CONFERENCE  

The AI Summit at GDC features panels and lectures from more than two dozen of the top game AI programmers in the industry. Organized as a collective effort by the AI Game Programmers Guild, this event promises to give you an inside look at key architectures and issues within successful commercial games, as well as let you eavesdrop on conversations, debates, and rants on how game AI can move forward. This summit is targeted toward the intermediate to advanced programmer who wants deeper insight into the world of game AI, however anyone who is interested in what AI can offer next generation games will find invaluable insights and lessons from the speakers.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Postmortems of the AI challenges faced in recently shipped games
• Enhancements for pathfinding, steering, or other aspects of navigation
• Infrastructure for new frontiers in game design such as interactive fiction/storytelling
• Character AI for expression of personality, mood, emotion, believability
• Team, squad, or other cooperative or coordinating AI systems
• Efficient large-scale AI (e.g. massive crowd systems, background characters)
• Procedural generation of game content (levels, art, story, assets, etc.)
• Other specific examples of cutting-edge, game-proven technologies

The Game Career Seminar at GDC 2012 is a one-day program designed for students and individuals interested in learning how to build a career in the video game industry. Leading game developers and industry experts should submit proposals to share their perspective and insights on ways of getting into game development as a career.

At the 2012 GDC Education Summit attendees will explore experimental and inventive educational approaches that established game curriculum builders can bring back to their faculty and classrooms. This program is aimed towards educators from established game development programs or new game course creators that want to understand the challenges they'll face in the next few years. It will bring scholars together with experienced professionals willing to learn, share ideas and achievements. The summit is a great professional development opportunity that will explore how collaboration leads to success not only in the classroom but in all aspects of work and life.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Novel approaches to teaching any aspect of game development or game studies
• Novel ways to fund or publish games research, student game projects, etc.
• Repeatable examples of successful collaborations between departments, schools, or industry

Game localization is a cornerstone of the game industry, responsible for approximately half of the global revenue stream. Game publishers and developers are quickly realizing that their industry is not only benefiting from localized versions of their games, but is wholly dependent on localization to drive revenues and increase appeal. Beyond the traditional gaming markets, the demand is quickly increasing from a growing number of countries and emerging markets around the world, which is prompting publishers to partially or fully localize more products into more languages to maximize their ROI.

The Game Localization Summit at GDC is supported and organized by the IGDA Game Localization SIG, and it is aimed at helping both localization professionals and game developers and publishers understand the critical details of how to plan and execute game localization as a part of the game lifecycle. Professionals from all departments and all areas of expertise are welcome to attend this full day of lectures, panels and game postmortems.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Innovative practices to manage the localization process and increase overall quality.
• Cutting-edge advancements in tools and applications which support game localization.
• Engaging case studies from specific game titles that illustrate localization best practices and pitfalls.
• Discussions around challenges in translation techniques and issues around freelancing.
• In-depth discussions of country- and/or region-specific challenges and potentials.

The Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit at GDC 2012 brings together top game developers from around the world to share ideas, introduce best practices and discuss the future of gaming on established and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, including iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows 7 and more. This two day program will highlight the nuts and bolts of great game design and reveal successful business strategies behind this new breed of popular smartphones & tablets.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• How different user mindsets require different monetization schemes on iOS and Android.
• Third-party Android markets: are there any worth the trouble?
• Pirates: do you care? If so, can pirates be monetized? How?
• What to expect from modern mobile GPUs.
• In the face of megahits like Farmvile et al, how do indie created games like Sword & Sworcery survive?
• Getting traditional gaming press to pay attention to your mobile game.
• Designing for IAP Without Sacrificing Your Soul
• Advanced UI Paradigms for Touch Game Interfaces
• Serving Up A Side of Ads: An overview of existing ad networks, requirements, and techniques for implementing ads in your software for profit.
• Getting Portable: Refactoring your iPhone engine for Android / PC / etc.
• New innovations in Location Based services
• Lightweight Social Mechanics to Connect Players-how one designs simple systems to leverage existing technologies

The Independent Games Summit represents the voice of the independent game developer at GDC. It 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. The 2012 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.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Indie Business - how to make money, manage teams, pick the right platform, and run a company without going insane
• Promotion & Marketing - how to get noticed when the "Marketing Department" = you
• Design and Philosophy - deep dive into design techniques, for example: rapid prototyping, limitations, and the future of indie
• Case Studies and Postmortems - inspirational talks that demonstrate what worked, what didn't, what surprised you and made you wiser

Game IT is daylong conference focused on the use of videogames to tackle common organizational goals through enterprise-focused game development. As the power of play, video game design, and social systems meets up with ever more powerful browser-based application stacks, organizations are looking to create new ways to boost productivity, improve customer interactions, and take advantage of the disparity between the perceived power of videogames vs. traditional Web & IT approaches to UI, engagement, and collaborative interactions.

The serious games solution set for enterprise needs has traditionally been very heavy toward edge-based training solutions utilizing technology stacks foreign and often unsupported by everyday IT support teams. As organizations increasingly move toward cloud-based systems with browser-based front-ends which balance processing across multiple tiers of computing common serious game engineering and design patterns fail.

In response to this, "Gamification" heralds a extremely lightweight approach, that pitches the rhetorical and visual strength of videogames but as per critics, often results in enhanced feedback loops and decade old industrial psychology.

Neither of these approaches seems optimum to where cutting-edge organizations want to be, and where the best talents and practices in game development can aid a wide range of organizational efforts. One is off-the-mark, and the other promises more then it delivers and actually obfuscates the larger opportunities for games to be powerful tools for both everyday and more strategic needs.

Game IT is designed to address the need for fresh discussions about the integration points between games and technology oriented practices that lie at the heart of today's forward-thinking organizations. Concentrating on how deeper, but more compatible solutions are available, Game IT seeks shun the facile elements of videogames easily turned into commodity (or cowmodity!) offerings that do not represent the capabilities which are making videogames so appealing to begin with.

Game IT is a GDC-based discussion that draws on the worlds greatest gathering of experienced game development talent, research, and engineering capability to provide information enterprise leaders an opportunity to best understand the affordances games can offer them today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Notes on submitting to Game IT:

Game IT seeks great talks, case studies, and discussions, often short in length, that can provide strong guidance to how best integrate cutting-edge videogame designs, technologies, and research to achieve important goals for organizations big and small. This common organizational needs including general productivity, knowledge generation, marketing, compliance, planning, strategic decision making, and more. We are especially interested in ideas that reshape the underlying information and Web based systems currently driving common organizational practices.

Talks should especially focus on the needs to integrate game-based solutions into the environments and contexts especially important to organizations today, this includes browser-based systems, multinational operations, 24-7 news cycles, busy and dispersed workforces who can't be taken offline for long amounts of time, and more.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Are about completed or in-progress efforts toward finished usable projects and prototypes, which are aimed at scales scale beyond a few dozen or hundred core users.
• Specifically focus on technologies common to today's IT-focused enterprises...i.e. HTML, AJAX, Mobile Apps, JAVA, Flash, Backend DB systems, and larger legacy frameworks.
• Go beyond common training pedagogy discussions and focus on additional areas of need for organizations such as knowledge generation, customer interactions, and more.
• Offer findings and evidence for efficacy of game-based approaches that make a difference.
• Move beyond just the use of micro-motivational psychology of games centered on score, achievements, and status, into deeper elements of procedural rhetoric, non-linear narratives, puzzle creation, play strategies, and higher levels of aesthetics and UI design.
• Showcase collaborations involving recognized game industry-based resources and talent
• Involve clear, understandable, application of recent research and innovations drawn from modern-day videogame development.
• Anything involving cows or minecraft.

Demo and case studies should be no longer then 25 minutes. Panels can be 60 minutes in length but must have at least 3-4 panelists and a moderator submitted. All panelists must be confirmed at time of submission and quality of panelists and their unique background will be scrutinized. Furthermore, panels must provide an outline of the free-form discussion and debate they will foster.

Games for Change facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts. The Games for Change Summit @ GDC represents, for the first time, an opportunity to bring together those funders, NGOs, government agencies and educators seeking to leverage entertainment and engagement for social good with leading game developers from the independent and commercial sector. Through case studies, roundtables, lectures and demos, the Summit will highlight models for collaboration on game design, bridging the gap between commercial and issue driven game development, distribution and publishing alternatives, and much more.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Game Design for Social Impact – Best practices for balancing compelling and engaging gameplay with the need to drive and measure impact. When, where and how to best incorporate content expertise into the design process.
• Bridging the Gap – Presentations on what's needed to bring the learning and impact already found in commercial games and triple A titles into the "games for change" community.
• Partnerships and Collaborations – what creative and business structures are being used to create social impact games which effectively connect with their desired audiences.
• Case Studies and Postmortems – roundtable discussions that allow a closer look at specific elements of a project from its inception through game design and production, beta testing and evaluation to marketing and distribution.
• Distribution and Publishing – alternatives to the commercial industry including creative ways of utilizing existing and proven models.

The market for interactive entertainment on social web platforms has matured rapidly, and now the features and tropes of connected gaming are catching on across the gaming landscape -- encompassing Facebook gaming, web-based online games, downloadable persistent MMOs, casual and beyond. New best practices are being discovered at a rapid pace, and we are seeing more high-quality entertainment experiences on social networks than ever before. At the same time, the business landscape is shifting, and questions are buzzing in everyone's mind: How will cloud computing change all aspects of development? What does mobile mean to social gaming? How do you successfully launch internationally? Will Google + and other game portals open up a new world of opportunity? And are we back to "the old boss" of large marketing budgets and big IPs being necessary for success? How does your choice between Flash, Unity and HTML5 affect your game? What are the crucial factors that will make or break social games in 2012? The Social and Online Games Summit once again gathers the industry's established leaders and up-and-coming rebels for a series of illuminating sessions about the technology, design, business, marketing, and future of social and online games.

We are soliciting the following topics for the 2012 program:

• Social games are becoming deeper as developers and the player audience are becoming more familiar with this new class of gaming. For example, increasing number of Facebook games feature direct player to player conflict and skill based mechanics. We'd like to invite talks discussing recent advancements and innovation in game mechanics built into social & online games.
• Social, casual and mobile games are converging to the point where it's now impossible to classify many titles as clearly belonging to one of these old classifications. We're interested in talks discussing the cross-pollination between game types and different platforms that were once deemed disconnected. For example, share your experiences in launching a casual title on Facebook and the iPad.
• Game design postmortems of games launched in 2011. We're interested in both success stories as well as learnings from failures.
• Experiences on distributing social & online games outside Facebook, such as on Google+, games portals and more. Talks comparing the same game performing across different platforms are especially welcome. We're interested in both success stories as well as learnings from failures.
• Cloud-based computing is still relatively new frontier for game developers. The technology has implications for not only technologists working on games, but also for game designers who need to adapt designs to match the capabilities of the platform. We're interested in a wide range of submissions that discuss how cloud computing is changing the way you develop games, from tech to design, business to marketing.
• The game monetization landscape is ever-changing. Facebook mandating the use of Credits only happened this summer. Payment aggregation is becoming more mature. Developers are learning to use Facebook games to cross-pollinate iOS game distribution and sales. We'd like to invite monetization talks that go beyond discussing how the landscape has changed, that do more than simply review the payment options available to developers, and really give insight into powerful and/or unexpected ways in which developers can generate revenue today.
• Front-end technologies used to create online games are in an interesting transition stage where developers need to pick carefully between Flash, Unity and HTML5. Please submit a talk discussing your technology choices and how it's impacted your products from a design, engineering and business standpoint.
• In 2010, the GDC Social and Online Game Summit was all about user acquisition using viral techniques. In 2011, the Summit focused heavily on user retention. What are the crucial factors that will make or break social games in 2012?
• Big games IP and big budgets are coming to Facebook. Do you have experience working on a large production for a social game - or strong opinions battling the trend as a small developer? Share your experience.
• Exploration interesting, novel tactics on improving virality, retention, monetization etc, as opposed to merely rehashing the fact that those things are important.

October 31, 2011 at 11:59PM ET

• Incomplete proposals or proposals that are commercial or marketing in nature will not be considered.
• Write your proposal so that it is easily understood. Concise, precise language and a discernable thesis will also help your chances in the review process.
• The advisors will read many submissions. Get to your point as quickly as possible. Consider what the proposal is about. Why is it interesting? How is it important to game development? What will game developers get out of the session?
• Please write in third person present tense. For example, "This lecture focuses on 3D graphics." Not, "I want to talk about 3D graphics."
• Be specific by giving concrete examples and remember that GDC attendees are experts in their field.

The submission form will require these key items. You may be asked to submit additional materials before a decision is made on your proposal.

1. Contact information
   Full contact information and a short biography are required.
2. Session Title
   A concise, descriptive title of no more than 8 words.
3. Presentation description
   A description of your presentation as you would have it appear in the conference program in 100 words or less.
4. Session takeaway
   In 40 words or less, describe what attendees will learn from your session.
5. Extended abstract/outline
   In 500 words or less, provide a description of your presentation in greater detail for the advisors.
6. Presentation Materials
   List the elements you will you use to illustrate your talk, i.e., code samples, demos, video clips, etc
7. Screenshots or Videos
   The advisors would like to see demos, images, or any documentation that supports your submission.
8. Past Speaking Engagements
   If applicable, list the conferences, the title of the lecture, scores, and references. If you can provide references for these lectures, include a name and contact information.

The final length and format of accepted sessions will be determined by the advisors. Please select what you feel will be the most appropriate.

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.

• We will email you a confirmation when we receive your proposal. If you do not receive this confirmation, contact Jen Steele.
• Save the link to your proposal, you can revise your submission details until the deadline.
• The advisors will review all submissions in the coming months and score them on the criteria below.
• This composite rating along with past GDC session evaluation scores (when applicable) and advisor feedback will determine the status of every submission.
• You will receive notification in late December as to the status of your proposal.

These four criteria are considered when reviewing your proposal:

Concept: This is the basic idea of your proposal. Is it interesting? Is it relevant? Will it be beneficial for game development professionals to hear? The best proposals provide concrete takeaways that help attendees in their jobs. There's room for innovative ideas and the tried and true.

Depth: Has the idea in your proposal been well considered and fleshed out? To what extent will the audience gain insight? The more in-depth, the better. It should not be "obvious", i.e. easily gleaned by simply playing a few popular games. If you plan on showing data, specify exactly what data you will be sharing in your proposal.

Organization: Are your ideas organized in a fashion conducive to presentation in front of an audience? Will the Advisory Board "follow" what you are trying to say? Organization is a must!

Credentials: How do your credentials qualify you to speak on the topic you've proposed? From experience, proposals written by someone other than the speaker tend to have a lower rate of acceptance.

Advisors to the specific Summit program you select will review your proposal. They are distinguished industry professionals who volunteer their time to help develop the numerous sessions at GDC. They work to ensure that the quality of the content provided to attendees is high-level, relevant, and timely.

The benefits of being a speaker include:

• Complimentary All Access Pass
• Extensive exposure: Your name and presentation featured in our conference program and web site
• The opportunity to influence your peers and community
• Invitation to the GDC Level 99 Speaker Party

We want our talks to be opportunities for professional game developers to share their ideas and experiences. Proposals that are commercial or marketing in nature will not be considered. In general, content specific to proprietary products and technologies are considered sponsored material. The Advisory Board and conference management reserve the right to exercise their editorial discretion. If you would like to publicize a product, please contact our sales team for information on exhibiting and other vendor opportunities, including sponsored sessions.

When you agree to speak at GDC, you are making a commitment to deliver a well prepared talk and to speak on the topic you have proposed. We ask that you do not drastically change the submitted topic or content.

You will be evaluated by attendees on how well you delivered your presentation, aim to be among the top 50 presenters for GDC 2012.

We expect our speakers to submit the final version of their presentation to be made available on the GDC Vault.

You will receive an automated email response once your submission is received. We will notify you of the status of your submission late December 2011. If you do not hear from us, please contact Jen Steele.

If you are a PR representative submitting on behalf of a client, please list your information first and add all speaker details on the second page. Without full speaker details, the submission will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed.

Please contact Jen Steele at jen.steele@ubm.com with any additional questions.