GDC News and Information Blog

The 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), the peer-awarded highest honors in video game development, have revealed the recipients of two of its Special Awards -- the Pioneer Award, given to developers for creating breakthrough video game genres or concepts, and the Ambassador Award, given to those who have helped the game industry advance to a better place.

This year's Pioneer Award will be given to Dave Theurer, one of Atari Inc.'s legendary arcade game designers from the 1980s. Theurer created classic titles such as Missile Command, Tempest, and I, Robot, which helped create modern game genres and define the early days of gaming.

The Ambassador Award will celebrate Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith, the First Amendment lawyers in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown, et al., v. Entertainment Merchants Association, et al., for their support and their fight for game developer rights.

Given away at Game Developers Conference every year as part of the Game Developers Choice Awards, the Pioneer Award celebrates individuals responsible for developing a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the many developers who followed them.

This year's honoree, Dave Theurer, began his trailblazing career in the video game world in 1980 with the release of Missile Command, a seminal trackball-based shooter that was a milestone in early computer games.

Following on from this in 1981, Theurer created the iconic, vector-based tube shooter release Tempest, the original psychedelic shooter, which inspired a slew of other innovations in arcade video games and was an early title to use 3D perspective in gameplay.

As his final title in the game industry before moving to a successful career in enterprise software, Theurer then designed cult, groundbreaking arcade title I, Robot. This 1983 arcade game, not commercially successful at the time, is legendary for being the first commercial video game with filled 3D polygon graphics, as well as being the first video game to feature camera control options -- and was years or even decades ahead of its time.

"It's very difficult to find a game developer who doesn't have a single memory of Missile Command or his other classic, Tempest," said Meggan Scavio, general manager of the Game Developers Conference. "We're delighted to honor Dave Theurer for his work as a designer which resulted in shaping so many developers' creative drive in the genre."

Also being honored at the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards are the recipients of the Ambassador Award, which recognizes individuals who have 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 advocates for video games to help further the art form.

This year, the Choice Awards Advisory Committee voted the First Amendment lawyers in the historic U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. EMA as recipients of the Ambassador Award. Ken Doroshow and Paul M. Smith led the legal team that convinced the Court that content-based restrictions on games are unconstitutional. The landmark ruling established First Amendment rights for those who create, develop, publish and sell video games, and is incredibly important to the past, present and future of video games as a creative medium.

Continue reading "GDC Awards honor Missile Command creator, First Amendment game lawyers" »

Posted by Staff at 6:54 AM | Permalink

Game Developers Conference 2012 organizers have announced a special exhibition open to all GDC 2012 attendees, showcasing the history of 3D graphics in games, from the Vectrex through N64 to PC and beyond.

The exhibition, organized by the Bay Area-based Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, will take in GDC's newly-added third exhibition space: the South Hall's Esplanade Ballroom. It will take place alongside the GDC Play Pavilion, which will allow select emerging market or smaller developers to display their games to distributors, publishers, press, and GDC attendees as a whole.

The 'History Of 3D Games' exhibit includes original games and hardware spanning titles from Web Warp for the Vectrex vector graphics-based console and Star Raiders for the Atari 5200, spanning history that includes Virtua Racing for the Saturn, Alone In The Dark for the 3DO, and even Red Alarm for Nintendo's Virtual Boy.

A particular highlight is a collection of early PC and Mac titles running on suitable hardware, including Catacombs 3D, Ultima Underworld, and Alpha Waves for the PC, and games including The Colony, Wolfenstein 3D, Pathways Into Darkness, Doom, Descent and Quake for the Mac.

Informative cards displayed with each game, put together by the Oakland-based game preservation non-profit, put each game into context by explaining their history and significance.

The MADE is dedicated to the collection and preservation of video game history which provides free programming classes for kids, holds social events, and display a modest but varying collection of antique and relevant artifacts. The MADE is seeking donations and other help from GDC attendees.

The GDC Play hall will be open to all GDC attendees as part of the San Francisco-based Moscone Center show from Tuesday, March 6th to Thursday, March 8th. More information about the event - for which early registration is only open until February 2nd -- is available at its official website.

Posted by Staff at 10:00 AM | Permalink

The lineup for the 2012 Game Developers Conference is growing ever larger, and today the show's organizers have chosen to highlight some notable talks from the Main Conference, including art-focused lectures on Batman: Arkham City and the upcoming Vita title Gravity Rush, as well as an in-depth look at Double Fine's prototyping and production process.

As part of GDC 2012's Main Conference, these talks are categorized among six discipline-specific tracks, which cover Audio, Business, Marketing & Management, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts. All Main Conference tracks will run from March 7 through March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Those interested in checking out all the exciting content in the show's Main Conference can do so by registering for an All-Access or Main Conference Pass via the event's official website (a specialized Audio pass is also available).

The following is a selection of the latest notable talks to be added to GDC 2012's Main Conference, ahead of the February 2nd early registration deadline:

- In the Visual Arts track, Rocksteady art director David Hego will host, "Batman: Arkham City - Journey from the Asylum to the City," in which he will dive into the evolution and creative process behind the visuals of the studio's latest comic-inspired action game. Along the way, Hego will detail how the team infused elements of the Batman universe throughout Arkham City's game world, which both excited players and created an avenue for rich visual storytelling.

- In another Visual Arts lecture, Sony artist Yoshiaki Yamaguchi will offer a behind the scenes look at the art direction driving the upcoming action adventure title for PlayStation Vita, Gravity Rush (pictured). The talk, titled "Bringing the Visuals of Gravity Rush to PlayStation Vita," will examine the game's primary artistic influences, and will provide unique insight on creating sharp visuals with Sony's latest handheld.

Continue reading "Batman, Double Fine, Gravity Rush talks revealed for GDC 2012" »

Posted by Staff at 9:25 AM | Permalink

This week, organizers of the 2012 Game Developers Conference continue their regular series of updates by announcing new sessions for the show's Social & Online Games Summit, with talks covering Playdom's popular Gardens of Time, the Flash MMO Realm of the Mad God, and Google's latest in Open Web tech.

These talks join a number of other notable sessions for the Social & Online Games Summit, all of which will offer unique and in-depth insight into the ever-changing realms of Facebook gaming, browser development, traditional MMOs, casual games, and beyond.

All eight of GDC 2012's specialized Summits will take place during the first two days of the show -- from Monday, March 5 through Tuesday, March 6 a the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Those interested in checking out the content in these Summits can do so by registering for an All-Access or Summits & Tutorials Pass on the official GDC website (a specialized Independent Games Summit Pass is also available).

The following is a selection of the latest talks to be added to GDC 2012's Social & Online Games Summit:

- Playdom's extremely successful Gardens of Time helped pioneer the hidden object genre on Facebook, and in "Gardens of Time: Design Problem Solving," creative director Eric Todd will examine how this influential game took shape. Throughout the session, Todd will look back on the game's conception and development, detailing the problem-solving lessons he gleaned from designing, launching, and operating Facebook's first major hidden object game.

- Elsewhere, Spry Fox CEO David Edery will outline how the Flash-based MMO Realm of the Mad God (developed in partnership with Wild Shadow Studios) found surprising success despite breaking some well-established tenets of online game design. The talk, "Realm of the Counter-Intuitive God," will look at the game's numerous eccentricities, from its bullet-hell combat to its strict permadeath mechanic, to examine what worked, what didn't, and how these choices affected the game's bottom line.

- Finally, Google software engineer Vincent Scheib will host "The Bleeding Edge of Open Web Tech," picking apart the latest developments in the world of browser-based games. During his presentation, Scheib will focus primarily on client side web technologies, including Web Sockets, WebGL, Mouse Lock, Web Audio API, and more.

Continue reading "Gardens of Time, Google, Mad God sessions added to GDC 2012's Social & Online Games Summit" »

Posted by Staff at 12:21 PM | Permalink

Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski (pictured), one of the key visionaries behind the Unreal and Gears of War games, will take the stage during the 2012 Game Developers Conference to host the 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

In addition, Pocketwatch Games' Andy Schatz, creator of 2010 Independent Games Festival Grand Prize winner Monaco will return for his fourth stint as host of the Independent Games Festival awards, now celebrating their 14th edition.

The two award ceremonies will take place at 6:30 PM on the evening of Wednesday, March 7th during GDC 2012 in San Francisco. For the third consecutive year, enthusiast video game site GameSpot will exclusively live stream both award shows via its official site, YouTube, and other streaming channels.

Once again, the Independent Games Festival will return to GDC to encourage the rise of independent game development and to recognize the best independent game titles. The 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards recognizes the creativity, artistry and technical genius of leading industry professionals and games released in 2011.

As design director at Epic Games, Cliff Bleszinski has been a key visionary behind the award-winning, multimillion-selling Unreal series, as well as Gears of War, which has become a billion dollar franchise. The series' original title received top honors at the 2007 Game Developers Choice Awards, and was crowned the winner of the Best Game, Best Technology and Best Visual Arts categories.

Continue reading "Epic's Bleszinski, Monaco's Schatz to host GDC, IGF Awards" »

Posted by Staff at 8:09 AM | Permalink

As part of a continuing series of updates, organizers of the 2012 Game Developers Conference have debuted new details about over 170 companies now exhibiting during the March show's Expo Floor, Career Pavilion, and the brand-new GDC Play showcase.

These three major sections will receive their own standalone exhibit areas at the San Francisco based show, and will offer attendees a chance to check out exciting new tools and products, network with the industry's top professionals -- and even discover the latest games from some of the industry's up and coming developers.

This year, the GDC Expo Floor (floor plan, see Page 2) -- open from Wednesday, March 7th to Friday, March 9th -- will once again host expansive booths from major companies such as Nintendo, Sony, Intel, Google, Nvidia, Gaikai, Crytek, Unity, and many more.

Elsewhere in the main Moscone North hall, the still being added-to GDC Expo will feature companies such as Tapjoy, Adult Swim Games, 6Waves, Sony Ericsson, BigPoint and PayPal, as well as schools such as DigiPen and the Academy of Art, all of which represent other essential facets of the games industry.

The ever-popular Independent Games Festival Pavilion will once again be a major element of the GDC Expo floor, showcasing all of the professional and student finalists for the 14th annual Independent Games Festival.

In addition, a number of specialized Government Pavilions will pepper the hall, providing spaces to show off the latest and greatest tool companies and game makers from a given area. Countries and regions hosting Pavilions this year include Germany, Korea, Nova Scotia, Belgium, Georgia, Scotland, and many more.

Elsewhere, in its own dedicated hall in Moscone West, the GDC Career Pavilion (floor plan, see Page 1) will give aspiring and professional developers a venue to talk and network with some of the most influential companies from throughout the industry. Major firms already confirmed include AAA companies including Insomniac, WB Games, Blizzard, Sony, Ubisoft, and Activision, as well as top online game companies such as Crowdstar, Riot, Nexon, Tencent, and more.

Continue reading "GDC 2012 details new Expo Floor, Career Pavilion exhibitors" »

Posted by Staff at 3:27 PM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival has announced the eight Student Showcase winners for the fourteenth annual presentation of its prestigious awards, celebrating the brightest and most innovative creations to come out of universities and games programs from around the world in the past year.

This year's showcase of top student talent includes the lithograph-sketched 2D logic puzzler The Bridge, from Case Western Reserve University, Art Institute of Phoenix's magic-moth platformer Dust, and DigiPen Institute of Technology's part-psychological-evaluator, part-boot-camp-instructor, possibly-part-malware action game Nous.

In total, this year's Student Competition took in nearly 300 game entries across all platforms -- PC, console and mobile -- from a wide diversity of the world's most prestigious universities and games programs making the Student IGF one of the world's largest showcases of student talent.

All of the Student Showcase winners announced today will be playable on the Expo show floor at the 26th Game Developers Conference, to be held in San Francisco starting March 5th, 2012. Each team will receive a $500 prize for being selected into the Showcase, and are finalists for an additional $3,000 prize for Best Student Game, to be revealed during the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 7th.

The full list of Student Showcase winners for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, along with 'honorable mentions' to those top-quality games that didn't quite make it to finalist status, are as follows:

The Bridge (Case Western Reserve University)
Dust (Art Institute of Phoenix)
The Floor Is Jelly (Kansas City Art Institute)
Nous (DigiPen Institute of Technology)
One and One Story (Liceo Scientifico G.B. Morgagni)
Pixi (DigiPen Institute of Technology - Singapore)
The Snowfield (Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab)
Way (Carnegie Mellon University, Entertainment Technology Center)

Honorable mentions: Be Good (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Lilith's Pet (University of Kassel); Nitronic Rush (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Once Upon A Spacetime (RMIT); Tink (Mediadesign Highschool of Applied Sciences)

Continue reading "2012 Independent Games Festival announces Student Showcase winners" »

Posted by Staff at 9:53 AM | Permalink

With the 2012 Game Developers Conference quickly gaining momentum, the show's organizers have chosen to showcase the show's newest and most notable Summit talks, including a behind the scenes look at Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, a PopCap lecture on fostering online communities, and Zynga and ArenaNet on online game AI.

These talks join an already robust lineup for the show's eight specialized Summits, which cover emerging or otherwise influential aspects of the game industry, ranging from AI, Social & Online Games, to Independent Games and beyond.

The Summits will take place during the first two days of GDC 2012 -- from Monday, March 5 through Tuesday, March 6 a the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Those interested in checking out all of their content can do so by registering for an All-Access or Summits and Tutorials Pass on the official GDC website (a specialized Independent Games Summit Pass is also available).

The following is a selection of the latest notable sessions to be added to the GDC 2012 Summits:

- In the Independent Games Summit, Capy co-founder and president Nathan Vella will take a moment to look back at one of 2011's most unusual, yet captivating mobile games: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. His talk, "Perhaps a Time of Miracles Was at Hand: The Business & Development of #Sworcery," will dive into creative and business-focused risks that helped the game find both critical and financial success.

- Over in the Social & Online Games Summit, PopCap's customer engagement lead, Stephanie Bayer, will host a talk dubbed "Community Commodity." This session will explain that while it's relatively easy to attract players to a new online game, developers need to be very careful with how they treat the players they have. Bayer will outline how PopCap creates a thriving social ecosystem for its games on all platforms, encouraging even casual players to stick with these titles long-term.

Continue reading "Sworcery, PopCap, Zynga/ArenaNet talks added to GDC 2012 Summits" »

Posted by Staff at 12:51 PM | Permalink

In this latest update for the 2012 Game Developers Conference, the show's organizers have debuted new and notable talks within the Production and Business, Marketing, & Management tracks, detailing new sessions on Words With Friends, frustration management at IO Interactive, The Witcher 2, and the Indie Summer Uprising.

The Production and Business, Marketing, & Management tracks are but two of the seven full-featured tracks at the upcoming San Francisco show, covering the industry's most important management trends and its emerging business strategies, respectively.

The following are the latest sessions to be highlighted for these two Main Conference tracks, taking place on the Wednesday to Friday, March 7th-9th, of GDC 2012:

Production

- In "Words With Friends: Building and Growing a Game on the Top of the Charts," Zynga With Friends CTO Vijay Thakkar will discuss how the studio's popular word-scramble game grew from a modest, small scale title into one of the top juggernauts of mobile gaming.

Thakkar will further detail the technical challenges developers can expect to face when managing any project that grows to encompass multi-platform, or even cross-team development.

- Elsewhere, Square Enix and IO Interactive's user research manager, Janus Rau Sorensen, will offer advice to help weed out overly frustrating bottlenecks from a game's design. Throughout his talk, "Arrrgghh!!! - Blending Quantitative and Qualitative Methods to Detect Player Frustration," Sorensen will delve into a computational model that helps identify patterns of frustration, helping developers quantitatively assess which parts of their game need extra attention. Sorensen's presentation was co-written by Dr. Alessandro Canossa of Information Technology University of Copenhagen.

In addition to these talks, GDC organizers have previously detailed Production track sessions covering BioWare's approach to product ownership with the Dragon Age franchise, and Naughty Dog's internal approach to remaining detail-oriented while still shipping on time.

Business, Marketing, & Management

- Using examples from the critically-acclaimed The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, CD Projekt RED joint CEO Marcin Iwinski will outline show studios can develop blockbuster franchises while operating on a modest budget. His talk, dubbed "Witcher 2: How CD Projekt RED Sold Over a Million Copies of its Exclusive PC Game And How You Can Too," will go over the conception, development, and eventual sales of the Witcher franchise, providing an inside look at the business of this fantasy role-playing series.

Continue reading "GDC 2012 debuts notable new Production, Business Track talks" »

Posted by Staff at 12:30 PM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) juries have announced their Main Competition finalists for the 14^th annual presentation of its awards, celebrating the brightest creatives and the most influential game designs to come out of the independent community in the past year.

This year's finalists for the most prestigious indie game awards, each picked by a discipline-specific set of expert juries after recommendations from almost 200 top independent game experts, are led by multiple nominations for several standout titles.

These include thechineseroom's experimental first person game Dear Esther -- picking up nominations for Visual Art and Audio, as well as the Nuovo Award and Seumas McNally Grand Prize -- and Mossmouth's procedurally generated platformer Spelunky, which was nominated for the Design and Technical Awards on top of a nod for the Grand Prize.

Other multiple-nominated titles include Polytron's highly anticipated puzzle adventure Fez, Mode 7's turn based tactical shooter Frozen Synapse, and Die Gute Fabrik's digitally-enabled folk game Johann Sebastian Joust, all of which saw nominations for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize on top of nominations for Technical Excellence, Excellence in Design, and the Nuovo Award, respectively.

The Nuovo Award, once again honoring 'abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development' of all kinds, also saw some standout games in addition to some of the above titles among its eight nominees for the $5,000 prize. These include Bennett Foddy's fiendish climbing game GIRP, Daniel Benmergui's evocative title Storyteller, and Terry Cavanagh's two-player puzzle title At A Distance.

Now in its second year fully integrated into the IGF Main Competition, the Best Mobile Game Award saw nominations for Tiger Style's sci-fi action gardening game Waking Mars -- also up for an Excellence in Audio award -- Simogo's rhythm-stealth game Beat Sneak Bandit, Steph Thirion's constellation-crafter Faraway, Powerhead's color-puzzler ASYNC Corp, and Vlambeer's fishing/shooter Ridiculous Fishing.

All finalist games will be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2012 Expo floor from March 7-9, 2012, at San Francisco's Moscone Center, as part of a week of independent game-related content that also includes the Independent Games Summit (March 5th-6^th), and the IGF Awards ceremony itself.

The IGF Awards, where this year's IGF winners will be unveiled, will be held on the evening of March 7, alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards. IGF award recipients will receive $60,000 of prizes in various categories, including the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

The full list of finalists for the 2012 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 "2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 7:37 AM | Permalink