As sister website Gamasutra noted a few weeks ago, one of the top trends of 2008 and the foreseeable future will continue to be outsourcing.

The organizers of the Game Outsourcing Summit at the 2009 Game Developers Conference have announced the full lineup of speakers and sessions intended to eliminate the trial and error of this seemingly daunting task.

Notables from Pandemic, Activision, Eidos Shanghai, Lakshya Digital and more will offer their hard earned lessons learned on how to successfully outsource your operation.

The top scheduled sessions follow:

- Activision's Aaron Pulkka, who's experience includes building outsource departments for two major publishers, will deliver an enlightening talk on "Putting It All Together - Building the Right Outsourcing Team". He'll focus on "building, improving and running your department including due diligence, staffing, budgets, bidding, expectations, and more."

- In "Unknown Soldiers: Technical Artists", Jesse Rapczak from global outsource company Exigent will discuss the importance of technical artists who work tirelessly as they experiment, tweak, and research ways to make an art director happier. He'll not only share how the role of technical artist is "key to getting what you need from your potential outsource partner", but also tips for creating or improving your technical artists.

- Carey Chico, executive art director at Pandemic Studios (Mercenaries 2: World in Flames) will discuss how to "keep teams spread across the globe on the same page" in "A Client Perspective - Process Made Painless". He'll teach attendees "how to plan and execute the right outsource process" with proven methods and lessons on what can go right and wrong.

- Art and design studio Massive Black's 3D director will deliver a complementary lecture titled "A Vendor Perspective - Process Made Painless", in which he'll detail what companies should look for in their outsource partners, with tips on "what info to provide, questions to ask, and how to leverage the strengths of the outsource provider." Attendees will take away advice that will help minimize surprises and get the right results the first time.

- Manvendra Shukul, co-founder and CEO of New Delhi, India-based studio Lakshya Digital, will share useful advice on how "Making the Most of India - A Cultural Checklist", with advice on making business trips to the country something more than just another due-diligence operation, and "great ideas for how to experience the real India and maximize your success."

- In "Welcome to a Great Experience in China!", Eidos Shanghai's general manager Christine Thaarup will introduce and explore what the country has to offer as "the land of opportunities with a growth and energy to build, learn and develop faster than anywhere else in the world."

"In a world economy in crisis, outsourcing has never been more crucial or relevant than right now," says the Summit's advisor and Exigent's chief creative officer Paul Steed. "Making games is a totally global thing! The 2009 Outsource Summit goes into the trenches and delivers specific information aimed at both new and experienced developers."

"This one day super-summit is all about useful tips and effective practices to inform and arm you better for your next project. We’re covering everything from culture to creating your own outsource department. A lighter tone heavy on content gives you a full day that’s more than worth your while."

The Outsourcing Summit will take place on March 24th, 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For additional event details, more information on the scheduled sessions, and the full speaker line-up, visit the Game Outsourcing Summit section at the official Game Developers Conference site.

Posted by Staff at 08:07 AM | Permalink

Organizers of next month's Game Developers Conference are continuing to add major talks, this time revealing a panel featuring ICO creator Fumito Ueda alongside Suda51 and Fallout 3's Emil Pagliarulo, plus DSi hardware lead Masato Kuwahara on making Nintendo's new handheld.

Firstly, in a newly revealed panel called 'Evolving Game Design: Today and Tomorrow, Eastern and Western Game Design', Sony's Fumito Ueda, creator of ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus, will be making a rare Western appearance to discuss the state of Western and Eastern game design.

Appearing alongside him is Goichi Suda, aka SUDA51, the creator of titles including Killer 7 and No More Heroes at Grasshopper Manufacture, as well as Bethesda's Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo, with 8-4's Mark MacDonald moderating the panel.

As the description explains: "What are the most important recent trends in modern game design? Where are games headed in the next few years? Drawing on their own experiences as leading names in game design, the panel will discuss their answers to these questions, and how they see them affecting the industry both in Japan and the West."

Secondly, in a talk named 'The Inspiration Behind Nintendo DSi Development', Masato Kuwahara, who is Project Leader for the Nintendo DSi hardware group, will discuss the creation of Nintendo's enhanced DS handheld.

According to the lecture description, Kuwahara, who led the team adding features like flash memory and downloadable games to the DSi, "will explain how the company came to develop the system with all these new features, and what kind of new software development opportunities the team had in mind."

Game Developers Conference 2009 takes place at the Moscone Center from March 23rd to 27th, and more information on the event and registration is available at the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 07:22 AM | Permalink

Don Mattrick, Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business SVP, will deliver a keynote at the inaugural Game Developers Conference Canada taking place May 12-13th in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The keynote will be presented in the form of an extensive on-stage interview, with games journalist Victor Lucas, creator and co-host of “The Electric Playground,” asking Mattrick a series of questions exploring the changing landscape of Canadian game development and Mattrick’s own role in expanding Canada’s role in the industry.

Previous to his work at Microsoft, Mattrick helped bring to life such successful game franchises as Need for Speed, Harry Potter, and The Sims during his tenure at Distinctive Software and Electronic Arts.

With 25 years of broad industry and game development experience, Mattrick’s portfolio includes some of the most successful games in the world, including a number of series established during his time at EA, EALA, EA Tiburon, EA Canada and Distinctive Software Inc.

"While it’s one thing to discuss the thriving game development field in Canada, it’s another thing entirely to have shaped the transformation of this growing industry yourself; Don Mattrick has done just that," says Izora de Lillard, event director at Think Services Game Group. "The mark Don has left, and will invariably continue to leave, on Canadian game development makes him the perfect person to discuss the future role that Canadian developers will play in the industry."

GDC Canada also confirmed a number of sessions from high-profile developers, such as Relic Entertainment's (Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2) Animation and Cinematics director Owen Hurley on "Realism in Animation. Misnomer or Oxymoron?", who will talk about defining and creating realistic animation in video games.

Mario Vasquez, quality assurance manager at Electronic Arts Canada, will discuss "The Science and Art of Quality Assurance in the Video Game Industry" in a useful session designed to help attendees "improve software quality and reduce development/testing costs by moving focus from manual, black box defect detection to a more scalable, automated white box defect prevention strategy."

Producers Justin Dowdeswell and Ken Yeeloy from Next Level Games (Punch Out!!) will talk about "Building Strong Teams Around Gameplay" and share how developers can "get the best gameplay out of their teams," with tips on creating a cohesive leadership group and implementing an inclusive design approach.

In his session "Generic 'One Size Fits All' Networking", Amaze Entertainment's Ken Noland will teach attendees about the low level details of being a networking programmer and the importance of an open and robust library. He'll also describe ideas for how to design and implement game ideas with multiplayer in mind, and discuss problems such as "forward prediction, compression, encryption, and reliability layer."

Presented by Reboot Communications and Think Services, GDC Canada enables Canadian game developers to share best practices for fostering ingenuity and quality games. The conference emphasizes studying the challenges and opportunities inherent in creating games with long-production cycles, large development teams, and across multiple platforms.

More information on the event's sessions and registration details can be found at the official GDC Canada site.

Posted by Staff at 03:25 PM | Permalink

Emil Pagliarulo, writer and lead designer for Bethesda's Fallout 3, will deliver a special interview-style keynote with Spike TV's Geoff Keighley keynote for the Game Career Seminar at the 2009 Game Developers Conference, taking place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.

Titled "Unlikely Beginnings: Fallout 3's Lead Designer on His Path into the Game Industry," the keynote will guide attendees through Pagliarulo's career path, from nearly becoming an elementary school teacher, to working as a game journalist and eventually to designing one of 2008's most critically-acclaimed games.

Discussing how professional networking, corporate ladder-climbing, and luck played in the designer's success, the special interview format will facilitate an engaging conversation on the trials and tribulations of a career in game development.

The Game Career Seminar is programmed by the GDC in association with GameCareerGuide.com for individuals interested in learning how to build a career in the videogame industry. The Seminar takes place at GDC on Friday, March 27 from 9:00am to 5:00pm at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The GDC Career Pavilion and Expo is open Wednesday through Friday, March 25-27.

The Game Career Seminar provides opportunities for aspiring game developers to meet with hiring managers and executives from leading game companies, and to network with industry professionals to learn how to begin or advance their careers in the $18 billion dollar industry.

The speaker lineup includes top game and industry experts willing to share their experience and expertise with attendees. Access to the Game Career Seminar is available with any GDC pass option which also grants access to the GDC Career Pavilion and Expo floor featuring the top tool, platform, and software companies recruiting today.

"Emil's story helps illustrate what can happen when we choose to pursue something we're really passionate about," says Meggan Scavio, the director of Game Developers Conference. "Geoff and Emil's chat is the perfect way to learn how a unique life, passion and capitalizing on opportunities can lead to a career in game development at any stage in one's life."

For registration details and for more information, please visit the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 01:29 PM | Permalink

Organizers of next month's Game Developers Conference have revealed major new talks from Keita Takahashi on Noby Noby Boy, Valve's Michael Booth on Left 4 Dead, and Level-5's Akihiro Hino, on Professor Layton and his firm's other titles.

A high-profile late addition to the program for the San Francisco-based developer event, Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi will present a talk called 'All About Noby Noby Boy', discussing his supremely quirky new PlayStation Network title. Attendees are promised that "This class will be a refreshing change of pace."

Also newly confirmed is 'From Counter-Strike to Left 4 Dead: Creating Replayable Cooperative Experiences' from Valve's Michael Booth. As the description explains: "This session will review the high-level design of Left 4 Dead, how it evolved from Counter-Strike, and the importance of procedural systems such as the AI Director in creating replayable and compelling cooperative experiences."

Finally, in one of the firm's first-ever Western conference appearances, Level-5's Yasuhiro Akasaka will speak alongside company president Akihiro Hino on 'Level-5’s Techniques to Producing a Hit Game — From Professor Layton to Inazuma Eleven and The Another World'.

The studio is noted for games spanning Dark Cloud through Dragon Quest VIII. More recently, its acclaimed Professor Layton DS puzzle game series and move into self-publishing in Japan is notable, with upcoming titles including Studio Ghibli co-operation The Another World.

Game Developers Conference 2009 takes place at the Moscone Center from March 23rd to 27th, and more information on the event and registration is available at the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 10:03 AM | Permalink

Organizers of the 2009 Game Developers Conference have extended early registration for the March 23rd-27th San Francisco-based event to Tuesday, February 17th due to public demand, with 30 percent discounts now only available until that date.

The extension gives interested attendees more time to sign up for the 2009 edition of the world's leading game industry conference, which includes a multitude of discipline-specific lecture tracks, focused sub-market summits, major keynotes, award shows, and more to attend this year.

Major recent announcements include major keynotes from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, with his GDC debut 'Solid Game Design: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible', and from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, with a lecture named 'Discovering New Development Opportunities'.

In addition, organizers have profiled each of the individual Tutorials and Summits on the GDC website. These Summits, which take place on the Monday and Tuesday of GDC, include standalone events devoted to AI, casual games, mobile games, game outsourcing, education, independent games, serious games, localization, and online worlds.

The main GDC event takes place from Wednesday to Friday, and includes major three-day tracks regarding audio, business and management, game design, production, programming, and visual arts. In hundreds of lectures, major developers from all the year's big games (from LittleBigPlanet through Gears Of War 2 and Fable II) will discuss the art and science of game creation.

On the Wednesday night of GDC, the flagship Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developers Choice Awards, honoring the best titles of the year, will take place. Other major events at the show include the Independent Games Festival Pavilion, located on the Expo Show Floor, which will also have exhibits from major tools companies and game publishers.

Early registration savings for the 2009 Game Developers Conference now end at midnight PDT on Tuesday, February 17th, and more information about registration and content is available at the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 08:14 AM | Permalink

The 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards, the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game creation, will honor Hideo Kojima with a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s ceremony taking place at the Game Developers Conference next month.

Kojima is Corporate Officer, Executive Producer and Director of Kojima Productions and creator of the seminal Metal Gear series, and the Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the career and achievements of developers who have made an indelible impact on the craft of game development.

Renowned as one of the world’s most influential contemporary game developers, Hideo Kojima first decided to get involved in the game development business while studying economics.

Driven by the hardware limitations of the MSX personal computer, he pursued a fresh approach to the action game genre – and thus the stealth genre was born with 1987's Metal Gear for Konami.

After creating the cult Snatcher and Policenauts franchises, the global breakthrough for Kojima’s career took place in 1998 when Konami's Metal Gear Solid was released on Sony’s PlayStation platform.

This seminal title has been followed by a host of important sequels and franchise additions, including the critically acclaimed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and 2008's multi-million selling Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots.

Kojima also produced the well-received mech action Zone of the Enders series, and also created Boktai: The Sun in your Hand, a Game Boy Advance game which contained a photometric sunlight sensor in the cartridge that charged a vampire’s solar weapon, another example of the designer's signature disruption of traditional gaming mechanics.

“For years, Hideo Kojima’s contributions to game development have broken new ground and inspired the community to think about creating games in never-before-imagined ways,” said Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference.

“From giving birth to the stealth action game genre to showing game makers how to interact with their players by breaking the ‘fourth wall,’ Kojima’s achievements make him an obvious choice for an award that in previous years has gone to luminaries including Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Richard Garriott, Eugene Jarvis, Mark Cerny, Gunpei Yokoi, Yuji Naka and Will Wright.”

Presented by GDC and Webby-award winning Gamasutra.com, the awards ceremony is held in conjunction with the Independent Games Festival and will be hosted on March 25, in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

The editors of Gamasutra.com, who are in charge of award management, worked in association with the Choice Awards Advisory Committee, which includes notables such as Doug Lombardi (Valve), John Vechey (PopCap), Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), and Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), to pick the Special Award winners following audience nominations.

Hideo Kojima will also be making his Game Developers Conference speaking debut at GDC09 when he gives the keynote lecture, “Solid Game Design: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible,” the morning after the Choice Awards Ceremony, on Thursday, March 26, 2009 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. PST in the Esplanade Room of the Moscone Center’s South Hall.

For further information about the Game Developers Choice Awards, please visit the official Choice Awards website. For further information about GDC and to register for attendance, please visit the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 06:48 AM | Permalink

[In the sixth of a series picking out the most notable Game Developers Conference 2009 lectures, sister site Gamasutra examines the Business & Management Track, featuring talks about starting up an independent studio, learning from Flagship's demise, Age Of Booty creator Certain Affinity's rise, negotiating rights for future games, and much more.]

Game Developers Conference 2009 (organized by Gamasutra parent company Think Services) is set to take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009.

With nearly 390 sessions now confirmed for GDC 2009, we'll be taking a track by track look at the conference's line-up over the next few weeks.

Sixth on the list is GDC's Business & Management Track, which will "looks at the game development process from the standpoint of running the business and offers proven strategies for the developer who needs to understand complex business issues."

Notable highlights thus far announced for this track are as follows:

- Bungie veteran Max Hoberman, now president and founder of Certain Affinity (Age of Booty), will discuss "starting a development studio, what some of the less obvious challenges are, and how Certain Affinity has managed to overcome them" in an informative lecture titled "From Bungie to Bootstrapping – Starting an Independent Developer".

- On the other end of the spectrum, Stubbs Alderton & Markiles's senior counsel Stephen Goldstein will share his "Lessons Learned from Flagship Studios". As former director business development and general counsel at the now defunct studio, Goldstein will share his insider's insight on how Flagship went from one of the most promising developers to laying off its employees, losing the rights to its games, and closing its doors.

- In "Riding the Waves of Change: How Video Game Companies Can Flourish in an Environment of Relentless Volatility and Flux," a panel of industry leaders -- Headstrong's Bradley Crooks, Radical's Dave Fracchia, Disney Interactive's Howard Donaldson, Relic's Tarnie Williams, and Great Northern Way Campus' Gerri Sinclair will exchange survival techniques for dealing with corporate change, and how they "build strong alliances, negotiate from a powerful place, and use internal politics to their and their teams' advantage."

- Looking to help developers understand the evaluation rights clauses that publishers sometimes use to restrict studios from publishing future games, attorney Stephen Rubin will deliver a valuable lecture entitled "When Publishers Won't Let Go: Signing Away Rights to Future Games", in which he'll clear up the "very significant practical differences and impact of the similar-sounding clauses granting publishers what on the surface are seemingly limited rights to evaluate a developer's future games."

- What measures must a studio take to evolve from a garage start-up to a professional business entity? In this full-day tutorial titled "The Big Picture 2009: Managing Your Game Dev Deal and Operating Your Game Dev Studio", a parade of game industry lawyers and studio heads -- such as Bungie president and studio manager Harold Ryan, and Insomniac Games president and founder Ted Price -- will share "what steps a company must take internally to make sure it is in compliance with its development contracts and the law, as well as strategies to help it negotiate better development deals."

- Discussing "Stability in Stormy Weather", Demiurge Studios' (Brothers in Arms: Double Time) CEO Bill Reed and studio director Albert Reed, a father-and-son management team, will share concrete steps that small and mid-sized developers can take to "improve the consistency and viability of their businesses," as well as techniques that will "will help prevent layoffs and cash or production crunches."

- EA Maxis designer Jeb Havens will present "Speaking Out: Advancing the LGBT Game Development Community" a roundtable session discussing topics important to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals working in the development community, as well as experiences and ideas on addressing "the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation as they relate to the games we make and the people who make them."

- In "Developing by the Numbers: Metrics in the Game Industry", a panel of industry-wide experts -- Metacritic's Marc Doyle, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, The NPD Group's Michael Klotz, Game Developer Research's Simon Carless, and more -- will provide a rare look at the factors affecting "the factors affecting the metrics used in measuring games, developers, and publishers, as well as the overall health of the game market." Each panelist will discuss what metrics they track, how they collect their data, and how their data is used.

- SCEA's senior developer's relations account manager Chris Eden will deliver an enlightening session on "Independent Self-Publishing On PlayStation Network", sharing with attendees how they can grow and add value to their business on both PS3 and PSP. He'll also describe the "the steps necessary to become a fully fledged independent publisher" and look at "lessons learned from the first wave of self-published titles."

The full Business & Management Track line-up to date includes many more notable lectures and roundtables, including discussions on managing quality assurance teams, early stage funding on video game start ups, stereoscopic 3D gaming, selling IPs to Hollywood, and more.

Posted by Staff at 08:30 AM | Permalink

Organizers of the 2009 Game Developers Conference are reminding potential attendees that early registration for the March 23rd-27th San Francisco conference ends on Thursday, February 12th, with 30% discounts only available until that date.

Game Developers Conference, which is run by Think Services, has been running a weblog covering the major GDC news this year, which includes the latest information on the Moscone Center-located conference.

Major recent announcements include major keynotes from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, with his GDC debut 'Solid Game Design: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible', and from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, with a lecture named 'Discovering New Development Opportunities'.

In addition, organizers have profiled each of the individual Tutorials and Summits on the GDC website. These Summits, which take place on the Monday and Tuesday of GDC, include standalone events devoted to AI, casual games, mobile games, game outsourcing, education, independent games, serious games, localization, and online worlds.

The main GDC event takes place from Wednesday to Friday, and includes major three-day tracks regarding audio, business and management, game design, production, programming, and visual arts. In hundreds of lectures, major developers from all the year's big games (from LittleBigPlanet through Gears Of War 2 and Fable II) will discuss the art and science of game creation.

On the Wednesday night of GDC, the flagship Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developers Choice Awards, honoring the best titles of the year, will take place. Other major events at the show include the Independent Games Festival Pavilion, located on the Expo Show Floor, which will also have exhibits from major tools companies and game publishers.

Early registration savings for the 2009 Game Developers Conference end at midnight PDT on Thursday, February 12th, and more information about registration and content is available at the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 05:40 AM | Permalink

Organizers have revealed that Hideo Kojima, Corporate Officer, Executive Producer and Director of Kojima Productions, will deliver a keynote address at next months 2009 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

Known for giving rise to the stealth action game genre with his creation of the acclaimed Metal Gear series more than two decades ago, Kojima’s keynote will focus on conquering various development obstacles with creative game design, using the driving game design philosophies behind the Metal Gear series as reference.

The address, “Solid Game Design: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible,” marks Kojima’s debut appearance at the GDC. The Game Developers Conference takes place March 23-27 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Kojima joins a host of notable speakers at this year's GDC, including Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, LittleBigPlanet creators Mark Healey and Alex Evans, Epic's Rod Fergusson, and a host of others.

Renowned as one of the world’s most influential contemporary game developers, Hideo Kojima first decided to get involved in the game development business while studying economics. Driven by the hardware limitations of the MSX personal computer, he pursued a fresh approach to the action game genre – and thus the stealth genre was born with Metal Gear.

The debut title was then ported to the Famicom, known Stateside as the Nintendo Entertainment System, and received an unofficial sequel titled Snake’s Revenge.

The global breakthrough for Kojima’s career took place in 1998 when Metal Gear Solid was released on Sony’s PlayStation platform, and it has been followed by multiple new titles in the franchise, including the critically acclaimed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and 2008's multi-million selling Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots.

Kojima also produced the mech action game Zone of the Enders, and also created Boktai: The Sun in your Hand, a Game Boy Advance game which contained a photometric sensor in the cartridge that charged a vampire’s solar weapon, sending gamers outdoors to catch some fresh air. This type of idea is something that Kojima has become known for—breaking the “fourth wall” and forcing the player to interact with the game in ways outside of traditional gameplay.

“The Game Developers Conference has invited Hideo Kojima to keynote every year for as long as I can remember, so we couldn't be more excited that, at long last, he feels that it is time for him to address the game development community,” said Meggan Scavio, event director of the GDC. “The anticipation is already huge to see how one of the community’s most revered and elusive creators will inspire attendees to further push the limits of game development.”

Hideo Kojima’s keynote, “Solid Game Design: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible,” is scheduled for Thursday, March 26, 2009 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. PST in the Esplanade Room of the Moscone Center’s South Hall.

The 2009 Game Developers Conference takes place March 23-27, 2009, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The 30% early GDC registration discount for All Access and Main Conference passes is only available through Thursday, February 12. For registration and for more information, please visit the official GDC website.

Posted by Staff at 07:09 AM | Permalink

Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet leads the nominees for the ninth annual Game Developers Choice Awards with seven nominations, organizers have revealed.

Number None’s Braid follows closely with five nominations. Among the nominations for LittleBigPlanet is the coveted Game of the Year award.

Other nominees for that category include Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead, each of which received a total of four award nominations; Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto IV, which earned a total of three nominations; and Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2. Winners will be honored at an awards show taking place during the 2009 Game Developers Conference.

The two leading nominees are celebrating a homecoming of sorts with their nominations for the Choice Awards. Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet made its debut during a keynote lecture at the 2007 Game Developers Conference, while Number None’s Braid was winner of the Innovation in Game Design award at the 2006 Independent Games Festival (IGF), which is also part of the Game Developers Conference.

Produced and hosted by Think Services’ Game Developers Conference and presented by Gamasutra.com and Game Developer Magazine, the Game Developers Choice Awards honors the developers of the best video games released during the previous calendar year, as well as awarding key figures from the video game community.

Other multiple nominees for this year’s event include such diverse and notable titles as EA Maxis’ Spore, 2D Boy’s World of Goo, Kojima Productions’ Metal Gear Solid 4, Epic Games’ Gears of War 2, and Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry 2. The complete list of nominees is:

Best Game Design
Far Cry 2(Ubisoft Montreal)
Braid (Number None)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Visual Art
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Prince Of Persia (Ubisoft Montreal)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Technology
Spore (Maxis)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Writing
Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal)
Braid (Number None)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)

Best Audio
Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Debut
Braid (Number None)
Sins Of A Solar Empire (Ironclad Games)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
Soul Bubbles (Mekensleep)

Innovation
Spore (Maxis)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
Boom Blox (EA Los Angeles)
Braid (Number None)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Handheld
Patapon (Pyramid/SCE Japan)
Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin (Intelligent Systems)
God Of War: Chains Of Olympus (Ready At Dawn Studios)
Echochrome (SCE Japan)
The World Ends With You (Jupiter/Square Enix)

Best Downloadable Game
Castle Crashers (The Behemoth)
Braid (Number None)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
N+ (Metanet/Slick Entertainment)
Pixeljunk Eden (Q-Games)

Game of the Year
Fable 2 (Lionhead Studios)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)

Winners in all major categories will be honored at an awards show taking place Wednesday, March 25th in the Esplanade Ballroom of the Moscone Center’s South Hall, during the 2009 Game Developers Conference.

The Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, held in conjunction with the Independent Games Festival (IGF), will be hosted by Double Fine Productions founder Tim Schafer, mastermind behind the critically-acclaimed Full Throttle and Psychonauts.

In addition, organizers are announcing that long-time Game Developers Choice Awards contributors Mega64 will once again produce exclusive video skits to accompany the evening’s entertainment.

"Truly great games are the product of years of hard work by teams of incredibly dedicated and talented developers. It's an underlying principle of GDC that we recognize these talents and honor their achievements." says Meggan Scavio, director of Game Developers Conference.

"The awards given out at the Game Developers Choice Awards are more than just trophies; they are recognition of great work by the developer community. The open peer-based selection process ensures that the people with the final say are the people who work within the craft of game development, and we can't wait to see who they choose. Best of luck to all the teams who have gotten this far!"

For more information about the Game Developers Choice Awards, interested parties can visit its official website.

Posted by Staff at 01:51 PM | Permalink

The organizers of the 2009 Independent Games Summit have revealed the completed line-up for the March 23-24 GDC 2009 event, with Electronic Arts exec and art-game creator Rod Humble, Audiosurf's Dylan Fitterer and Flower's Kellee Santiago among the newly confirmed speakers.

The third annual Independent Games Summit, which takes place on the Monday and Tuesday of this year's GDC at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, 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 2009 IGS seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from game design philosophy, distribution, business, marketing, and much more. A synopsis of the full summit line-up is as follows:

- Rod Humble is head of the EA Play label, which includes The Sims, Hasbro and the Casual studios. Which is about non indie as you get. But in 'The Indie Advantage? A View From Both Sides', the creator of art-game The Marriage discusses how the world looks when you can see both sides of the fence, and ways to make money and - more importantly - create games which are true to yourself.
- 2D Boy's Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler (World Of Goo) will present a lecture named 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Going Indie But Were Afraid to Ask', discussing costs, publishing deals, IP control, and more.
- 2008 IGF Grand Prize winner Petri Purho will present a postmortem of Crayon Physics Deluxe, with much detail into what went right and wrong during the game's genesis.
- Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer is talking on 'Embracing Constraints', with the IGF prizewinner discussing "using constraints to fuel creative output in indie game development."
- Hothead Games' Vlad Ceraldi and Joel Young are discussing 'Episodic Content and The Evolving Indie Landscape', with the Penny Arcade Adventures and DeathSpank co-creators looking at opportunities for indies, how you make episodic titles as an independent developer, and more.
- In a lecture called 'How Do You Manage Small Indie Teams?', ThatGameCompany's Kellee Santiago (Flow, Flower) gives practical tips from her own experience on the subject of project and creative management for indies.
- IGF Chairman and Game Developer/Gamasutra publisher Simon Carless presents 'Independent Games & Sales: Stats 101', an attempt to quantify a key question for indies: 'How much money can you actually make out of PC web, casual, and downloadable indie titles, iPhone games, XBLA, WiiWare, and PlayStation Network titles?'
- As part of a rare North American appearance, Swedish creator Eskil Steenberg presents 'Making Love in Your Bedroom', discussing the process of developing the acclaimed, procedurally generated first person online adventure game Love as a totally solo project.
- In 'The Indie Game Maker Rant', you'll see a series of exquisite rants by indie game creators including: Mark Johns of Doomlaser (Space Barnacle), Petri Purho of Kloonigames (Crayon Physics), Kellee Santiago of ThatGameCompany (Flower, Flow), Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo (Aquaria, Marian), Mare Sheppard of Metanet (N+), Erin Robinson of Wadget Eye Games (Nanobots), Heather Kelley of Kokoromi (Super Hyper Cube), Phil Fish of Polytron (Fez), and Steve Swink of Flashbang Studios (Raptor Safari, Blush.)
- In 'How to Finish a Game Project You... Hate?', Infinite Ammo's Alec Holowka (IGF Grand Prize-winning Aquaria, Paper Moon) and Pillowfort Games' Tommy Refenes (Goo!, Grey Matter) discuss finding and maintaining motivation on an indie game project, long after it feels natural to do so.
- A panel named 'Indie Games: From Buzz To Business', sees indie-friendly lawyer Tom Buscaglia chairing a group of developers including Michael Wilford (The Maw), Zach Aikman (Synaesthete), and Dylan Fitterer (Audiosurf) in a practical discussion on how, after buzz starts on your game, you can translate that into an ongoing business and career.
- Notable artgame creator Jason Rohrer (Passage, IGF finalist Between) discusses 'Indies: Beyond Single-Player', a look at why, 'to push games forward artistically, we may need to return to the medium's pre-digital roots: multiple players seated around a game.'
- In 'Making Web Games: The Indie Experience', Experience, PixelJam's Rich Grillotti and Miles Tilmann, the creators of Flash-based online games including IGF finalist Gamma Bros and Dino Run share the many lessons learned from their ongoing journey to become self-sustaining, artistically satisfied game developers -- and how those two concepts do not always have to be mutually exclusive.
- 'No Publisher? No Problem! iPhone for Indies' is a lecture from indie developers Adam 'Atomic' Saltsman (Semi Secret Software - Wurdle) and Sergei Gourski (Subatomic Studios - Fieldrunners), in which the duo talk about their experiences developing hit games for the iPhone without any publisher assistance.
- Stardock's Brad Wardell heads the publisher/developer behind PC 'core' game hits Galactic Civilizations II and Sins Of A Solar Empire, and in 'Stardock On The PC Hardcore Scene As Indie', he'll discuss this important indie-friendly area, and how developers can get ahead in it.
- In 'The Art Of Independent Game Promotion', Phil Fish of Polytron (Fez) and Kyle Gabler of 2D Boy (World Of Go) reveal the secrets of massive promotion on a shoestring budget: how to speak to the press, how to create a trailer the internet loves, and how to best promote for your game.
- Acclaimed indie creator Jonatan 'Cactus' Soderstrom (Clean Asia!, Psychosomnium) is renowned for the wide-ranging, eclectic multitude of freeware games that he creates. In 'The Four-Hour Game Design by Cactus', he discusses how he creates standout, beautiful games in such short amounts of time.
- In 'The Indie Businessman', you can hear from three highly successful indie game developers on their own unique indie-focused business models, and why they aren't just selling $19.95 downloads. Hear how Hampus Soderstrom (IGF nominee Toribash) earns money by selling in-game decals and motion trails, how Jamie Cheng (IGF winner Eets) is pursuing free-to-play online games, and how Daniel James (Puzzle Pirates, Bang Howdy!, Whirled) manages multiple major microtransaction-based games while staying independent.

The Independent Games Summit takes place alongside the yearly Independent Games Festival at GDC 2009, with IGF finalists invited to attend IGS for free. This year, organizers have also extended special 'scholarship' pricing to fifty of the IGF Main Competition entrants, allowing those indies to attend at a significantly reduced price on a 'first come, first served' basis.

Other interested parties are able to attend via a GDC Summits & Tutorials Pass, with the early deadline to register being Wednesday, February 12th. More information on the full line-up for the Summit, including more details on each individual lecture, is available at the official Independent Games Summit webpage.

Posted by Staff at 02:14 AM | Permalink

[In the fifth of a series picking out the most notable Game Developers Conference 2009 lectures, sister site Gamasutra examines the Production Track, featuring talks from the Spore, Crysis Warhead and Fable II creators, as well as production analyses from BioWare Austin, Microsoft Game Studios, and Bungie.]

Game Developers Conference 2009 (organized by Gamasutra parent company Think Services) is set to take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 23 to 27, 2009 - with the important early registration deadline now imminent, and set for February 12.

With nearly 390 sessions now confirmed for GDC 2009, we'll be taking a track by track look at the conference's line-up over the next few weeks.

Fifth on the list is GDC's Production Track, which will look at "the game development process from the standpoint of running project nuances" and will offer "proven strategies for effective game production."

Notable highlights thus far announced for this track are as follows:

- Covering Spore's online Share features, Maxis producer Caryl Shaw will talk about the multi-genre game's unique challenges that the studio encountered with its social networking and content delivery systems during development and after shipping. In "Spore: Fulfilling the Massively-Single Player Promise - How'd We Do?", she'll also give the audience a window into that evolution and the successes and shortfalls of creating this new type of online game.

- Undoubtably a massive project, Fable II was in production for over four years and credited over 500 people to its creation. Developer Lionhead Studios' Louise Cople and Microsoft's Jonathan Taylor will present a lecture on "Producing Fable II," looking into the "timeline, production methodology, team structure and organization of the project, revealing what went well and what were their biggest challenges."

- Microsoft Game Studios' lead software development engineer Joe Djorgee will provide a useful 20-minute "Overview of Video Games Testing within Microsoft Game Studios" in which he'll talk about "how test teams are structured, staffed, and trained; the approach taken to test various projects; the use of test documentation; the different types of testing; the philosophy on directed testing versus ad hoc testing; as well as the use of bug databases." He'll also cover what kind of person makes a good tester and recommend helpful resources.

- In "Failure is NOT an Option - Basic Survival Techniques for any Producer/Designer", BioWare Austin's co-studio director Rich Vogel will discuss techniques he's picked up from 18 years in the game business on how to keep a team from failing. Targeting producers, project managers, and designers, the lecture will give valuable insight on "how to avoid failure and fix broken projects."

- Producer Allen Murray will highlight production case studies from Halo 3 and provide a brutally honest look at "the evolution of production at Bungie from Halo 1 to 3 and share the failures and successes of the production staff" in this session titled "Building Your Airplane While Flying: Production at Bungie." Producers will especially benefit from discussions on the studio's approach with solving difficult challenges, as they compare and contrast with how their own studio operates.

- Crytek's Bernd Diemer will provide an in-depth look at the production process behind Crysis Warhead, including "the development methods and processes used for developing a franchise title with a new team, in two studios in parallel." He'll talk about using fast prototyping to validate initial designs and to build up team confidence, how creative ownership can be used to improve quality, and more in "Crysis Warhead Postmortem: Blowing Up Stuff".

- Electronic Arts Redwood Shores senior producer Chuck Beaver will deliver "Dead Space: How We Launched the Scariest New IP," a lecture relevant to anyone producing a horror-genre title, as he will detail "the trials, tribulations, practices and philosophies that led Dead Space to getting green lit as a new IP," as well as "tactics and examples of how to make the scariest game ever."

- In "He Who Ships, Wins: Producing Gears of War 2", Epic Games senior producer Rod Fergusson will talk about his team's best practices with shipping a major holiday release within 24 months, discussing pre-production scoping, handling crunch and managing the endgame. He'll reflect upon "specific philosophies, methodologies and techniques to see how they were applied to the production of Gears of War 2 and to what benefit."

- Media Molecule's Siobhan Reddy and Kareem Ettouney will talk about "The LittleBigPlanet Jam," sharing with attendees the different methods they used to "build a small team of talented people and fostered the idea of jamming in the creation of LittleBigPlanet." They'll not talk about how the "jamming style" applies from a production and creative angle, but also how it evolved during their title's production.

The full Production Track line-up to date includes many more notable lectures and roundtables, including discussions on prototyping, iterative development for Mass Effect 2, veteran creator Mark Cerny on production methodology, and more.

Posted by Staff at 08:47 AM | Permalink

[In her latest Bosslady Blog update, Game Developers Conference event director Meggan Scavio discusses the newly announced Nintendo keynote, as well as the GDC Vault and new Dead Space, LittleBigPlanet and Flagship Studios lectures.]

Hopefully by now, the news of GDC 2009's first announced keynote has made the rounds as far as... you. But if you happen to live on the planet formerly known as Pluto, let me bring you up to date.

Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo Co., Ltd, will deliver the opening keynote at this year’s GDC, titled “Discovering New Development Opportunities.” Mr. Iwata has spoken at GDC twice already and always manages to surprise and inspire. Can’t wait to see what he’s got to say this year!

For anyone who happens not to be a morning person, please take note: Iwata’s opening keynote on Wednesday, March 25th will begin at 9:00 am. GDC keynotes have historically started at 10:30 am, but we thought it would be nice to open the main conference with everybody gathered in one room. Expect bonding - hand holding not required.

Another neat new thing we’re doing this year is the GDC Vault. This new site will host video/slide/audio sync-ed recordings of all GDC Summits, Lectures and Panels, and will be available for online streaming one week after GDC this year. Not only is this quite a task (we’re recording 250 sessions), but it's free to GDC 2009 All Access pass holders. You need never miss another GDC session again - like I said, neat.

Browsing the website, I found a lot of intriguing new sessions that have popped up since my last update. Sister website Gamasutra has kindly been posting their top picks by track, but here are some new announcements even they haven't picked up on:

- EA Redwood Shores senior producer Chuck Beaver is going to be presenting “Dead Space: How We Launched the Scariest New IP.” In a year of sequels, find out how EA brought this new title to market. Expect to hear their “successes and stumbles”, as well as what it takes to create a horror-genre title. It's a more difficult question than you'd think - how do you make things scary?

- You first learned about this game at Game Developers Conference, and now, six months after the launch, GDC attendees can hear from the creators what went wrong and what went right, in: “Media Molecule: 'Winging It' - Ups, Downs, Mistakes, Successes in the Making of LittleBigPlanet.” Alex Evans, technical director, and Mark Healey, creative director, share their experience as a small development team launching their first game.

- To get a wider picture of the critically acclaimed PS3 title, check out the other LittleBigPlanet sessions newly announced at GDC 2009: “The LittleBigPlanet Jam” will discuss their 'jamming style' of game production, and “The Art of LBP: From Conception Through to Finishing” will look at how the game's art and visual direction was developed. And let’s not forget one of my favorite lecture titles so far - “How Sackboy Learned to Love Physics” - where MM will talk about “the conflicts between the physical consistency demanded by the physics engine and the player's expected behavior of the character.”

- Finally, anyone currently working at a start-up or independent developer may want to attend “My Lessons Learned from Flagship Studios.” This lecture will follow the life of the Hellgate: London developer - from their peak in 2007 to their demise 8 months later. Former director of business development and general counsel Stephen Goldstein will provide his personal list of the 10 lessons he learned the hard way from the company's demise.

GDC 2009 has also got some more amazing sessions that will be popping up in the next week or two, as well as the second keynote announcement. It’s so good that I wish I could tell you now, but... can't. Don’t you hate it when people do that?

Posted by Meggan Scavio at 08:25 PM | Permalink

The 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards, the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game creation, have named the recipients of two of its special awards, while also revealing that popular host of the 2007 Awards and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer is returning to present this year's Choice Awards.

Harmonix co-founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, co-developers of a groundbreaking decade-plus long line of music games culminating in the Rock Band franchise, will receive the Pioneer Award for their work.

In addition, Tommy Tallarico, co-founder of the Video Games Live concert series and founder of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), will receive the Ambassador Award for helping to advance the game audio community.

Presented by Think Services' Game Developers Conference (GDC), Gamasutra.com and Game Developer magazine, this year's awards ceremony, open to all GDC attendees and held in conjunction with the Independent Games Festival Awards, will be hosted on Wednesday, March 25th in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San Francisco's Moscone Center.

2009 Pioneer Award Recipients

The Pioneer Award celebrates those 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.

Harmonix's Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy have been chosen by the Choice Awards Advisory Committee for their role in pioneering and popularizing music games, a vitally important genre for widening the appeal of games.

The duo created Harmonix Music Systems in 1995 after graduating from MIT, and the Boston-area company experimented with early music games such as The Axe, before developing electronic-based rhythm games Frequency and Amplitude for the PlayStation 2.

Beginning in 2005, Harmonix developed Guitar Hero, and followed that up with Guitar Hero II, Rock Band, and Rock Band 2, fueling the explosive growth of the music games category to over $1 billion in sales. In 2006, Harmonix was acquired by MTV/Viacom. In 2008, Eran and fellow co-founder Alex Rigopulos were named to the Time 100 -- Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

"With the music game genre exploding into a true phenomenon in recent years, we wanted to honor the key developers behind its rise to power," said Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference. "Alex and Eran's dedication to both music and gaming has helped to entwine the two in ways that have truly advanced the art form, and they are worthy Pioneers."

2009 Ambassador Award Recipient

The Ambassador Award honors an individual who has 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 to help further the art.

This year, the Choice Awards Advisory Committee, which includes notables such as Doug Lombardi (Valve), John Vechey (PopCap), Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), and Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), has voted to give the Ambassador Award to tireless game audio advocate Tommy Tallarico.

Tommy is the founder of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), which is a non-profit organization formed in 2002, and tasked with educating on interactive audio by providing information, instruction, resources, guidance and enlightenment not only to its members, but to content providers and listeners throughout the world.

In addition, Tallarico, who has created music for games over the past 18 years. from Earthworm Jim through Sonic & The Black Knight, co-founded Video Games Live, a public concert series started in 2005 which features music from notable video games performed by top orchestras and choirs around the world.

The concert show has been performed worldwide to hundreds of thousands of people, from the Hollywood Bowl to major venues in Europe, Asia and South America, and continues to raise the profile of game music as an art form in its own right.

"We're delighted to honor Tommy Tallarico for his work advocating for game audio creators worldwide," said Simon Carless, chair of the Game Developers Choice Awards Committee. "He's a true Ambassador for the game musician, and his larger than life persona includes a heart of gold when it comes to caring about the entire video game industry."

Schafer To Host Choice Awards

Finally, Double Fine founder and general roustabout Tim Schafer has been confirmed as the host for this year's awards, following his well-received appearance as presenter in 2007.

Schafer, the LucasArts veteran designer known for critically acclaimed games such as Full Throttle, Psychonauts, and the upcoming Brütal Legend, sees the awards as an opportunity to, “No way. I'm not writing my own quote. I already have to write my own script for the show! It's not like you guys are paying me by the word!”

Schafer added that this year will surely be, “Actually, you guys aren't paying me at all. That does it--This year, I'm keeping the tux.”

For further information about the Choice Awards, please visit its official website. For further information about GDC and to register for attendance, please visit the Game Developers Conference 2009 website.

Posted by Staff at 07:21 AM | Permalink