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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 2017 for pragmatic tips on curbing toxic behavior in your game

November 21, 2016

retention, and generally makes your job as a game maker easier.

So how can industry professionals make communities better? At the 2017 Game Developers Conference, Two Hat/Community Sift chief Chris Priebe will explore the topic in a talk on "Trolls: The Cost of Doing Nothing."

This talk aims to highlight the impact that trolling and toxic behavior have on a game's success from a business perspective, answering such questions as "What is the long-term impact of doing nothing to curb abuse in gaming communities?" "How does toxicity influence a company's bottom line?", "What are the latest best practices to solve it?"

It promises to be a useful talk about a very important topic, and alongside it Prieba plans to offer attendees a strategy to manage toxicity and help gaming professionals build communities that people love.

At GDC 2017, get a behind-the-scenes look at composing music for Doom

November 18, 2016

Registration is still open for the 2017 Game Developers Conference, the largest event for game industry professionals in the world, and today organizers are excited to let you know about another great GDC 2017 session covering the music of id Software's 2016 game Doom.

In his session on "Doom: Behind the Music," game composer Mick Gordon will offer a detailed look into the compositional process, production techniques and creative philosophies behind the hell-raising soundtrack to the 4th installment of the seminal first-person shooter franchise.

Gordon -- who's worked on everything from Wolfenstein: The New Order to Killer Instinct -- will share insight into how to create a high-energy modern first-person-shooter soundtrack that unashamedly sits front-and-center, appeals to fans and stays true to the franchise.

Covering musical sound design, synthesis techniques, compositional approach, interactive music, mixing, working remotely and idea generation, Gordon will discuss the fine points behind creating an aggressive soundtrack that both engages the player and supports gameplay.

Learn to close down your game's community gracefully at GDC 2017

November 17, 2016

As we prepare for the 2017 Game Developers Conference next year, organizers would like to quickly bring to your attention a great talk taking place at the show that addresses a tricky topic: shutting down your game's community in an elegant way.

Lionbridge Game Services' Chloe Swain has helped bring her fair share of game communities to a dignified close, and in her GDC 2017 talk on "Closing Down Game Communities: How to Plan a Dignified Breakup" she'll share what she's learned to help you avoid some key mistakes.

That's important, because the care and planning you put into shutting down your game's community will directly affect the legacy of the game and that of your overall brand. In her talk Swain will explain best practices that will ensure your community walks away feeling they've been treated with respect and gives them the best goodbye possible.

Submit your weird prototypes to the GDC 2017 Experimental Gameplay Workshop!

November 16, 2016

Heads up, game devs: The folks behind the Experimental Gameplay Workshop today issued a call for submissions of your interesting new (and playable!) video game prototypes. The more intriguing and experimental, the better!

Select entries will earn a slot in the two-hour Experimental Gameplay Workshop session at GDC 2017 in San Francisco, a perennially popular showcase for an eclectic mix of unusual game concepts that explore new ideas and genres.

Organized by Robin Hunicke (Luna, Wattam, Journey) and Daniel Benmergui (Storyteller, Ernesto), the workshop affords developers from all over the industry a chance to show off concepts that stretch boundaries and -- hopefully -- move the industry forward.

At GDC 2017, a Madden dev shares tips on making your game more accessible

November 16, 2016

Organizers of the 2017 Game Developers Conference are lining up lots of great talks for the show, including an important one on improving your game's accessibility from a prominent Madden developer.

EA Sports' own Karen Stevens will be presenting a talk entitled "Game Accessibility: Practical Visual Fixes from EA's 'Madden NFL' Franchise" at GDC next year that will break down, in practical terms, exactly how (and why) you can make your game more accessible.

According to Stevens, over half a million Madden NFL 17 players are colorblind, and over 25 million people in the United States have other visual disabilities. Her presentation covers several of the visual accessibility settings in the game from simple tweaks such as optional enlarged game art and brightness/contrast controls, to a novel colorblind solution involving no game asset changes.

Come to GDC 2017 for practical insight on contract law for game devs

November 15, 2016

As the game industry prepares for the 2017 Game Developers Conference next year, organizers are pleased to highlight another great expert talk at the show that focuses on a very important topic: contract law for game developers, and indies in particular.

Games lawyer Chris Reid is returning to GDC next year to deliver a talk titled, appropriately enough, "Practical Contract Law 201 for Indie Developers: Moderately Scary Edition."

Reid aims to walk indie developers through the single most common legal issue they will encounter: Contracts. IP, privacy, licensing, distribution and almost every legal issue important to developers is handled with a contract. Reid will cover the five contracts every indie needs to understand: contractor agreements, publishing agreements, game development agreements, NDAs and EULAs.

For each type of contract, he will describe when it comes up, why it matters, and what terms to include and avoid. Chances are you're going to be looking over at least a few contracts in your career, so don't skip this expert talk on the topic!

30 common game pitching mistakes will be explained at GDC 2017

November 14, 2016

Putting together an amazing pitch is the first step in getting a publisher interested in your game. But even brilliant game developers sometimes make mistakes when they try to sell their ideas.

That's why, at the 2017 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony Santa Monica's Brian Upton will be delivering an earnest talk about "Thirty Things I Hate About Your Game Pitch."

In this whirlwind talk, a senior designer who has heard hundreds of game pitches during his career will describe thirty annoying or counterproductive things that you should avoid when you're pitching your game to a publisher. Make time to check it out, for you'll learn how publishers evaluate the games that are pitched to them, what they care about and what they don't, and what you can do to present your own game in the best possible light.

Forecasting your mobile game's revenue is key -- learn how at GDC 2017

November 10, 2016

The 2017 Game Developers Conference is shaping up to be the best yet, in part because of the broad diversity of sessions being planned for the show. Today, for example. organizers would like to quickly let you know about a promising talk about why revenue forecasting is so important for mobile game developers -- and how you can do it well.

In his GDC 2017 Mobile Summit talk on "Mobile Revenue Forecasting: A Guide to Not Losing Your Shirt", Iron Horse Games chief Mike Gordon will break down why game forecasting is a critical part of game development, and dig into why many developers skip this step or are too intimidated to even try it.

Through several case studies from live Iron Horse games, he’ll show you how to think about forecasting and how forecasting your game’s performance and analyzing the ROI on future work will help you maximize the returns on your time and effort while minimizing your losses. You’ll learn which variables you should include in your forecast, how to set your expectations around launch and how to make the decision to move onto another project, all of which should better equip you to be a successful game maker.

Come to GDC for a behind-the-scenes look Frostbite's rendering tech

November 9, 2016

The 2017 Game Developers Conference is shaping up to be a can't-miss event for the game industry, and today conference organizers are pleased to highlight one of the many great technical talks taking place at the show!

Electronic Arts' remarkable Frostbite engine powers a wide variety of games, and that means it has to be uniquely capable of efficiently handling anything devs can throw at it. At GDC next year, Frostbite engineer Yuriy O'Donnell will shed light on how it does just that in a talk on "FrameGraph: Extensible Rendering Architecture in Frostbite."

This talk is important because it describes how Frostbite handles rendering architecture challenges that come with having to support a wide variety of games (from Plants vs Zombies 2 to Battlefield 1 [pictured]) on a single engine. O'donnell aims to describe Frostbite's new rendering abstraction design, which is based on a graph of all render passes and resources. This approach allows implementation of rendering features in a decoupled and modular way, while still maintaining efficiency.

Get VR game dev advice from VR veteran Jesse Schell at GDC 2017

November 8, 2016

The folks organizing the 2017 Game Developers Conference are lining up a bunch of great content for the show, and today they wanted to share a smart talk they've lined up for the Entertainment track of VRDC @ GDC next year.

Jesse Schell is a veteran game maker who's been teaching the "Building Virtual Worlds" class at Carnegie Mellon University for over a decade. In that time, his students have created over 1000 experimental VR worlds, and as part of the special VRDC @ GDC next year he'll be delivering a talk entitled "Lessons Learned from a Thousand Virtual Worlds."

Make time to check it out because he'll present lessons learned from watching, guiding, and experiencing these experiments, providing copious examples along the way. Lessons span from prototyping (importance of gold spike, find the toy first, do what your tech is good at) to neurology (eye tracking feels like mind control, the magic of mirror neurons) to showmanship (escalation blows people's minds, liveness is magical).

At GDC 2017, hear how iconographic music can enhance your VR games

November 7, 2016

GDC organizers have some good news: At the 2017 Game Developers Conference, the largest event for game industry professionals in the world, audio expert Kenneth Young will be delivering a great talk about how iconographic music can enhance your VR games.

His talk on "Assisting VR Gameplay Through the Use of Iconographic Music" is important because directing your player through the use of audio is central to the success of many VR experiences.

The tried and tested visual tricks you rely on in traditional games to draw the player's attention can feel clunky in VR -- a big arrow pointing at something works on a utilitarian level, but it fights against the wonderful sense of presence. The resultant pressure being put on audio to direct the player towards "off-screen" action is a brilliant opportunity, but it's not one most people have much experience with. Come to this talk to learn about the approach that worked brilliantly in PSVR launch title Tethered.

IGF 2017 welcomes a remarkable lineup of over 650 entrants!

November 4, 2016

Good news, everyone: The 19th annual Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and largest showcase for independent game developers -- recently closed its call for submissions, and now officials are proud to announce the festival has received over 650 entries for the IGF 2017 Competition!

The perennially popular festival -- which is co-located with Game Developers Conference 2017 -- drew that remarkable number of submissions from a variety of experienced indie developers, first-time entrants and students.

Some of the hundreds of promising titles entered in this year's IGF Competition include Blendo Games' hacking fantasy sim Quadrilateral Cowboy, Kokoromi's striking Superhypercube and Michael Brough's mobile puzzler Imbroglio.

This year's entrants also include notable games like the farm life sim Stardew Valley from ConcernedApe (aka Eric Barone), Kitfox Games' mythic action game Moon Hunters and Golden Glitch Studios' adventure game Elsinore. You can check out the full list of IGF entries here.

At GDC 2017 you'll hear how Final Fantasy XV's interactive music was made

November 4, 2016

Organizers of the 2017 Game Developers Conference are hard at work lining up an excellent array of content for attendees, and today they want to briefly let you know about one of the great talks taking place at the show.

The venerable Final Fantasy series has always been lauded for its remarkable soundtracks, and at GDC 2017 Square Enix's Sho Iwamoto will break down how Final Fantasy XV's interactive music was made in "Epic AND Interactive Music in 'Final Fantasy XV'."

While interactive music is common in AAA games, but it can be tricky to pull off in games like Final Fantasy which have a strong melody line and musical progression.

Square Enix worked to make an intelligent music system called "MAGI", that allows composers to create music in any tempo or measures and has customized sync points to make it interactive while remaining epic. In this talk, the sound team behind Final Fantasy XV will share how they created actual music data in their proprietary authoring tools, and issues they faced during implementing them such as synchronization with game scene and looping, fading, etc.

VRDC successfully wraps its sold-out inaugural event, will return next year

November 4, 2016

The Virtual Reality Developers Conference, the premier event for creators of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) experiences, has wrapped its highly anticipated first standalone event.

Welcoming more than 750 professionals from all over the world, the sold out conference featured a program packed with immersive sessions covering the latest trends and topics within this fast-growing industry.

To learn more about VRDC@GDC, taking place February 27 – 28 in San Francisco, CA visit the VRDC @ GDC page and to learn about VRDC Fall visit the VRDC website.

Learn to create great characters for your game franchise at GDC 2017!

November 3, 2016

Registration is open for the 2017 Game Developers Conference, the largest event for game industry professionals in the world, and today organizers are proud to highlight another one of the great talks taking place at the show!

Consider this: The top ten movie franchises of all time and seven of the all-time top 10 game franchises are character–based. In his GDC 2017 Game Narrative Summit talk on "Creating Franchise Characters," veteran game designer Bob Bates will look at what these franchise characters have in common.

Do you think it's a coincidence that Harry Potter, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, and Dominic Toretto are all orphans? Find out what else they have in common in this session geared at helping writers create memorable characters of your own.

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