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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.

GamesBeat@GDC Confirms OnLive, GameStop, PlayStation Home Speakers

February 9, 2010

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 IGF Reveals Mobile Category Winners, Audience Voting, Award Hosts

February 8, 2010

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:

48 Hours To Early Register For GDC 2010, As Metroid Creator Talk Revealed

February 3, 2010

As less than 48 hours remain for Game Developers Conference 2010's early registration, organizers have revealed a surprise lecture from Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto, discussing design over his almost 30-year career at Nintendo.
In his first-ever Western lecture, Nintendo's Sakamoto will present a talk called 'From Metroid to Tomodachi Collection to WarioWare: Different Approaches for Different Audiences', spanning his seminal multi-decade contribution to video games.
As the lecture description explains, Yoshio Sakamoto has been here from the start. In 1982 he joined Nintendo a year before the arrival of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Japan. He's worked as a developer for the entire history of the modern video game era, and is perhaps most noted for the Metroid franchise, where he has directed or supervised nearly every game in the series.
However, his development credits span a wide range of projects, with titles as diverse as WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Rhythm Heaven. At times he and his teams juggled multiple notable projects such as these simultaneously.
Last year, while hard at work helping to supervise the upcoming Metroid title for the Wii system, titled Metroid: Other M, he also produced the Nintendo DS hit Tomodachi Collection. In this game Mii characters converse, sing and dance, and even dream. To date, it has sold more than 2.5 million copies in Japan.

GDC 2010 Reveals Pixar, Molyneux, Schafer Talks

February 2, 2010

As the early registration deadline approaches, GDC 2010 organizers have revealed new lectures by Pixar notables, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, Double Fine's Tim Schafer, Final Fantasy XIII's director Motomu Toriyama, and fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore.
The announcements for Game Developers Conference 2010, which takes place March 9th-13th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, add to a recently confirmed keynote from Civilization creator Sid Meier, alongside almost 350 other lectures, keynotes, and panels.
This set of Main Conference sessions, all taking place from March 11th-13th, bolster an already formidable line-up, with nine notable Summits (from Social/Online through Indie to iPhone and beyond) set up for March 9th-10th.
Organizers have now released details on the following major new lectures for the GDC 2010 Main Conference:
- Seminal CG movie makers Pixar are giving a pair of two-hour lectures at the event -- the Toy Story and Up creators' Matthew Luhn will lecture on 'Storyboarding/Story Development at Pixar: Work Methods and Insights', while the Bay Area company's Andrew Gordon will speak on 'Character Animation at Pixar: Work Methods and Insights'.

GDC 2010 Covers Major Platforms In Mobile, Handheld Summit

February 1, 2010

GDC 2010 organizers have revealed GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit sessions, with Google, Nintendo, Sony, Palm, and Apple (via the sister iPhone Games Summit) perspectives all represented at the March 9th-10th Summit.
The reconfigured Summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is intended to be the premier professional conference for the creators, publishers, and distributors of portable games, both for consoles and mobile/smartphones.
Filled with hands-on information, case studies and debates, 2010's GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit will cover both successful business strategies and the nuts and bolts of development on mobile phones (Android, BREW, Windows Mobile, Java and more), as well as newly added support for portable consoles (PSP/PSP Minis, DS, DSi).
Some of the notable GDC Mobile Summit advisors from the world of handheld games include Capy's Nathan Vella (Might And Magic: Clash Of Heroes for DS), former Vodafone and EA exec Tim Harrison, and G3 Studios' Guido Henkel.
A number of significant talks have already been revealed on the Summit homepage. These include:

Game Developers Conference 2010 Reveals Online Preview Guide

January 29, 2010

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference 2010 have unveiled this year's 24-page magazine-style Preview Guide, detailing essential information about the premier game development industry trade show.
Now freely available online in a digital format, the guide provides a plethora of easily digestable information on the event, which is being held March 9 to 13 in San Francisco's Moscone Center.

Game Developers Choice Awards Give 2010 Ambassador Award To Penny Arcade

January 28, 2010

The 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards have announced that the key figures behind popular webcomic Penny Arcade, the Child’s Play Charity and the Penny Arcade Expo events -- writer Jerry Holkins, artist Mike Krahulik and business guru Robert Khoo -- will be awarded the prestigious Ambassador Award.
The Special Award honors an individual or individuals who have "helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games and help further our art."
It is chosen by the elite Choice Awards Advisory Committee, part of the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game creation, which includes game industry notables such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), and many others.
Holkins, Krahulik and Khoo will receive their award for their genuine, gamer-friendly empire they've built over the past decade, lovingly skewering video game culture and developers while building up a following, events and an industry-leading video game charity that help epitomize the positive elements of 'gamer spirit'.

Sid Meier Keynote, Major New Lectures Announced For GDC 2010

January 27, 2010

Organizers of Game Developers Conference 2010 have announced that Sid Meier, the Director of Creative Development and co-founder of Firaxis Games, will speak from his 25 years of experience in game design in the keynote address at GDC 2010 this March.
Best known for his work designing the genre-defining Civilization strategy game franchise, Sid Meier will present a keynote entitled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)."
In this rare address, Meier will describe how real-world, historical and mathematical facts cannot form the foundation of a successful game design. Instead, Meier will argue, the driving force of a game's design should be the psychology of the player.
Along the way, the seminal game designer will draw illustrative examples from his canon to illustrate how the complexities of human psychology can inform game design more than the laws of logic, physics, or algebra. In this development model, egomania, paranoia and delusion become part of the designer's toolkit, as the player's perception becomes the real reality, connecting gameplay to the player's psychological experience.

2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile Reveals Finalists

January 25, 2010

The 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile, an event that celebrates excellence in games for Apple's iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone operating systems (OS), Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation Portable, and other handheld devices, has named the finalists for its third annual competition, with a host of outstanding portable titles showcased this year.
This year's IGF Mobile marks a record number of entries with 170 titles submitted for the competition, up nearly 65 percent from last year's total, which itself was double over the previous year. The finalists for IGF Mobile will compete for $5,000 in prizes, including specialized awards for art, design, audio, technical prowess, and iPhone game creation, as well as the IGF Mobile Best Game award.
Some of the notable titles nominated for this year's IGF Mobile Awards include iPhone games such as double nominee, Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor, downloadable games for Nintendo's DSi including Powerhead Games' Glow Artisan, and promising titles from a host of worldwide indie developers, from England's Studio FungFung through Finland's Secret Exit and beyond.
This year, overall winners in each category will be announced on Feb. 8, 2010, with the category winners receiving $500 in prizes, a place as an overall IGF Mobile Best Game finalist, and the opportunity to showcase their mobile game at the IGF Pavilion during Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco this March.
In addition, all finalists for 2010's IGF Mobile competition -- whether category winners or not -- will receive one All-Access pass to attend GDC 2010 and attend the multiple mobile-specific Summits there, including the GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit and the iPhone Games Summit. (The IGF Mobile judges have also named three games in each category as 'honorable mentions' which - while not quite making it to become a finalist this year - are commended as some of the most intriguing and high quality independent mobile games of the year.)
The full list of finalists and honorable mentions for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition are:

GDC 2010, Google Reveal Android Phone Promotion

January 22, 2010

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have announced that they are working together with Google "to celebrate and inspire the mobile and independent game development communities" by offering free Nexus One and Verizon Droid by Motorola phones to select attendees.

GDC Debuts 2010 Indie Games Summit Line-Up

January 21, 2010

GDC 2010 organizers have revealed an initial set of Independent Games Summit talks for the March event, including notable lectures by Ron Carmel (World Of Goo) and Randy Smith (Spider).
The summit, now in its fourth year and taking place on March 9th-10th during Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, features lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators -- including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists and winners.
Overall, the 2010 Independent Games Summit "seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from game design philosophy, distribution, business, marketing, and much more."
Advisors for the Summit include Independent Games Festival chairman Simon Carless and independent developers such as Flashbang Studios founder Matthew Wegner (Off-Road-Velociraptor Safari), as well as colleague Steve Swink (Shadow Physics).
With a final set of lectures to be announced soon, a number of major talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage. Highlights include the following:
- Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked
In IGS 2010's kickoff talk, 2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel (World Of Goo) will discuss "the problems with the current model (a tenant farming ecosystem built upon a weak security model), contrast how Valve and Microsoft deal with developers, and propose that creating more transparency in the game industry will give rise to a healthy model for developers and publishers/distributors to work together."
- Increasing Our Reach: Designing To Grab and Retain Players
During his keynote talk, Looking Glass Studios veteran and Steven Spielberg collaborator Randy Smith (Thief) will talkk about the design concepts behind 'immediacy with depth', as applied to his recent iPhone hit Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor. He notes: "The indie games movement should be the wellspring of daring and innovative ideas, but we need a sizable and devoted audience to help us realize that potential. How do we reach more players? Is there something we’re doing wrong?", and vows to look at design solutions.

2010 IGF Reveals Student Showcase Winners

January 20, 2010

The Independent Games Festival, the popular industry event highlighting and awarding the talents of independent game developers at Game Developers Conference 2010, has announced the winners of the 2010 IGF Student Showcase, which recognizes outstanding indie game development taking place on school and university campuses around the world.
This year's set of ten Student Showcase winners include titles such as Utrecht School of the Arts & USC's virtual paper-folding puzzle game Paper Cakes, DePaul University's first-person 'sound visualization' title Devil's Tuning Fork, and Chalmers University's ingenious card-shuffling platform game Continuity.
These ten games will go on to compete for the Best Student Game Prize, announced on stage at the Independent Games Festival Awards, held Thursday, March 11, 2010, in San Francisco at GDC 2010.
The Student Showcase-winning games -- all of which will also be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC 2010 show floor -- were chosen from a remarkable field of entries by an opt-in subset of the more than 150 notable game industry figures judging the IGF Main Competition.
The full list of this year's winners is as follows:

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