CONFERENCE  

Submission Guidelines

If you want to submit, please take note of the following:

Vendor Specific Proposals
The Game Developers Conference does not accept product or vendor-related submissions. If your talk is a thinly-veiled advertisement for a new product, technology or service your company is offering, please do not apply. If you would like to publicize a product, please contact our sales team for information on exhibiting and other vendor opportunities, including sponsored sessions.

All presentations must be submitted by the original authors
We currently only accept submissions by original authors of the presentations. PR firms, speaking relation firms, and all other parties who are not direct authors of submitted presentations are discouraged from submitting a proposal on behalf of their clients/speakers. We require direct contact with presenters to expedite questions during the submission review process.

GDC Summits
If you are interested in submitting for any of the GDC Summits, the call for submission will open September 29 - October 31, 2011. Details for the GDC 2012 Summits Call for Submissions can be found here. Proposals submitted to the main conference of GDC will not be considered or reviewed by summit advisors. There is no penalty for submitting a proposal to both the main conference and summits. Each program has its own advisors and submissions will be graded separately. You may contact Jen Steele about the Summit call for submissions.

Phases

Selection Criteria

The Advisory Board will review and rate submissions based on the following criteria:

• Concept: This is the basic idea of your submission. Is it interesting? Is it relevant? Will it be beneficial for game developers to hear? There is plenty of room for innovative ideas and also the tried and true.
• Depth: Is the basic idea well considered and thought out? To what extent will the audience gain insight? The more in-depth, the better.
• Organization: Are your ideas conducive to present in front of an audience? Will the Advisory Board understand what you are trying to say? Organization helps.
• Credentials: How do your credentials qualify you to speak on the topic you have proposed?
• Takeaway: Is the attendee going to leave this session knowing something they didn't know when they walked in? Are they learning or being inspired? This is the most important aspect of every GDC session. The submissions will be rated on a one to five scale by each of the reviewers and the resulting scores are averaged. Those submissions in each category with the highest scores are considered first. In the case of topic overlap a lesser scoring submission may be selected to keep variety in the program.

Speaker Expectations

Conference attendees are generally very intelligent. They are looking for material that is not obvious and expect excellence from our speakers. After your presentation, they will evaluate it based on delivery, knowledge of the topic and the visuals presented.

Preparation is one of the most important factors in delivering a successful talk at GDC. Please keep the following in mind when you propose to speak:

• The proposed outline you submit now must match the talk you actually present at GDC
• We suggest that you commit AT LEAST 25 hours to prepare for your session
• We strongly encourage that you rehearse the delivery of your session for it to be effective; preferably in front of your peers (one tip is to video tape yourself speaking then review it. This is also a great way to practice pacing and timing)
• Your presentation materials must be completed and submitted to us four weeks before the conference

Please note we are here to help you. If you have ANY questions you think we need to cover on this area of our website, please email Evelyn Donis.

Track Descriptions and Topics

Below is the list of tracks for GDC 2012. Click on a track for descriptions of the topics solicited by the Advisory Board.

Presentation Formats

As you can see below, there are multiple time period choices. It's up to you to select the appropriate duration for your session.

Format	Duration	Description
Lectures	60 or 25 minutes	Lectures are issue-oriented, provide concrete examples, and contain both practical and theoretical information. We generally prefer only one speaker but we may accept two if you can demonstrate the second person is necessary. Postmortems and case studies are included in this category.
Panels	60 minutes	Panels take many different viewpoints on a topic or issue and combine them in one debate session with a moderator. Debate among panelists (with very different opinions) is welcome and audience participation time should be accounted for. We prefer 60 minute time for this format and no more than 5 people. Include all of the panelists you have confirmed in the proposal. A very limited number of panels will be accepted.
Roundtable	60 Minute	Roundtables are small peer discussion groups led by one or two moderators and limited to a maximum of 50 attendees. Moderators should facilitate conversation and keep the flow of discussion inspired and moving. They do not lecture or dictate. Constructive controversy and debate are very welcome in roundtables. Topics that are open-ended in nature and promote an exchange of ideas from people likely to have different viewpoints generally work best in this format. Roundtables run up to three times, once a day during the GDC
Full-Day or Two-Day		Tutorials (simply) must teach attendees new skills. Think of this as (informal) classroom training. It can be interactive; you can have them work in teams; you can give them challenges; you can include competitions. The result of the time period MUST be that they'll feel they've learned something truly useful in the world of game development. It can be a skill, an ability, a method or even the mastery of a tool.
Posters		A poster session is similar to a traditional lecture; however, it is presented in front of the poster (a slide presentation is not needed) to a smaller group of attendees. This type of format gives presenters one-on-one interactions with attendees.

NOTE: We do NOT supply any hardware (i.e., laptops) for the attendees. If you need the attendees to bring anything with them, this must be CLEARLY stated in your proposal.