Name: The Game Industry's Premier Professional Event (Game Developers Conference (GDC)) 2025
Start: 2025-03-17T15:00Z
End: 2025-03-22T00:00Z
Location: Moscone Center

Animation experts share tips & advice at GDC's Animation Bootcamp

January 6, 2016

Heads up, game artists and animators: GDC 2016 organizers are offering an early look at the informative and intriguing sessions taking place during the two-day Animation Bootcamp that kicks off the March conference.

As always, the Animation Bootcamp is one of many Bootcamps and Tutorials that take place during the first two days of GDC (Monday and Tuesday, March 14th and 15th this year) and offer attendees the chance to dive deep and explore focused topics like level design, game production, art direction and animation.

This year the Animation Bootcamp kicks off on Monday with a series of great talks aimed at exploring new animation techniques, processes, and dimensions of what game animation is capable of contributing to a project.

2016 Independent Games Festival debuts finalists

January 6, 2016

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) judges have announced the slate of finalists for the esteemed 18^th annual awards, which honors the most influential, innovative and exemplary projects in independent game development.

After an initial round of judging by over 400 evaluators, the more than 750 entries for the 2016 IGF Awards were distributed to a group of experts from across the industry for final consideration. These expert juries specializing in distinct disciplines for each category then selected the IGF finalists after playing, discussing and rigorously evaluating them.

Among the slate of artfully crafted titles, a few projects in particular have received award nominations in multiple categories, including Dinosaur Polo Club's minimalistic subway layout game Mini Metro, and Sam Barlow's engrossing crime fiction game Her Story.

New GDC Pitch program helps GDC Play devs hone their pitching skills

January 5, 2016

Organizers of the 2016 Game Developers Conference are happy to welcome back the popular GDC Play emerging/independent developer showcase to the show this year, with a special new event that will help select participants practice their pitching skills in front of a live audience: GDC Pitch.

A great pitch can secure the future of your studio, or ensure your game has the resources to reach the players who will appreciate it most. At the all-new GDC Pitch, game developers that register to exhibit their game in this year's GDC Play may be selected to receive pitching advice and coaching, then pitch their game an opinionated panel of investors and publishers in front of a live audience. No pressure!

Spider dev shares environmental storytelling tips at GDC 2016

January 5, 2016

The 2016 Game Developers Conference is taking place in March, and today conference officials highlight a smart, fresh talk from longtime game developer Randy Smith that's part of the GDC 2016 Game Narrative Summit.

Smith is the creative director at Tiger Style, and his session will offer concrete examples of how to successfully (or not so successfully) convey narrative information through your game's environment, drawn from his personal experiences.

GDC 2016: Limbo devs share tips on coding games with striking art styles

January 4, 2016

It's a new year, and that means the 2016 Game Developers Conference is coming up fast. Today, organizers are excited to highlight a new talk for the March conference from the developers of the critically acclaimed Limbo.

In "Low Complexity, High Fidelity - Inside Rendering," Playdead graphics coder Mikkel Gjoel and visual effects artist Mikkel Svendsen will detail the techniques used to achieve high visual fidelity in the context of the strict simplistic aesthetic of Inside (pictured) -- Playdead's follow-up to the critically acclaimed Limbo.

Here's the game lineup for GDC 2016's Alt.Ctrl.GDC showcase

December 29, 2015

As we get closer to Game Developers Conference 2016, event organizers have selected 20 games (out of over 100 submissions!) to exhibit at alt.ctrl.GDC, the on-site showcase of alternative control schemes and interactions in games.

That means GDC 2016 attendees who stop by the alt.ctrl.GDC exhibit will have the chance to play some of the most intriguing and inventive games around using unique, one-of-a-kind controllers. You can lick flavored ice pops that also serve as USB controllers to win Planet Licker, for example, or use an actual telephone switchboard to play a game of Hello, Operator!

Attend GDC and learn how to draw great players to your F2P game

December 29, 2015

The 2016 Game Developers Conference takes place in March, and event organizers are happy to report that there will be a great talk from Ninja Metrics chief Dmitri Williams about how you can attract players to your game that will have a positive impact on both the overall play experience and your own monetization efforts.

Williams' talk, "Social Impact: Leveraging Community for Monetization, UA and Design," will take place during the GDC 2016 Free to Play Summit and will break down the concept of "social value" -- the social impact players of your games can have on each other -- then show you which genres, mechanics and platforms are driving it.

GDC 2016: Learn what makes Need for Speed's Autolog so compelling

December 28, 2015

The 2016 Game Developers Conference is just a few months away, and today the folks putting it together are highlighting a cool new talk from Criterion Games producer James Svensson about what made the studio's Autolog system tick -- and why more developers should be studying it.

The Autolog social interaction system debuted in Criterion's 2010 hit Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, winning critical acclaim for elegantly encouraging players to try and beat their friends' best times on individual in-game challenges.

At GDC 2016, Svensson -- who helped create Autolog -- will look back on how the innovative system was developed in "Beat It. A Retrospective of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit."

GDC 2016: Learn to write great NPCs from 80 Days scribe Meg Jayanth

December 22, 2015

As we get closer to the 2016 Game Developers Conference in March, organizers are excited to highlight a great new talk from 80 Days writer Meg Jayanth that will be taking place at the conference's Game Narrative Summit.

This session is intriguing because it offers a fresh perspective on how to design, write and empower non-player characters, who typically take a back seat to protagonists in game industry conversations about storytelling in games.

In her GDC 2016 talk "Forget Protagonists: Writing NPCs with Agency for '80 Days' and Beyond," Jayanth will draw on her experience writing 80 Days (as well as lots of relevant examples from other games) to explore how game makers can best write three-dimensional, engaging NPCs.

Come out to GDC 2016 and see how Campo Santo made the world of Firewatch

December 21, 2015

The 2016 Game Developers Conference is coming up quick, and today organizers are excited to reveal another great talk that will take place at the conference in March.

What's especially interesting about this talk is that it spans both the Design and Visual Art tracks of GDC talks, and explores the technical aspects of how artists express their creativity through game design.

Jane Ng, an artist on Firewatch at Campo Santo, will be delivering a postmortem-style presentation on the topic at GDC 2016. Her talk, "Making the World of Firewatch," will discuss the reasons behind various production decisions and how the studio dealt with unexpected issues during production.

Armello, Galak-Z and Soma join GDC 2016 Indie Summit lineup

December 18, 2015

The Game Developers Conference Indie Games Summit has a history of hosting insightful talks from a diverse array of innovative speakers, and today conference officials are eager to highlight a handful of the talks that will continue that tradition at GDC 2016.

Each of these talks is part of the GDC Indie Games Summit, one of eight that will take place Monday, March 14th and Tuesday, March 15th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA during the first two days of the conference.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III devs share lag-fighting tips at GDC 2016

December 17, 2015

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference are finalizing a lineup of great talks for GDC 2016 next March, and today they're excited to debut another pair of great expert sessions.

Both of these new talks tackle the nuts and bolts of game design, with one investigating how Call of Duty: Black Ops III developers keep lag to a minimum in multiplayer environments while the other dives deep into what makes a great level editor.

David Brevik will deconstruct Diablo in a GDC 2016 Classic Game Postmortem

December 16, 2015

Heads up, Diablo fans: Game Developers Conference 2016 officials are excited to announce that a game industry veteran is coming to the show next March to deliver his postmortem of a classic game that defined the action-RPG genre.

David Brevik, the veteran game developer best known for co-founding the studio that became Blizzard North, will be delivering a Classic Game Postmortem of the studio's groundbreaking game Diablo at GDC 2016!

Come to GDC 2016 and learn how to teach game balance in schools

December 16, 2015

Game Developers Conference organizers are proud to debut another pair of Summit sessions in which game industry experts will share their hard-won knowledge at GDC 2016 next March.

The eight focused Summits at GDC fill the first two days of the conference with lectures, panels, postmortems, and more to foster community-building within specific sectors of the game industry.

At the GDC Education Summit RIT assistant professor Ian Schreiber will offer you valuable insight into how you can teach students the basics of balancing games. His talk, "A Course About Game Balance," will present a summary of his college-level course in game balance, examining the major topics covered in the syllabus and a set of assignments that can be used to further build balance skills by putting the theory into practice.

Hear how Bloodborne's music was made at GDC 2016

December 15, 2015

With the 2016 Game Developers Conference on the horizon, event organizers are excited to debut another pair of intriguing sessions that should shed light on the art of developing great games and getting them in front of the right audience.

These talks showcase the breadth of knowledge being shared at GDC, with one focusing on the practical challenges of scoring an atmospheric game like Bloodborne while the other explores the more nebulous but critical art of optimizing your game's storefront listing.

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