and Caleb Epps discussing the creation of the still-in-Beta system which allows any musician to record and then sell their music in the Rock Band franchise, thanks to a complex user-created content pipeline.

Following the announcement of the Windows Phone 7 Series, including Xbox Live functionality, Microsoft is revealing first technical details at a GDC 2010 tutorial, joining event coverage of smartphone gaming from iPhone through Android to Blackberry, Palm and beyond.
The Windows Phone 7 Series itself is a new set of smartphones running a drastically reconfigured Windows OS and including Xbox Live-compatible avatars, achievements, and games as part of the new system.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showcased the Windows Phone 7 Series set of phones at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, and announced that the new phones will debut by holiday 2010.
As noted on Microsoft's official Windows Phone blog, the company has been getting "a lot of questions about the developer story, platform, etc. We are not prepared to talk about it yet but all will be revealed at two coming events... [including] Game Developers Conference in San Francisco."
The sessions appears as part of Microsoft's Game Developer Day tutorials on March 9th and 10th, with much of Wednesday, March 10th dedicated to the new operating system and technical/design specifics.

Organizers of the Social & Online Games Summit at GDC 2010 have rounded out their line-up for the March 9th-10th event, with Facebook and Playfish keynotes and three tracks of sophisticated content on what's next in this exciting space.
The major new Summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in just three weeks, has been designed to educate and inspire on the rise of socially connected gaming.
Summit advisors include notables like Metaplace's Raph Koster, Habbo's Sulka Haro, and Playdom's Steve Meretzky, and the Summit homepage has now revealed the two event keynotes and a complete line-up for the event.
The first confirmed keynote is 'The Relentless March Toward "Free"... And What it Means to the Video Game Industry', by Playfish VP and GM Kristian Segerstrale, the co-founder of the EA-acquired social game firm will "critically examine what the future holds for the creation, distribution and consumption models in video games -- and suggest what your company needs to do to prepare for the era of free."
The other keynote comes from Facebook platform manager Gareth Davis, who will speak on 'How Friends Change Everything', in which the social network "at the forefront of massive disruptions in who plays games, how games are discovered, distributed, designed and operated" discusses their view on where the social game space is headed.
With almost 40 other major sessions in the social and online game space, including speakers from Zynga, Playfish, Playdom, Habbo, Mind Candy, Schell Games, IMVU, PopCap, and many other major companies, the Summit is packed full of relevant, concrete information.

As the March 9th-13th event approaches, GDC 2010 organizers have revealed new lectures on Deus Ex 3's "cyberpunk renaissance" look, Silent Hill producer Akira Yamaoka's ethos, and Batman: Arkham Asylum's art direction.
The new announcements come with less than a month to go until the event, which takes place from March 9th to 13th at San Francisco's Moscone Center, and includes two days of Summits and tutorials alongside three days of Main Conference content.
A pair of particularly intriguing new lectures lead the new line-up announcements. Firstly, Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete presents a lecture on "The Successes and Failures of Creating a Near-Future Cyberpunk Setting with a Renaissance Twist in Deus Ex 3", providing some of the first concrete information about the much-awaited title.
Jacques-Belletete "...will discuss the creative underpinnings behind the unique blend of art style that combines the past, present and future in the next evolution of the Deus Ex franchise", with particular reference to the title's "Cyber Renaissance" look, which "is infused across the fashion, characters, environments and story."
Secondly, veteran Silent Hill composer and recent series producer Akira Yamaoka, who has just joined No More Heroes creator Grasshopper Manufacture, will present a lecture entitled "As Long as the Audio is Fun, the Game Will Be Too".
This retrospective, taken from Yamaoka's "first 20 years in video game production", will present an interesting angle: "People tend not to think about game design and audio design in parallel. I will present my views on audio design in games from a producer's perspective, having had experience in both roles. With few technological limits remaining, we can focus on achieving realism and interaction. What challenges remain in audio design?"
In addition, as part of a series of GDC 2010 Track keynotes just confirmed, including already-revealed lectures from Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto and on StarCraft II's programming approach, a number of major new lectures have been revealed, including the following:

The GamesBeat@GDC Summit taking place at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next month has announced new keynote and panel speakers including OnLive's Steve Perlman, GameStop Digital's Chris Petrovic, and Sony's Jack Buser.
The summit is a partnership between technology site Venturebeat and the Think Services Game Group, and will take place on Wednesday, March 10, the second day of the GDC Summits.
The theme for the business summit is "Disruption 2.0," and according to the organizers it will "focus on the next disruptions that will happen in the video game industry."
"In the past couple of years, social games with virtual goods business models have proved themselves and shaken up the status quo," the description reads. "The iPhone has become a hot platform and Apple hopes to extend further into games with the iPad. Digital distribution and online games are growing. Will these trends gather more momentum and prove to be sustainable, or will new platforms and business models disrupt the disruptors?"
As well as an already-confirmed "fireside chat" with Electronic Arts COO John Schappert, GamesBeat@GDC organizers have confirmed a keynote featuring OnLive's Steve Perlman. The serial entrepreneur has created a service that lets you play high-end games "on demand" -- that is, over the Internet from a conventional low-end PC with no download -- and will be discussing plans and technical specifics in the keynote.
Newly announced speakers for other sessions or panels at the networking-replete executive summit include:

2010 Independent Games Festival organizers have revealed the five IGF Mobile category finalists battling it out for Best Mobile Game at GDC, also debuting the IGF Audience award and revealing the hosts for this year's IGF Awards.
IGF Mobile Category Winners
After announcing finalists and honorable mentions late last month, the 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile has named the category winners that will show their games at GDC and battle for the Best IGF Mobile Game prize.
After battling it out from a field of 170 top-notch entries, winners thus far include Secret Exit's physics-heavy Stair Dismount for iPhone, Powerhead Games' cunning color-based puzzle game Glow Artisan for DSi, and Tiger Style's acclaimed action game Spider for Apple's handheld.
The category winners for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition -- an event that celebrates excellence in games for the iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone OSes, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and other handheld devices -- are: