GDC News and Information Blog

Due to an error on our official rules page, which showed two separate dates -- each incorrect -- for the announcement of the nominees for this year's IGF Student Showcase, a quick update on the correct timing.

Our body of nearly 250 judges are currently evaluating all of the over 300 entrants into this year's Student competition, and we will be releasing the names of the winning games on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013.

This year, the show will select a total of eight student teams, all of which will receive the opportunity to show off their games at the IGF Pavilion at GDC 2013 in March. All teams in the IGF Student Showcase will also be eligible to receive an enhanced $1,000 cash prize.

In addition, the IGF student finalists will also compete for the IGF Best Student Game Award. The recipient will be revealed during GDC's prestigious IGF Awards ceremony, and the winning game will receive an additional cash prize of $3,000.

The award ceremony will take place Wednesday, March 27, 2013, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and the IGF Pavilion will remain open from March 27-29. The sister Independent Games Summit event, meanwhile, will be held on March 25 and 26.

All of the Independent Games Festival events take place as part of the 2013 Game Developers Conference, which is held March 25th - March 29th, 2013 in San Francisco, and the IGF continues as the most vital showcase of independent game talent across the wide spectrum of artistically- and commercially-aimed development.

Posted by Staff at 2:29 PM | Permalink

Game Developers Conference 2013 organizers have revealed the latest Summit talks scheduled for the March conference, including Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP collaborator Capy on the viability of paid Apps, Ninja Robot Dinosaur Entertainment's approach for IAP in iOS hit Shellrazer, and a unique collaboration between engineering students and indie game developers resulting in dance battle game/Indiecade finalist Yamove!

These talks are part of the Smartphone & Tablet, Independent, and GDC Education Summits that will take place Monday, March 25 and Tuesday, March 26 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.

Nathan Vella of Capy, the Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP collaborator and Critter Crunch creator, will examine the smartphone and tablet app market in 'Still Kicking: The Viability of Paid Apps in the Era of F2P.'

Vella will impart the risks of free-to-play as a small studio and the continued viability of developing paid apps. He will also paint a clear picture of the paid app market while showing how to leverage the opportunities in the paid app space.

Complementing Vella's paid App talk is Shane Neville of Ninja Robot Dinosaur Entertainment's 'Shellrazer - Designing In-App Purchase Without Losing Your Soul' for the Independent Games Summit.

Continue reading "GDC 2013 adds Capy, Shellrazer, Yamove! Summit talks" »

Posted by Staff at 10:44 AM | Permalink

GDC organizers reveal three new talks for the upcoming March conference, including a nontraditional approach to The Walking Dead's art, console developer Insomniac's experiment in free-to-play and Flash, and Halfbrick Studios' divisive and ultimately banned prototype.

The lectures are part of the Design, Visual Arts, and Programming tracks in GDC's main conference, taking place March 27-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA.

Halfbrick's chief creative officer Luke Muscat will share in his design lecture details about the strategy game that seemingly tore his company apart in 'The Prototype that was Banned from Halfbrick.' The short-lived title Tank Tactics ignited destructive social behavior, and had to have its plug pulled before its prime by the Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride developer.

Fortunately, the spirit of the game lives on in Muscat's talks, which "demonstrates the power and persuasion of game mechanics." Accompanying this story, he will explore the responsibility designers have "to create mechanics that have a positive impact on players' social behaviors."

Continue reading "GDC reveals talks on The Walking Dead, Outernauts, banned Halfbrick prototype" »

Posted by Staff at 2:00 PM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) juries are announcing the Main Competition finalists for its historic 15th annual awards - nominating nearly 30 outstanding independent game titles to come out of the worldwide community in the past year.

This year's finalists for the most prestigious independent video game awards and showcase were each picked by a discipline-specific set of expert juries, following playthroughs and recommendations of the 580+ IGF entries from over 200 top independent game experts.

Some of the multiple-nominated games for this year's extremely diverse Festival include Cardboard Computer's 'magical realist adventure game' Kentucky Route Zero, Subset Games' spaceship sim 'Roguelike-like' FTL, and Richard Hofmeier's stark, dense street vendor simulator Cart Life.

The first-ever Excellence in Narrative Award is also showcasing unique titles such as Blendo Games' quirky 'first-person short story' Thirty Flights Of Loving, Auntie Pixelante's autobiographical game about a trans woman undergoing HRT, Dys4ia, and The Fullbright Company's abandoned house mystery Gone Home.

The Nuovo Award, once again honoring 'abstract... and unconventional game development' of all kinds, also saw many standout games competing for its $5,000 prize, including Sleeping Beast's irreverent local co-op sci-fi smartphone game Spaceteam, Michael Brough's 'one move a day for 100 days' VESPER.5, and Mousechief's multi-generational family history title 7 Grand Steps.

The full list of finalists for the 2013 Independent Games Festival, with jury-picked "honorable mentions" to those top-quality games that didn't quite make it to finalist status, is as follows:

Continue reading "2013 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 8:04 AM | Permalink

GDC organizers have announced new talks for the upcoming March 2013 conference, including an XCOM: Enemy Unknown art autopsy, audio tricks used in Assassin's Creed III borrowed from film scoring, and EA's survey of successful online game data systems.

These talks are part of the Main Conference, encompassing the Production, Visual Arts, and Audio tracks, to be held Wed-Fri, March 27-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA.

First up, Greg Foertsch of Firaxis Games gets his hands dirty for an 'Art Direction Autopsy: XCOM: Enemy Unknown.'

In this talk, he will extract the team's visual timeline, showing how they re-imagined a series that is over two decades old. Foertsch will also explain how "adjusting along the way to support the core gameplay can help enhance the players' experience."

For the Audio track, Benedicte Ouimet and Jerome Angelot of Ubisoft will offer how to mix Hollywood film scoring with gaming in 'Assassin's Creed III Music Score: Redefining Musical Standards for the AC Brand.'

Continue reading "GDC 2013 adds XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Assassin's Creed III, EA Battlelog talks" »

Posted by Staff at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Game Developers Conference organizers are reminding registered Gamasutra members that nominations for the 13th annual Game Developers Choice Awards end tomorrow, January 4, 2013. Produced by GDC parent company the UBM Tech Game Network, the Choice Awards are the most prestigious honors in the world of video game development.

The Game Developers Choice Awards recognize the artistry and technical genius of leading industry professionals across multiple game development disciplines. The 13th Annual Awards ceremony will take place the evening of March 27, during GDC 2013 in San Francisco, CA.

Awards in 10 categories are open for nominations for games that launched to retail or debuted online during the 2012 calendar year.

Nominations are also open for three special awards: the Pioneer Award (previous winners), which celebrates those individuals who developed a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture video game history - paving the way for the myriads who followed them.

Also up for nominations is the Ambassador Award (previous winners), which honors an individual who 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 the Lifetime Achievement Award (previous winners). All three special awards are open to anyone not previously recognized.

Continue reading "Reminder: Game Developers Choice Awards nominations end January 4" »

Posted by Staff at 9:16 AM | Permalink

GDC organizers have revealed new talks for the upcoming March 2013 conference, including those on programming AI and NPCs for Square Enix's Hitman: Absolution, reinforcing and strengthening the narrative for Commander Shepard in BioWare's Mass Effect 3, and analyzing the numbers behind GREE's Kingdom Age for the mobile market.

These talks are part of the Main Conference, encompassing Business, Marketing & Management, Production, Programming, Visual Arts, and Design tracks, to be held Wed-Fri, March 27-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA.

For the Programming track, Mika Vehkala and Maurizio De Pascale of IO Interactive will discuss 'Creating the AI for the Living, Breathing World of Hitman: Absolution'. Along with AI, the pair will explore creating NPC animation that adapts to gameplay situations and player actions in a believable way.

Attendees will learn about building systemic AI for a sandbox game that offers a cinematic experience. Lessons include "an overview of the general architecture, details about multi-agent coordination, behavior trees usage, and discretized world representation for reasoning decisions."

For the Design and Visual Arts tracks, Dave Feltham will share his team's 'Emotional Journey: BioWare's Methods to Bring Narrative into Levels' for the acclaimed Mass Effect 3. Feltham's team realized it needed new ways to reinforce the narrative in Commander Shepard's missions for the end of this trilogy. In his talk, he will discuss "some of the methods they used to bring narrative to some of the levels' pacing and flow, measure it, and how it helped increase the level of player engagement."

Continue reading "GDC 2013 adds Hitman: Absolution, Mass Effect 3, and Kingdom Age talks" »

Posted by Staff at 9:48 AM | Permalink

Organizers of March's Game Developers Conference 2013 have revealed additional summit talks on Diablo III translation, two Parsons The New School for Design professors' education manifesto, and Microsoft Game Studio's writing for moral games.

These talks are part of the GDC Education, Localization, and new Game Narrative Summits held at GDC on Monday and Tuesday, March 25-26, 2013 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

The Game Narrative Summit is new to the GDC after seven years at GDC Online and will cover interactive narrative on all types of titles, including AAA hits, indie games, and transmedia projects. The advisory committee includes Tom Abernathy of Microsoft Studios, Lev Chapelsky of Blindlight, Richard Dansky of Ubisoft/Red Storm, Mary DeMarle of Eidos Montreal, and independent writer Susan O'Connor.

Part of GDC's first Game Narrative Summit is Microsoft Game Studios senior game designer and 'Game Design: Theory & Practice' author Richard Rouse III with 'Seven (Or So) Techniques for Writing a Moral Game.'

Following up on Rouse's Seven Ways a Video Game Can Be Moral talk from GDC 2011, he will discuss techniques writers can use "to emphasize morality within their game world while working to the strengths of [the] medium," covering topics such as "morally diverse character creation, integrating moral themes into gameplay systems, the importance of moral quandaries, and moral choice design on a budget."

Continue reading "GDC 2013 reveals Game Narrative Summit addition; Diablo III and education manifesto sessions" »

Posted by Staff at 9:23 AM | Permalink

Organizers of the 2013 Game Developers Conference have announced the return of its emerging and independent developer showcase GDC Play, with early, discounted exhibit space now available.

This will be the second main GDC Play showcase, after a successful 2012 debut, and will take place Tuesday, March 26 - Thursday, March 28 at San Francisco's Moscone Center during the 2013 Game Developers Conference.

In a new, expanded onsite location this year, GDC Play 2013 will be in the South Hall's Gateway Ballroom, in a prominent position directly opposite the main GDC Expo floor - providing enhanced opportunities to target the more than 20,000 attendees at the show.

GDC Play itself was inspired by the success of the Independent Games Festival Pavilion at GDC and allows exhibitors to display their games to key distributors, publishers, press and investors visiting the conference. (All passholders, including Expo Pass attendees, can visit GDC Play.)

The showcase remains a simple, lower-cost opportunity to exhibit titles to prospective business partners, investors and the press. When signing up for GDC Play, game creators will be given a standalone kiosk with a monitor, keyboard, and speakers. An internet connection can be provided at an additional charge.

Continue reading "GDC 2013 announces the return of GDC Play showcase space" »

Posted by Staff at 10:00 AM | Permalink

Organizers of the 2013 Game Developers Conference have revealed more talks revolving around industry-leading hits, including Assassin's Creed III, SSX, and the Dead Space franchise.

These three talks are part of the Production, Audio, and Visual Arts tracks of the GDC 2013 Main Conference, taking place March 27-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

From the production track, five Ubisoft studio leads - Damien Kieken, Marc-Alexis Cote, Hugues Ricour, Francois Pelland and Alexander Hutchinson - will speak about cross-studio collaboration for its multi-million selling IP in 'Three Years of Collaboration on Assassin's Creed III.'

Focusing on "issue and game management, communications and creative processes, and real anecdotes," the panel will discuss the challenges and rewards of maintaining a production model with hundreds of people across international waters.

In the visual arts track, Electronic Arts-owned Visceral Games' lead user interface designer Dino Ignacio will dissect the diegetic UI of their survival horror shooter in 'Crafting Destruction: The Evolution of the Dead Space User Interface.'

Along with Dead Space trivia and Easter eggs, Ignacio will explore the "philosophy, evolution, and development of one of the industry's most innovative user interfaces" and "key elements of the UI such as the RIG, the Frontend, and the BENCH."

Continue reading "GDC 2013 reveals Assassin's Creed III, SSX, and Dead Space 3 talks" »

Posted by Staff at 1:53 PM | Permalink