Summits & GCS Call for Submissions

The field of real-time graphics is made exciting by how rapidly it evolves and advances. This one-day summit provides professional insights into the state-of-the-art graphical techniques used by some of the most visually advanced games on the planet. It provides attendees with a peek behind the curtains so they may learn about the latest technologies that bring new levels of realism, advancements in  performance, and more! The summit strives to focus on vendor-neutral techniques so that each session will have the potential to benefit all engines and shaders.

Summit speakers will dive deep into the technical details and optimizations that drive the graphical fidelity of their games, sharing both lessons learned as well as ideas for future directions and advancements. Attendees of the summit should be familiar with modern rendering APIs such as DirectX or Vulkan, real-time shading languages, the basics of GPU programmable pipelines, as well as common real-time graphics algorithms. Some knowledge of game engine rendering architecture is helpful but not strictly required. The target audience includes graphics programmers, game engine programmers, technical artists, and other graphics enthusiasts.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Advanced Graphics Summit welcomes submissions covering a range of modern rendering techniques, such as:

• Rendering complex, detailed worlds, leveraging advanced techniques for efficient scene representation, culling & draw submission and resource streaming
• Fast and accurate material models for a wide variety of content, including physically-based reflectance models, subsurface scattering materials and more
• Advances in lighting, shadowing, and real-time raytracing
• Rendering and simulation of natural phenomenon such as atmospheric, volumetric and weather effects
• Image-based techniques for denoising, anti-aliasing, color-grading, compression and general frame-treatment
• Strategies for more efficiently leveraging the GPU, memory bandwidth and other hardware resources

Presenters are expected to share enough detail about their techniques that attendees could reasonably replicate the presented results or directly apply the lessons learned in their own games, engines, and graphical projects.

Conference Program Topic

Learn the latest programming skills and techniques to develop games across platforms including consoles, mobile, PCs, virtual reality and more. The demand for high production value in games continues to increase with new tools, middleware and technical skills required to solve difficult development problems.

Skilled video game animators wield a unique blend of art, design and technical prowess to get the job done, and the Animation Summit is at the forefront of sharing the relevant knowledge with developers everywhere. This one-day summit brings together a group of experienced and specialized animation experts across AAA and Indie. The Animation Summit is seeking submissions from developers across the industry to focus on deep-dive discussions into the needs of strong character performances and player communication. Submission topics of interest include all facets of animation expertise: 'traditional' focused talks on animation process, technical achievements, bite-sized tips and tricks, insight into animation culture, and how to best apply all that knowledge to game development. Through a variety of tools and disciplines, the day will show how the unique demands of making games is creating the need not just for great animators, but great developers.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

• Animation craft by way of character performance, action, gameplay, and cinematic experiences
• Process and cross-disciplinary technical achievements in rigging, tooling and procedural or simulated solutions
• Animation and game development culture
• Bite-sized tips and tricks

Yearly Session Descriptions

Animation Microtalks

Join in on one of our yearly favorites with the fast-paced Animation Microtalks. 1 hour, 10 professionals, with talks dedicated to educate, entertain, and inspire using rants, raves, observations and wild musings on animation and the industry as a whole. These talks are not dedicated to the craft of animating in video games, but the quirks, culture, and community that surrounds us – all under one common theme.

Tricks of the Trade

Six animators rapidly deliver their best tips and tricks for working in and refining their craft. Each speaker has 5 minutes to showcase their personal favorite ideas, workflows, and animation techniques.

Conference Program Topic

Learn from leading artists with a wide variety of art styles and concepts, and explore the inspiration and process behind their work. Learn methods to create quality art and animations for all kinds of games under tight deadlines; from stellar concept art techniques to post-production best practices and everything in between.

The Art Direction Summit is a one-day summit, completely dedicated to art direction and broader artistic vision. Come see the leading artistic forces of the industry share their experience and raise 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 veterans and seasoned art professionals, but also new artists and faculty/students who are interested in learning more about the pressing issues of the day and industry realities. New friends who are also passionate about game art are welcome. The Art Direction Summit advisors welcome all submission topics related to art direction, technical pipelines, and new means of collaboration (especially during this past year) for games development.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Art Direction Summit advisors welcome all submission topics related to art direction, technical pipelines, and new means of collaboration (especially during this past year) for games development.

Conference Program Topic

Learn from leading artists with a wide variety of art styles and concepts, and explore the inspiration and process behind their work. Learn methods to create quality art and animations for all kinds of games under tight deadlines; from stellar concept art techniques to post-production best practices and everything in between.

The GDC Audio Summit consists of presentations that reflect the broad spectrum of interactive audio disciplines, and serves as an introduction to the Audio Track at GDC. Focused on the technical, creative, and logistical topics surrounding the successful navigation of sound for games, this one-day Audio Summit uniquely balances deep knowledge-sharing with breadth of applicability to the entire audience, and includes the opportunity for attendee-driven conversations with our individual presenters at our Lunchtime Surgeries. The summit aims to serve programmers and content creators, specialists and generalists, veterans and novices, as well as both freelance and in-house audio solution providers.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Audio Summit actively pursues and celebrates a diverse slate of industry presenters, with more than 100 unique speakers over the Summit’s two decade history at GDC. Audio Summit advisors are seeking novel and diverse perspectives that can be applied to everyone creating and supporting sound for interactive media. Specific topics of interest include (but are not limited to) career development and health, music composition, sound design, dialogue, technical sound design and implementation, and other emerging topics – with specific focus on how they uniquely relate to audio experience development for interactive entertainment.

Conference Program Topic

Join the game industry's top audio professionals to share knowledge and experience from the real world addressing audio's unique aesthetic, technical, business and logistical problems.

This summit is your one-day "deep dive" of this essential and occasionally overlooked (until it's too late) component of video game development. Having discussed the common issues that can be problems in our well-established industry, we are now taking a break from well-worn rants, ruminations on toxic communities, and beginner-level topics. It’s time to create practical, achievable solutions. Additionally, all initial submissions should include supporting data.

Who should submit: Experienced, creative, underrepresented, and currently practicing community management professionals. We are looking for new and diverse voices and single speaker talks vs panels to provide opportunities to a wider range of people. We also want this summit to reflect our industry’s increased scope of professionals (including e-sports, indie, and tabletop)!

Topics of Interest to get you started:

Career development

• finding your path (and/or possibly changing tracks), specializations, voice, style and resources to get you there
• the job hunt: resources, strategies, negotiation, full time vs contracts, remote vs onsite
• Building and sustaining successful community departments
• hiring, recruiting, retention, making sure your team reflects your community
• dividing and conquering: creating delegation of tasks at scale

Tools of the trade

• strategies for social listening tools in conjunction with being community embedded
• the platforms of yesterday, today, and tomorrow and making the case for (or against) each
• qualitative vs quantitative data: picking the right metrics for business goals, how to talk “numbers and feelings” effectively, etc.
• compliance and policy strategies in the age of increasing global privacy concerns

Communities of the future

• case studies of your pandemic solutions/wins, post-mortems from existing communities
• accessibility and representation for new and existing communities

Gain insight into game industry trends, identify business opportunities and network with platforms and developers to explore potential partnerships. Learn the latest approaches to marketing games including user acquisition, community building, and tips to secure coverage from press, streamers and influencers.

The Educators Summit is dedicated to bringing forward the most innovative and exciting ideas in game education today. Attendees will discover new experimental and inventive educational approaches as well as best practices that they can bring back to their faculty and classrooms. This one day summit brings together educators from established game development programs with new game course creators that want to understand the challenges they'll face in the next few years. It is a great professional development opportunity that will explore how new areas of game education will advance the field for the next generation of students.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

Who Should Submit

You're an inspired educator with some great ideas to share with others about teaching game design/development, to improve everyone's practice. You've done some ground-breaking work on your curriculum or research that we can all use to improve what we are doing with students. You have a unique point of view on teaching game design/development that you haven't seen anywhere else, that you know could add value. You have an idea for a panel, and can assemble some great speakers from various schools to speak to a particular topic. We are looking for new voices, so if you haven't submitted before, please consider doing so. There is probably something amazing and unique about how YOU do things that we would all benefit from hearing about. We are particularly interested in hearing from programs/people who may not be regular attendees.

Audience

The audience consists of educators of game development and studies (working in the context of community college, four-year college/university and graduate education programs, with the occasional K-12 educator). Most attendees are at schools that already have well-established game programs and courses of study (or else they will be in a few short years, once they work the kinks out of a newly-developed program). The Educators Summit is soliciting for the following topics:

• Inspired approaches to teaching any aspect of game development or game studies.
• Novel ways to fund or publish games research, student game projects, etc.
• Proven best practices for successful programs, courses and research structures.
• Strategies for encouraging and teaching diverse student communities.
• Teaching game design/development online.

Annual Lecture Themes

If you're interested in submitting a talk to one of our annual lecture themes, be sure to note that in the "Presentation Outline" section of the submission form. These themes include:

• Course case studies - Short presentations (30 min) on the design of a specific course with strong proven results.
• Soapbox - Short presentations (7-10 min) with sharp, pointed commentary on current issues in the state of game education.

Tips for submissions, based on some common mistakes we've seen:

• The Educators Summit is not about serious games, it is about how to teach people about games (how to make games, how to analyze and understand games, issues around graduate research in games, etc.) A talk about teaching serious game development, or a game that helps teach about games, would be appropriate for the Educators Summit. Case studies of serious games that have nothing to do with game education are not.
• Don't focus the proposal too much on the speaker and their contributions to the field. If you have an interesting project or case study to share, that's great, but be clear about the audience takeaways. How will attending your talk help hundreds of other educators do their job better?
• Speakers vs panels: Single speaker sessions are the most successful structure. It is difficult to justify two or more speakers for a lecture format, so please consider that. Panels should be considered if your topic would benefit from multiple perspectives, and each speaker on a panel should represent a distinct aspect or point of view of the topic, typically from different institutions as well.
• Make sure your topic isn't a beginner-level topic, such as "How to start a game development program", which has been covered many times before. When writing your proposal, it may be useful to look at session names and descriptions for the last three years (and watch talks related to your topic on gdcvault.com). In this way we can build up our collective understanding of the theory and practice of game education.
• Takeaways and topics should be immediately clear from the initial read. Make it obvious why your peers would want to watch your proposed talk. This isn't the time to conceal information. A proposal titled "Five Things You Can Do to Improve Student Retention" should list what those five things are. Give us enough information to evaluate your talk.

We try not to include sessions in the schedule that seem too similar to a session we’ve had in recent years. So it’s good to look at the list of previous Educators Summit sessions in the Vault to see if we’ve covered your proposed topic recently. If we have covered the topic recently, make sure to include how you’re differentiating yourself from the previous session in your submission.

Conference Program Topic

Discover the most innovative and exciting ideas in game education in the Educators Summit. Learn best practices to bring back to your classrooms and experimental approaches that will advance the field for the next generation of students. Join educators from established game development programs and new game course creators for professional development and to explore challenges together.

Game and Entertainment design opportunities in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Human Spatial Computing are expanding as the technology of internet-connected societies continues to iterate. Exciting new opportunities are appearing in areas like Online and Social Play, Live Music, Fashion, and Education as we connect with one another virtually through new hardware and software platforms. Continuing development is expanding opportunities in Travel, Retail, Fitness/Wellness, Product Design, Journalism, and Sports as well. If you've developed an immersive experience or application in gaming and beyond, we want to hear about it!

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Summit advisors are soliciting submissions exploring VR, AR, XR and other innovations in connected games and entertainment pertaining to topics across multiple disciplines including Design, Narrative, Production, Programming, and Visual Art. We are especially interested in hybrid approaches in this space, as games become part of the larger push to virtualize and gamify once in-person spaces in order to increase access and maintain connection. Submissions should be representative of interesting and current work happening in these spaces, and have valuable, actionable, and/or inspiring takeaways for the GDC audience.

Conference Program Topic

Learn to create amazing, immersive VR and AR experiences for games and entertainment at the Future Realities Summit. Be inspired, learn from experts, and share best practices to create augmented and virtual reality for games, film, and other forms of entertainment.

The GDC Game AI Summit features panels and lectures from programmers, designers, researchers, and enthusiasts exploring how we adopt artificial intelligence as part of, or in service of gameplay.

This two-day summit provides an inside look at key architectures, techniques, and challenges faced in building AI for commercial games, as well as let you eavesdrop on conversations, debates, and rants on how game AI can move forward. The event is targeted toward the intermediate to advanced programmer who wants deeper insight into the world of game AI. Additionally, designers, animators, and other content creators whose work touches AI systems of all types will find invaluable insights and lessons from the speakers.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The AI Summit is welcoming submissions on AI-related topics such as:

• Postmortems of the AI in recently released (or soon to be released) games - especially with a focus of "challenges faced... and overcome!"
• Advancements and improvements in game AI architectures (e.g. behavior trees, planners, utility systems, MCTS, etc.)
• New architectures and approaches for AI-related problems (e.g. data-driven, modular systems, etc.)
• Improvements in navigation and avoidance algorithms
• Multi-agent coordination in tactical, strategic, or social situations
• Use of AI for content generation in games, including narrative and chatbots.
• AI for gameplay management, pacing, etc. (e.g. Director AI systems)
• AI to support game development and the player experience (e.g. tools, debugging, animation control, playtesting etc.)
• Experimental game AI designs

Note that this is, by no means, an exhaustive list of suggestions. All submissions of presentations that involve the use of AI techniques for gameplay will be entertained! Furthermore, we welcome talks that employ machine learning and generative AI as part of gameplay and relevant production pipelines. However, adoption of these technologies outside of this remit should consider applying to the ML Summit.

Conference Program Topic

Learn the latest programming skills and techniques to develop games across platforms including consoles, mobile, PCs, virtual reality, and more. The demand for high production value in games continues to increase with new tools, middleware, and technical skills required to solve difficult development problems.

The Game Narrative Summit covers interactive narrative in all its forms, from AAA blockbusters to indie games to mobile/social projects. The two-day event features an all-star lineup of speakers from every corner of the discipline. Session content ranges from the advanced and theoretical to practical case studies and advocacy for writers, designers, producers, and others seeking to expand their understanding of game narrative. The Game Narrative Summit attracts attendees from all over the world with a passionate interest in the ongoing evolution of interactive storytelling as a driving force in the future of entertainment.

The summit's preferred submission format is 30-minute lectures, though we may consider longer talks for subjects that warrant more in-depth approaches. The board reserves the right to suggest changes in any submissions.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Game Narrative Summit welcomes proposals addressing all aspects of game narrative, including (but not limited to!):

• Case studies of recent projects that demonstrate exemplary game writing
• Fresh takes on traditional narrative techniques as adapted for interactive storytelling
• Theoretical and conceptual advances that drive change in game narrative
• New insights into the role of the interactive writer in franchise development
• Analyses of timely issues in the game narrative field, e.g. inclusivity, ethical dilemmas, etc.
• Spotlighting best practices within specific areas of interactive writing, including:
• Narrative and emergent game technologies, e.g. VR, AR
• Narrative in mobile, social, and casual games
• The writing of specific game genres, e.g. FPS, RPG, MMO, MOBA, etc.
• Resonating with specific target audiences, e.g. children, international markets, etc.
• Advancing specific objectives, e.g. awareness, change
• Navigating the challenges inherent to certain types of game projects
• Focused insights on any specific elements of game narrative, e.g. character, dialogue
• Lessons drawn from games that go beyond dialogue and focus on non-verbal narrative
• Adapting narrative constructs from other media to games, e.g. film, comics, literature
• Inspirational demonstrations in emotive game content
• Business and career advice to help game writers succeed professionally
• Verifiable evidence of the positive effects interactive storytelling can have
• Experts debating opposing points of view on any of these topics

Conference Program Topic

Learn about interactive narrative in all forms, including AAA blockbusters, indie games, mobile, and social projects from fundamentals of story development theory to practical case studies.

The Level Design Summit offers an all-day series of talks spanning the vast spectrum of this crucial aspect of game design. The Level Design Summit advisors curate a diverse mix of established and emerging voices from all corners of the level design world to present an entertaining and enlightening agenda of talks for attendees.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The one-day summit is seeking submissions that share specific techniques, in-depth analysis of shipped games, introspective explorations of "big" concepts that affect level designers/teams, and provide guides to process and workflow related to level design.

Conference Program Topic

Learn methods to create compelling worlds and interactive experiences through the use of systems, architecture, and lighting. Get ideas for new games, tips to push your project forward, and learn how to understand and tune the interactions of an ever-increasing number of tools, systems, and techniques required to design great games.

The Independent Games Summit is the place for the independent game developer at GDC. It features lectures, postmortems, microtalks, and panels from notable independent game creators. This two-day summit seeks to highlight diverse voices and fresh perspectives alongside the latest learnings, innovations, and successes in indie development. The IGS consists of a main, large room alongside a simultaneous second smaller room - this enables us to feature more broadly popular subjects with more niche, deep dive, or specialized talks.

Keep in Mind

• IGS is looking for talk proposals relevant to recent releases, direct experience, and well-grounded takeaways.
• Perspectives and experiences which could be considered marginalized in the context of GDC’s typical offering are actively welcomed and encouraged!
• Stories of perfection or success are not required. We find that learning from failure is often much more interesting to our audiences, so you should feel encouraged to speak to the messy realities of game dev, as well as the lessons learned.
• If your own project did not yield enough data for a talk on a certain topic, consider consolidating ideas from your peers or people with similar games, or running a panel with several speakers.
• Talks which are clearly aimed at marketing a game or upcoming release will not be accepted.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

• Design Practices - design techniques particularly suited to indies, such as new collaborative practices, rapid prototyping or voluntary constraints, as well as more abstract talks on how you approach indie limitations in practice. We're interested in any talks that fall under this umbrella! Even if you feel like your approach is too "out there", we want to hear from you!
• Design Philosophies - we’re also interested in the philosophies underlying your games - do you have a talk about how your game represents an Indigenous perspective? Or how you approached ethical design practices? Or on building tools to represent your specific cultural philosophies on storytelling or design? Tell us more!
• Case Studies and Post-mortems - talks that demonstrate what worked, what didn't, what surprised you and made you wiser. Disciplinary Deep Dives - each discipline in video game development encounters unique challenges working in the independent space. Building games on your own often requires deep, specialized learning in new areas. Talks for specific audiences about advanced techniques in Engineering, Design, Art, Audio, Production/Project Management, UI/UX, or Storytelling, and other areas are all welcome and encouraged.
• Indie Business - how to fund your project, ship a profitable game, what tools to use, how to manage teams, pick the right platform, and run a company without self-destructing.
• Promotion & Marketing - how to get noticed, build an audience, or even a community, when the "Marketing Department" is also the dev team.
• Managing Teams - how to manage and model healthy work/life balance, what are your successful diverse hiring practices, how do you scale a team in a healthy and productive manner, how to lead teams under difficult circumstances, remote working and distributed team best practices, and innovative solutions to building resilient team and process in an era of climate crisis.
• Production Methods - how to cut scope for an ambitious project while retaining creative quality and ways to build great games with an emphasis on team health and sustainability.
• Indie Publishing Perspectives - Do you have insights on the market, working with publishers, self-publishing, or various strategies, pitfalls, and lessons learned for securing funding you can share? We want to hear more!
• Building resilient teams and processes in an era of climate crisis, or work that finds innovative solutions to same.
• Weathering Change - strategies on how to manage or transition a career or business in independent games during negative economic or other circumstances that bring outsized challenges. Looking for examples of creative resilience and adaptability during hard times rather than solving problems through sheer force.

Annual Lecture Themes

If you're interested in submitting to give a microtalk in one of the following 60–minute sessions,, be sure to note that in the Presentation Outline section of the submission form. We might also invite you to be a part of one of these sessions if it feels like a good fit. Microtalks can be anywhere between 10-30 mins, depending on the session’s needs and proposal contents.

• Making Room: The Making Room session collects talks devoted to the ways in which we make space for ourselves and others in the game development process or in the space of our game design. The concept of “making room” is intentionally broad to allow for explorations of how you make space for everything from marginalized experiences, cultural differences, accessibility, neurodiversity, to any other means of making room in your processes and design. Failure Workshop: Failure is a great opportunity for learning! What have you learned from your failures? Creative growth often comes from having permission to fail, as well. How can we encourage productive failure? Rather than ignore our failures, let’s talk about the good, bad, and the ugly of failure.
• Indie Soapbox: The Indie Soapbox is the place for sharing microtalks on a topic that is important to you! These can be highly specific or very broad, but all should aim to be provoking, educating, and inspiring. The Indie Soapbox is the place to share what’s on your mind when it comes to making indie games.
• Tech Toolbox: What tools have you made for your games? What tools have you had to hack together or use in creative ways to get the job done? We want to hear all your high and low moments with tool development for your indie game. The Tech Toolbox is about exploring tech solutions to our pipeline or creative problems.

Academia and other industries show that rapid technological progress offers new possibilities and valuable applications of Machine Learning. The Game Industry is no different and this summit will present in depth, meaningful applications in Video Games across two themes. The first theme is about “Machine Learning for Development”, assessing where Machine Learning can assist developers in creating better Games, improving Production Process, allowing them to improve and facilitate the Creation Process of their games. The second theme will be about “Machine Learning for the Player”, assessing what new possibilities can be offered to the Player, ranging from being able to create new, original experiences to better adapting Games to Players’ needs as they play.

Speakers contributing will go in depth in required techniques and most importantly, share practical lessons and wisdom regarding their success and failures. Attendees of the Summit should be familiar with basic Machine Learning techniques and in the “know-how” of Video Game Creation Techniques. Depending on the trends, the target audience includes a wide range of trades including Programmers, Artists and Designers.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Machine Learning Summit is welcoming submissions on topics related to Machine Learning such as:

• Initiatives that contribute directly to runtime features like AI, Physics, Animation, Audio or Rendering
• Initiatives that contribute to support Content Creation Process, Development Pipeline, Build Stability, QA, Game Balancing or Production
• Advancements and improvements from Academia that could be applied in the near future to the field
• Lessons learned from attempt of deployment of a Machine Learning Driven System in general (human/tech)
• Successful deployment of Player-Facing or production grade System
• Initiatives related to a specific trade that point towards disruption in how Developers are making games

In all cases, being able to show measurable results is a must. Note that since this field is new, cases of application failure are welcome! Being able to share code/structure is also encouraged.

The Tabletop Summit is a one-day deep dive into the art and science of designing non-electronic board, card, and roleplaying games.

Featuring multiple notable speakers from the world of analog game design, this is an opportunity to get deep into the design mechanics behind innovative and popular games, and hear about the design ethos that has shaped standouts in the resurgent world of tabletop game development.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Tabletop Summit is looking for talks including:

• ‘Making of’ talks for notable and intriguing games of medium or high profiles, or those with particularly different or innovative mechanics.
• Game design talks about entire genres of tabletop games.
• Discussions of physical games that have digital aspects included. (Digital-only board games are not a primary focus of the Summit.)
• Talks about some of the fundamental concepts underpinning tabletop game design.
• Discussions on the presentation of analog games through live-streamed media.

Conference Program Topic

Learn methods to create compelling interactions with realistic physics, facial expressions, and lighting. Get ideas for new games, tips to push your project forward, and learn how to understand and tune the interactions of an ever-increasing number of tools, systems, and techniques required to design great games.

The GDC Live Service Games Summit (formerly the Free-to-Play Summit) brings together top game developers and publishers from around the world to share ideas and discuss best practices on game design and business strategy for games with a live services model. The focus is across all genres, audiences, platforms, and stages of the lifecycle of a game from concept through ongoing evolution of live service games. Topics that focus on production, art, sound, or technology should look to another Summit or the main conference.

We look for each talk to focus on at least one of the pillars of live services game design and strategy: acquisition, engagement / retention, and monetization. We warmly welcome proposals from outside of mobile / free-to-play gaming and/or outside North America.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The Live Service Games Summit is soliciting for the following topics:

• Postmortems on the launch of new live service games, or post mortems on major updates to existing games. Even postmortems for unsuccessful games can be interesting, if presenters honestly cover what went wrong.
• How to raise funding to create a live service game or company.
• Strategies for launching across multiple territories.
• Strategies for launching across multiple platforms.
• Strategies for launching premium with premium downloadable content.
• Soft launch best practices: why, when, where and what to look for.
• Improving both player experience and revenue performance via skillful integration of monetization elements into the game design.
• Authentic and non-spammy social and viral engagement techniques.
• User acquisition techniques, learnings and innovations for both paid and organic player acquisition.
• Pros & cons: staying independent versus working with a publisher or partner.
• What does a modern publishing deal look like for a live service game?
• A survey of which genres are ripe for additional competitors, and what genres are too crowded (or too dominated by a single unassailable market leader).
• How to build and maintain a community of loyal players. Share new insights, stories and experiences about how to be sticky in a low-attention-span world.
• How to augment your IAP revenue with rewarded video and other forms of advertising.
• What does free-to-play mean in a world of subscriptions services? (e.g. Xbox Game Pass, Apple Arcade)
• Best practices to include subscriptions and season passes in live service games.
• Live ops and events: best examples of how to keep your game fresh and increase monetization.
• Where are the opportunities for small studios today? How can they compete with a 100-person team with tens of millions for user acquisition?
• Innovative usage of analytics in games and how it impacted design/product decisions.
• Free-to-play is mature, and broken in many ways. Play-to-earn doesn’t make mathematical sense. Crypto had its hot minute, and now it is dead - or is it? Is there a better future for players and developers where the best of F2P and blockchain come together?
• Games used to be created by developers for players, maybe funded by a publisher. Today, the ecosystem is so much more broad with streamers, communities, ad networks and other such constituents. How are developers leveraging the larger ecosystem to deliver a more compelling game or a more viable game business?

Conference Program Topic

Learn the nuts and bolts of great live service game design and successful business strategies across all genres, audiences, platforms, and stages of the lifecycle of a game.

Technical Art is an ever-evolving discipline, with TAs playing key roles in developing efficient pipelines, creating visually sophisticated content, and optimizing performance. Technical Artists bridge the gap between content creators and engineers and wear many hats in the process. No matter what role a TA plays on their project, they are ready to leap into action to collaborate and solve issues with their team. Now more than ever TAs have been employing their skills to respond to the global challenges and find creative and dynamic solutions to enable production during challenging times.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The one-day Technical Artist Summit aims to help TAs around the industry find and share the tools and skills they need to manage the turbulent waves of game development at their own studios or from their own homes. Speakers will present new tools, techniques, and turn our attention to the future of the Technical Art discipline. The Technical Artist Summit is seeking submissions covering any topic related to technical art.

Conference Program Topic

Learn from leading artists with a wide variety of art styles and concepts, and explore the inspiration and process behind their work. Learn methods to create quality art and animations for all kinds of games under tight deadlines; from stellar concept art techniques to post-production best practices and everything in between.

The Thriving in Games Group (formerly Fair Play Alliance) is pleased to invite all proposals for the Thriving Players’ Summit (formerly Fair Play Summit) relating to practical design methods, learnings, and outcomes, or applied research on designing for digital thriving.

This year the focus is on designing for digital thriving to celebrate the release of the Design Playbook for Digital Thriving site (currently in soft launch). Thus, we will be looking for submissions that draw on inspiration from the Playbook, such as, how we can design for inclusive spaces, more resilient communities, prosocial play, greater player well being, a sense of belonging, and more including addressing challenges related to designing or advocating for this work.

In addition to the submitted talks, given the fantastic reception of last year’s workshop, we will be offering new workshops around the Design Playbook for Digital Thriving. These workshops will help to translate the theory around designing for thriving into practical applications that participants can take back with them.

The Thriving in Games Group is an organization of over 300 gaming companies from around the world committed to fostering healthy player interactions as a core part of how we make games. With this goal, we seek to curate and empower the creation and sharing of best practices across the industry. Please note that TIGG membership is not required to submit a proposal.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

This year the focus is on designing for digital thriving.

• Design for inclusive spaces or to promote a sense of belonging among our players
• Design for more resilient communities that repel or resist bad actors
• Design to promote prosocial play
• Challenges related to designing or advocating for this work
• Other work inspired by the Design Playbook for Digital Thriving or related to these topics

Invited speakers may also be invited to have their work published in the Playbook.

The Tools Summit brings people from across the games industry together for the biggest full day event of knowledge sharing on game development tools.

We are looking for stories about how one or more tools were made, covering the full life-cycle of problem identification through to design, implementation, evaluation, and iteration based on user feedback. We welcome talks that offer actionable insights, lessons learned, as well as what went right and what went wrong.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

• Content Editing Tools, DCC Tools
• Automation and Verification, Human/Computer Interaction with Automatons
• Workflow and Organizational Tools
• Performance Data Gathering and Analysis
• User Research, Metrics, Analytics of Users
• [Feel free to suggest your own tools development topic!]

Conference Program Topic

Learn all about game tools development from industry experts at the Tools Summit! Share your own experiences, and explore the challenges and innovations in tool development for game creation. Whether you're an experienced developer or new to tool building, the Tools Summit offers in-depth knowledge, actionable insights and valuable connections with people involved in game development tools.

The one-day GDC UX Summit features panels and lectures from top UX practitioners and advocates in the industry. This summit is targeted towards all levels of expertise interested in game UX and focuses on best practices and case studies rather than pure theory. The intent is to increase UX awareness (specifically as being user-centered and using a scientific approach), become stronger as a game UX community, share our growing experience and expertise in the industry, and push the boundaries of our discipline.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The UX Summit is welcoming submissions on UX-related topics in the following areas:

• UX advocacy across different sized developers: facilitating collaboration for better UX practices across various disciplines and studio sizes (AAA, AA, or indie developers, etc.)
• UX strategy & maturity: Advancing UX maturity, using rigorous user-centered practices, demonstrating return on investment, and getting stakeholder signoff.
• Ethics: best practices & challenges (e.g. dark patterns, “attention economy”).
• Inclusion & Accessibility: Case studies and best practices on how to incorporate inclusive principles into UI/UX methodologies into game development.
• Designing to prevent disruptive behaviors (aka “toxicity”), bolster prosocial interactions, and protect players: case studies, best practices and guidelines.
• UI/UX design:
  • Case study of a feature (i.e. describing the iterative process, demonstrating what success looks like), making sure to show user data-informed examples.
  • Game post-mortems through the UX lens (i.e. user-centered at a minimum).
  • Platform specific challenges (e.g. VR, AR).
  • Please note, that while we welcome proposals from a UI design standpoint, however, half the content should discuss related UX design, user research & any other data which has informed UI design decisions, iterations, art direction, etc.
• UX challenges seen in Esports, streaming, virtual worlds
• Emerging technology: the impact or application of technology such as large language models (LLMs), blockchain technology or machine learning in game UX development.
• User research:
  • Successful relationship between user research and design.
  • Concrete case studies.
  • Advantages and limitations of biometrics.
• Analytics and business intelligence servicing the player experience (case studies).
• Evidence-based game UX frameworks (i.e. tested in a UX process with players/users, or based on academic research) with concrete applications to game development.

Conference Program Topic

Learn UX design and strategy best practices to improve overall quality and increase the likelihood that your game will create and sustain engagement in the UX Summit. UX helps ensure that the design and business intent of your game is the one ultimately experienced by your target audience. Join the discussion about all facets of the user experience discipline in the video game industry using knowledge from cognitive science, psychology, and application of research findings. Learn about UX methodologies and how you can apply UX strategy and collaboration at your own studio.

Visual effects (VFX) for games is the art of creating striking visuals that clearly communicate gameplay, narrative, UI, environment and other game design signals. With what seems like magic, VFX artists have the power to breathe life into the world of a video game.

VFX in games have to run at real-time without impacting game performance (usually 60 to 90 frames per second). This means that in addition to the final visual image, thought, intention and creativity has to go into how they are built. As such, VFX artists closely collaborate across disciplines bridging the gap between art, design & engineering and working together to bring the game to life.

The aim of the VFX summit is to come together as a VFX community, share our knowledge and help push the boundaries of our discipline across tools, art styles, and genres, as well as to create knowledge sharing opportunities for under-represented corners of the game development world. If this excites you, come join us at the one-day VFX Summit, where top VFX artists from different backgrounds will share their expertise across a diverse range of topics.

Topics of Interest for Proposals to Speak

The VFX summit welcomes all VFX related topics in the range of:

• Game post-mortems focusing on VFX
• Impact of new VFX tech, tools & features
• Best practices / pipelines & workflows for VFX
• Technical art through the lens of VFX
• VFX philosophy & design
• Platform specific VFX tips & tricks
• Disciplinary / Cross-disciplinary skills for VFX
• Genre / Art Style specific VFX tips & tricks
• Practical advice for beginner VFX artists
• Other interesting topics related to VFX for games

Conference Program Topic

Learn from leading artists with a wide variety of art styles and concepts, and explore the inspiration and process behind their work. Learn methods to create quality art and animations for all kinds of games under tight deadlines; from stellar concept art techniques to post-production best practices and everything in between.