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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.

GDC Online Organizers Announce iPad, 3D, iPhone, Game Narrative Summits

April 14, 2010

Organizers of this October's GDC Online game conference in Austin have confirmed Summits to run parallel with the major event, including one and two-day events dedicated to game development on Apple’s iPad, 3D stereoscopic games, iPhone games and video game narrative.
The summits, to be held on the first two days (October 5th and 6th) of the four-day event, will present key in-depth business and technical advice in these major up-and-coming facets of the game industry, ahead of the online game-centric Main Conference content.
The newly revealed topics to be presented at the Game Developers Conference Online (formerly known as GDC Austin) this October include the following:
iPad Gaming Summit
Debuting at GDC Online, the one-day iPad Gaming Summit, paired with the iPhone Games Summit, will provide an abundance of key facts and advice for all those working on the iPhone and iPad platforms.
Sharing key business learnings to top technical takeaways from developers already surging to major success on this already extremely competitive format platform, the iPad Summit provides a springboard into the world of iPhone/iPad game development.

GDC Canada Adds Career Seminar Talks, Console 'New Realities' Talk

April 12, 2010

GDC Canada organizers have revealed initial Game Career Seminar lectures for the May 6th-7th Vancouver event, also adding a Main Conference lecture by Disney and ex-Radical execs on the harsh 'new realities' of making major console games.
As well as already-announced emerging market lectures from Zynga and the Diner Dash creator and other recently debuted talks from Obsidian, Blizzard, Telltale, and Blue Castle Games execs and creators, the event is starting to debut details on this year's Game Career Seminar.
Held on Friday, May 7th, and a one-day program designed for students and individuals interested in learning how to build a career in the video game industry, the first two GDC Canada Game Career Seminar lectures have debuted via the event's Schedule Builder, as follows:
- In a GCS keynote entitled 'From Air Guitar to Video Games Live (and PBS!): A Conversation with Tommy Tallarico', veteran video game composer and Video Games Live co-creator Tommy Tallarico will talk to Victor Lucas about his career in the industry, from Earthworm Jim through the present day, and his work to popularize video game music -- giving helpful hints and tips for those looking for a longlasting career making video games.
- In a practical Game Career Seminar lecture, 'Preparation (Don't Give Us a Reason to Reject You!)', Obsidian Entertainment's Jim Rivers, the hiring manager for the Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol creators, explains of his lecture description: "Every convention, college or job fair people ask me one question. How do I get my foot in the door? I always answer 'Preparation!'... So I invite you to learn what to do to become prepared, and not give us a reason to reject you."

GDC Vault Adds Free 2D Boy, Bungie GDC 2010 Video Lectures

April 5, 2010

GDC organizers have released two new free lecture videos recorded at Game Developers Conference 2010, including 2D Boy's Ron Carmel on funding independent games and Bungie's Brian Sharp on compassionate leadership in game development.
The two new lectures, published at the GDC Vault website, feature video technology that allows users to simultaneously view a presenter's slides alongside video and audio of their presentation.
First, the Independent Games Summit at GDC this year was kicked off by Ron Carmel's lecture, 'Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked', for which the full video presentation is now available.
Carmel, co-founder of World Of Goo creator 2D Boy, is one of the key movers behind the recently-announced Indie Fund, an "angel"-style funding source for indie game makers, and his lecture and Q&A discusses his thoughts on the future of funding for independents.
The lecture begins with IGS co-organizers Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink introducing the Summit and making remarks about the state of independent games - click on the 'Indies and Publishers' link in the navigation window if you'd like to move straight to Ron's talk.

GDC Canada Reminds On Early Reg Deadline, Confirms FarmVille Keynote

March 30, 2010

GDC Canada organizers are remind prospective attendees that tomorrow, March 31, is the deadline for early registration for the May 6th-7th Vancouver event.
At the same time, Zynga vice president and FarmVille general manager Bill Mooney has been confirmed as the event's opening keynote, kicking off the event with a lecture on May 6.
Mooney's prior experience includes major game publishers like Activision and LucasArts, in addition to five years as a trial lawyer and stints as a television writer. At GDC Canada, he'll speak from his experience developing Zynga's social game hits Mafia Wars and FarmVille in a keynote entitled "Building Social Games: Games at the Speed of Light."
In addition to previously-announced talks from Obsidian, Telltale, Blizzard, Diner Dash creator Nick Fortugno and many more, a new set of featured speakers has been highlighted for the upcoming conference, slated to discuss key focal points for the event like new distribution models, developing new global titles, and managing established franchises - as follows:

GDC Vault Debuts Free Videos, Slides From GDC 2010

March 25, 2010

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have revealed plans for the GDC Vault, including free videos featuring Zynga, Ernest Adams and more, and regular free updates planned throughout the year.
The newly launched GDC Vault website is designed to hold free speaker slides from all GDC events, as well as specially synchronized video recordings of Game Developers Conference lectures and historical audio recordings.
The GDC Vault video technology allows users to simultaneously view a presenter's slides alongside video and audio of their presentation.
As an initial offering, the GDC Vault free videos section has made the 5 Expo Pass-included GDC 2010 sessions available for completely free viewing.
Free GDC 2010 Lecture Recordings
Free videos debuted thus far include the following notable hour-long GDC 2010 lectures, all available permanently online:
- 'Engineering Scalable Social Games' by Dr. Robert Zubek of Zynga, a programming talk in which the veteran developer "introduces best practices for building highly scalable infrastructure for social and web games" from the viewpoint of the Farmville creators.

GDC Canada 2010 Confirms Zynga, IUGO, Fortugno Talks

March 19, 2010

Organizers of this May's GDC Canada event in Vancouver, BC have confirmed the first social game and iPhone lectures for the event, with speakers from Zynga (Farmville), iPhone experts IUGO, and Diner Dash creator Nick Fortugno discussing major emerging markets.
Registration is now open for the event at the Vancouver Convention Centre, which talkes place on May 6th and 7th -- with early, reduced-price passes only available until the end of March.
This year, new tracks will focus on more hot games industry topics including digital distribution, social games, and iPhone games.
Some of the initially announced highlights for these vital tracks, many of which are bringing major creators to the Canadian market for the first time, are as follows:

GDC 2010 Gallery: Game Developers Choice Awards, Expo Floor

March 18, 2010

With this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco complete, organizers have been collecting the event's substantial volume of visual documentation.
This volume chronicles the Game Developers Conference's expansive expo floor as well as the star-studded Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, featuring big winner Naughty Dog (Uncharted 2), host Warren Spector, special award recipients Gabe Newell, John Carmack, and Penny Arcade, and more.
Earlier roundups from GDC collected images from the show's many notable speaker sessions, and the Independent Games Festival Summit, Pavilion, and Awards.
Game Developers Choice Awards 2010
These photographs highlight moments and personalities from this year's Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, drawn from the considerable official GDC photo archive.


Ceremony host Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Epic Mickey) sets a serious tone for the evening's proceedings.

GDC 2010 Gallery: Notable Speakers, Event Highlights

March 17, 2010

With this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco complete, organizers have been collecting the event's substantial volume of visual documentation.
This volume chronicles many of the speakers who highlighted the main conference tracks during GDC, part of the UBM Techweb Game Network (also this website's parent company), from inspiring creative manifestos to in-depth discipline-specific talks.
These include notables such as Blizzard's Rob Pardo and keynote speaker Sid Meier of Civilization fame, as well as last-minute secret speaker addition Will Wright (The Sims), and many more from the over 450 GDC speakers this year. An earlier roundup collected images from the Independent Games Festival Summit, Pavilion, and Awards.
Game Developers Conference 2010 Sessions
These pictures capture moments from a wide variety of talks, drawn from the considerable official GDC photo archive.


Firaxis design legend Sid Meier (Civilization, Pirates!) headlined this year's conference with his keynote "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)."

GDC Gallery: IGF Awards, Pavilion, Indie Games Summit, More...

March 16, 2010

Organizers of this year's Game Developers Conference and Independent Games Festival have been documenting the March 9th-13th San Francisco event in visual form, with the independent game-specific content at last week's show first to be examined.
The events -- part of the UBM Techweb Game Network, as are this website -- have put together a gallery of the Awards, Pavilion, Indie Games Summit, and more, highlighting this year's crop of top indies at work and play.
Independent Games Festival Awards
First, here's a look at pictures from the the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, where Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op caper Monaco was the big winner of the night, nabbing the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game in front of a crowd of over 3,000 GDC attendees.


The 2010 IGF hosts, Kyle Gabler (2D Boy) and Erin Robinson (Puzzle Bots)

igfbefore.jpg

IGF and Game Developers Choice Awards guests.

GDC Sees Record Attendance, Reveals 2011 Dates

March 15, 2010

Organizers of the 2010 Game Developers Conference, the world's largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, has announced an all-time record of 18,250 game industry professionals attending San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center for the March 9th-13th event.
Surpassing last year's total of 17,000 attendees, the event brought together experienced game developers, publishers, deal makers, industry aspirants and working press for more than 400 lectures, panels, summits, tutorials and roundtable discussions.
Offering a full five days of content, the event also hosted an extensive Exposition floor, featuring the biggest firms in the games space alongside the Career Pavilion and associated Game Career Seminar.
Also presented were the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival, the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, Game Connection America, and more opportunities for networking, discussing business, sharing knowledge, and meeting with equally-devoted fellow developers.
Following the success of the show, organizers of the Game Developers Conference have announced that GDC 2011 will return to the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco from Monday, February 28 to Friday, March 4, 2011, with a call for lecture submissions to open this Summer.

GDC 2010: The Announcements, The Top Talks

March 15, 2010

With Game Developers Conference 2010 now at an end, the event's sister editorial website Gamasutra.com has rounded up the top announcements - from Sony Move through OnLive's release specifics - and write-ups of the biggest talks into one handy news story.
The official GDC 2010 page on Gamasutra has more than 100 news stories on one of the biggest events of the gaming year, and Gamasutra is now highlighting the biggest product-related announcements of the show.
This will be followed by the site's pick of the top ten most intriguing write-ups from the more than 450 sessions on display at this year's GDC in San Francisco. Here's some of the top announcements and write-ups from last week's show, according to Gamasutra:
The Announcements
GDC: Sony's Motion Controller Is 'PlayStation Move'
"At GDC on Wednesday, Sony revealed more details about its PS3 motion controller, which isn't called Arc or Gem, but "PlayStation Move," a product Sony says will bring on 'the next generation of motion gaming.'"
GDC: OnLive Gets Launch Date, Reveals Initial Publishers
"Cloud-based game streaming service OnLive has announced an official U.S. launch date of June 17, 2010, including games from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment."
GDC: Microsoft Announces XNA Game Studio 4.0
"Microsoft has announced version 4.0 of its XNA Game Studio development package, which includes support for its new Windows Phone 7 Series, as well as enhancing features for Xbox 360 and PC game development."

GDC: Uncharted 2 Wins Big At 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards

March 11, 2010

Naughty Dog's critically-acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the big winner at the 10th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, presented at a ceremony this evening at UBM TechWeb Game Network's 2010 Game Developers Conference (GDC), receiving a total of five awards, including Best Writing and the coveted Game of the Year award.
Another major honoree, 5th Cell received the award for Best Handheld Game and the Innovation Award, for its creativity-fueled portable game, Scribblenauts. Zynga, creators of the wildly addictive and popular Facebook game, Farmville, received the honor for Best New Social/Online Game, marking the first winner for this inaugural category.
Other winners include Rocksteady Studios' dark and gritty adventure, Batman: Arkham Asylum, which won for Best Game Design. The Best Debut Game went to Runic Games' Torchlight. The Best Downloadable Game award went to thatgamecompany's Flower, marking the second such award for the developer, following their win in 2008 with fl0w.

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