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Stay up to date on everything happening with the Game Developers Conference, the Independent Games Festival, the Game Developers Choice Awards, and more through our online blog. To get GDC updates sent straight to your mailbox, subscribe to our GDC Newsletter.

Come to GDC for an inside look at ILMxLAB's location-based VR experiences!

February 7, 2018

The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this March is filled to overflowing with great content, so today organizers want to quickly draw your attention to a very cool talk at the show from the folks at Lucasfilm and ILMxLab!

As part of the Programming track of GDC 2018 talks, Lucasfilm's Stephen Hill and Ron Radeztsky will join ILMxLAB's Lutz Latta to present an hour-long session on "Powering Up ILMxLAB's Location-Based VR Experiences."

It's going to be a fascinating talk because last year ILMxLAB developed a number of location-based VR experiences (see photo), among them the Oscar-winning Carne y Arena, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, Star Wars: Droid Repair Bay, and Transformers: The Last Night VR.

Speaker Q&A: Blizzard's Lana Bachynski discusses the joy of good game animation

February 7, 2018

If you're a game animator, you're probably already well aware that the Game Animation Bootcamp at GDC is one of the best resources out there for neophyte and veteran animators alike. In fact, there's already an assortment of great talks listed for the 2018 Bootcamp, which is being organized by animators Lana Bachynski and Michael Jungbluth.

To get you ready for all the great sessions, we've reached out to Bachynski, who works as an animator at Blizzard Entertainment, to learn more about her career and what animators can expect at GDC 2018.

Don't miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March is going to be full of interesting and informative bootcamps like Bachynski's. For more visit the show’s official website.

Learn from top game artists and directors at the Art Direction Bootcamp!

February 7, 2018

If you're coming to GDC 2018 next month, you should know about some of the informative and intriguing sessions taking place during the day-long Art Direction Bootcamp which will help kick off the conference.

It's just one of many great Bootcamps and Tutorials scheduled during the first two days of GDC (Monday and Tuesday, March 19th and 20th this year) and offer attendees the chance to focus on the critical components of a game's art direction, and its creators' broader artistic vision.

GDC 2018 attendees are invited to attend the Monday bootcamp and join the leading artistic forces of our industry as they share their experiences and discuss some of the most important issues of the day. Learn a ton about what really matters in art, and how to build or support a vision and make friends doing it.

There will be a wealth of concentrated art-specific information from the top minds of the industry that should be interesting not just to newbies and students, but seasoned professionals who are concerned with pressing issues of the day and industry realities.

Learn to make better, more accessible games at the GDC 2018 UX Summit!

February 6, 2018

With weeks to go until the 2018 Game Developers Conference, organizers want to quickly let you know about some of the great UI/UX design talks taking place during the March conference!

Each of these talks is part of the excellent GDC UX Summit, one of eight that will take place Monday, March 19th and Tuesday, March 20th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA -- the first two days of the conference.

GDC Summits talks are great because they're hyper-focused on one specific area of game design. For example, in "'Halo Wars 2': A UX Postmortem" 343 Industries' Max Szlagor will review the trade-offs and successes of designing great controls and experiences for two very different platform audiences (console and PC).

Check out this talk and you'll walk away with an understanding of how establishing solid design and UX pillars can help focus game dev teams and specialists working around the world to deliver a compelling, approachable experience across multiple platforms and input options.

Speaker Q&A: Rovio's Michail Katkoff explains how to be a successful product manager

February 5, 2018

If you're in the business of free-to-play games, you should know that at GDC 2018, Rovio's Michail Katkoff will be presenting a talk on what it takes to be a successful product manager in that field.

His Business and Marketing talk will dive into the ways that different companies utilize their product managers, calling out the most successful among their ranks and highlighting what other companies should be doing to mimic their success. Here, Katkoff introduces himself to GDC attendees and discusses what they can expect from his upcoming talk.

Don't miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March is going to be full of interesting and informative sessions like Katkoff's. For more visit the show’s official website.

Vote now for the 2018 IGF and Game Developers Choice Audience Awards!

February 5, 2018

Game Developers Conference organizers are excited to announce that online voting for the Audience Awards for both the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival Awards is now open through next Monday, February 12 at 11:59pm PT!

Please help spread the word! Public votes will help determine the winners, which will be announced live during the ceremonies on Wednesday, March 21st, as part of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The ceremonies are available to attend for all GDC 2018 pass-holders and will be livestreamed on the GDC's official Twitch channel at 6:30 PM PT beginning with the IGF Awards, followed by the GDCAs.

Diamond Partner Q&A: Oculus' Jason Rubin on how the company is shaking up its GDC presence

February 3, 2018

At GDC 2018, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with an array of sponsors who help fuel the games industry, including our Diamond Partners, whose support plays an integral role to the success of GDC.

To introduce you to our Diamond Partner Oculus, we've reached out to Jason Rubin, Oculus vice president of content, in order to learn more about the state of virtual reality in 2018.

Don't miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March will be a hub for many more great industry titans. For more visit the show’s official website.

Ubisoft to share lessons learned from 10 years of Assassin's Creed at GDC 2018!

February 2, 2018

As you make plans to attend the 2018 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next month, organizers want to make sure you don't miss out on any great talks -- including a very special retrospective look at the history of Assassin's Creed.

In his Design track talk on "10 Years of Evolution of the 'Assassin's Creed' Brand", Ubisoft's Jean Guesdon will share a thoughtful deconstruction of how the brand has evolved from the original Assassin's Creed to AC2 to an annualized brand, across different hardware generations, through offshoots, to cross-studio co-dev, tying in books and comics and film, and how it is now being refreshed with Assassin's Creed Origins.

This talk is intended for anyone interested in the history of the series, and will be of particular interest to directors and other senior developers responsible for maintaining any brand over a long period of time.

Catch cutting-edge sponsored sessions from Improbable, Apple and more at GDC 2018

February 1, 2018

As the 2018 Game Developers Conference draws nigh, organizers want to quickly highlight a number of cutting-edge sponsored sessions from Nvidia, AMD and other influential technology firms taking place at the March event.

If you're looking for an opportunity to learn about how the latest hardware and software works -- and how you can best use it to make games -- you'll want to keep these talks on your radar.

For example, Apple is sponsoring a fascinating GDC 2018 session, "Introduction to Apple’s ARKit: Best practices and recent updates" that introduces core concepts of the ARKit framework, it’s underlying principles, and the ARKit API.

At GDC 2018, get a postmortem look at the Rocket League language ban

February 1, 2018

The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this March is overflowing with great stuff to see and do, so we want to quickly highlight a talk today that you really should see!

It's a notable part of the GDC 2018 Community Management Summit: a postmortem from the folks at Rocket League dev Psyonix about how they implemented a language ban in the popular cross-platform car soccer game -- and how it worked out!

Appropriately titled "'Rocket League': Language Ban System Postmortem", the talk will see Psyonix community manager Devin Connors breaking down how the language ban was designed, how it works, and what impact its implementation had on the Rocket League community over time.

It promises to be a fascinating talk, one that will prove especially useful for community managers looking to learn more about how they can use homegrown automation-with-oversight to deal with verbal harassment in online games in all genres.

Diamond Partner Q&A: ARM's Pablo Fraile on the possibilities of new VR hardware

January 31, 2018

At GDC 2018, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with an array of sponsors who help fuel the games industry, including our Diamond Partners, whose support plays an integral role to the success of GDC.

To introduce you to our Diamond Partner ARM, we've reached out to ARM's Pablo Fraile to ask about some of the company's new innovative display solutions for virtual reality, and what it has planned for the game development community at GDC!

Don't miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March will be a hub for many more great industry titans. For more visit the show’s official website.

Level up your skills at this year's Technical Artist Bootcamp!

January 31, 2018

Heads up, GDC attendees: The GDC 2018 Technical Artist Bootcamp on Tuesday, March 20th, 2018 is shaping up to be a fantastic day-long learning opportunity, with a smorgasbord of expert sessions that offer deep dives into different facets of art and technology in game production.

Of course, if you haven't already registered to attend GDC 2018, you should do so post-haste -- the deadline to register for passes at a discounted rate is today!

Seasoned, respected technical artists from across the game industry will be there to share skills and tools you can use to be more effective in your work, demonstrate your value to get a key development role, and further integrate technical art into your studio's pipeline and culture.

Make games smarter: Attend the GDC 2018 AI Summit!

January 30, 2018

The 2018 Game Developers Conference is coming up fast, and organizers are eager to let you know about some of the great AI-focused talks that will be taking place during the March conference.

Each of these talks is part of the GDC AI Summit, one of eight that will take place Monday, March 19th and Tuesday, March 20th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA during the first two days of the conference.

Each Summit offers a comprehensive overview of a specific game industry discipline, and the AI Summit is no exception. This year, for example, Guerrilla Games' Julian Berteling will be delivering a very cool talk on "Beyond 'Killzone': Creating New AI Systems for 'Horizon Zero Dawn'" to explain the changes that Guerilla made to switch from having to support a single human enemy in closed corridor spaces to a game with more than 25 wildly different characters in a large open world.

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