GDC News and Information Blog

2010 Independent Games Festival organizers have revealed the five IGF Mobile category finalists battling it out for Best Mobile Game at GDC, also debuting the IGF Audience award and revealing the hosts for this year's IGF Awards.

IGF Mobile Category Winners

After announcing finalists and honorable mentions late last month, the 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile has named the category winners that will show their games at GDC and battle for the Best IGF Mobile Game prize.

After battling it out from a field of 170 top-notch entries, winners thus far include Secret Exit's physics-heavy Stair Dismount for iPhone, Powerhead Games' cunning color-based puzzle game Glow Artisan for DSi, and Tiger Style's acclaimed action game Spider for Apple's handheld.

The category winners for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition -- an event that celebrates excellence in games for the iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone OSes, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and other handheld devices -- are:

Continue reading "2010 IGF Reveals Mobile Category Winners, Audience Voting, Award Hosts" »

Posted by Staff at 02:58 PM | Permalink

Organizers of GDC 2010 are reminding that today is the last day to register for up to 35% off pass prices for the March 9th-13th event, with the free Android phone offer also expiring today.

The Moscone Center, San Francisco-based event has just announced a raft of new lectures, including highlighted talks from Pixar notables, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, Double Fine's Tim Schafer, and Final Fantasy XIII's director Motomu Toriyama, and a surprise lecture from Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto.

However, Thursday, February 4th is the final day that GDC is accepting registrations at the early rate, which includes up to 35% discount from final pass prices. The early reg rate will be open until 11.50pm ET this evening.

In addition, today is the final day to register for free Nexus One and Verizon Droid by Motorola phones with GDC 2010 attendance, as part of a promotion between Google and Game Developers Conference. Select All-Access Pass and Summits & Tutorials Pass attendees will receive the phone, and more information is available on a GDC website page.

As well as the nine major Summits, from iPhone to indie and social games -- and notable tutorials on the first two days of the show, there are six main Tracks - programming, art, production, business, audio, and design - for GDC 2010. These include lectures from the creators of Assassin's Creed II, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Uncharted 2, Braid, God Of War III, Dante's Inferno, APB, and a host of other acclaimed games.

Game Developers Conference 2010 will also play host to the GDC Expo Floor, including a host of notable tool companies, the recruitment-specific GDC Career Pavilion, the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival plus Awards and the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, open to all pass holders.

More information on many of the highlighted areas of GDC 2010 is available on the official Game Developers Conference weblog, and the GDC 2010 website has a full list of lectures, passes, and opportunities at this year's event, as well as specific on registration pricing and options.

Attendees are also reminded that they can email GDC 2010's registration staff -- or call them at 866-535-8997 or +1 (415) 947-6926 from 9am to 4pm PT each weekday -- if they have any issues registering. (All GDC 2010 registrations commenced before the 11.50pm ET deadline will be honored, even if any technical issues occur.)

Posted by Staff at 07:51 AM | Permalink

As less than 48 hours remain for Game Developers Conference 2010's early registration, organizers have revealed a surprise lecture from Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto, discussing design over his almost 30-year career at Nintendo.

In his first-ever Western lecture, Nintendo's Sakamoto will present a talk called 'From Metroid to Tomodachi Collection to WarioWare: Different Approaches for Different Audiences', spanning his seminal multi-decade contribution to video games.

As the lecture description explains, Yoshio Sakamoto has been here from the start. In 1982 he joined Nintendo a year before the arrival of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Japan. He's worked as a developer for the entire history of the modern video game era, and is perhaps most noted for the Metroid franchise, where he has directed or supervised nearly every game in the series.

However, his development credits span a wide range of projects, with titles as diverse as WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Rhythm Heaven. At times he and his teams juggled multiple notable projects such as these simultaneously.

Last year, while hard at work helping to supervise the upcoming Metroid title for the Wii system, titled Metroid: Other M, he also produced the Nintendo DS hit Tomodachi Collection. In this game Mii characters converse, sing and dance, and even dream. To date, it has sold more than 2.5 million copies in Japan.

Continue reading "48 Hours To Early Register For GDC 2010, As Metroid Creator Talk Revealed" »

Posted by Staff at 07:22 AM | Permalink

As the early registration deadline approaches, GDC 2010 organizers have revealed new lectures by Pixar notables, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, Double Fine's Tim Schafer, Final Fantasy XIII's director Motomu Toriyama, and fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore.

The announcements for Game Developers Conference 2010, which takes place March 9th-13th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, add to a recently confirmed keynote from Civilization creator Sid Meier, alongside almost 350 other lectures, keynotes, and panels.

This set of Main Conference sessions, all taking place from March 11th-13th, bolster an already formidable line-up, with nine notable Summits (from Social/Online through Indie to iPhone and beyond) set up for March 9th-10th.

Organizers have now released details on the following major new lectures for the GDC 2010 Main Conference:

- Seminal CG movie makers Pixar are giving a pair of two-hour lectures at the event -- the Toy Story and Up creators' Matthew Luhn will lecture on 'Storyboarding/Story Development at Pixar: Work Methods and Insights', while the Bay Area company's Andrew Gordon will speak on 'Character Animation at Pixar: Work Methods and Insights'.

Continue reading "GDC 2010 Reveals Pixar, Molyneux, Schafer Talks" »

Posted by Staff at 07:46 AM | Permalink

GDC 2010 organizers have revealed GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit sessions, with Google, Nintendo, Sony, Palm, and Apple (via the sister iPhone Games Summit) perspectives all represented at the March 9th-10th Summit.

The reconfigured Summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is intended to be the premier professional conference for the creators, publishers, and distributors of portable games, both for consoles and mobile/smartphones.

Filled with hands-on information, case studies and debates, 2010's GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit will cover both successful business strategies and the nuts and bolts of development on mobile phones (Android, BREW, Windows Mobile, Java and more), as well as newly added support for portable consoles (PSP/PSP Minis, DS, DSi).

Some of the notable GDC Mobile Summit advisors from the world of handheld games include Capy's Nathan Vella (Might And Magic: Clash Of Heroes for DS), former Vodafone and EA exec Tim Harrison, and G3 Studios' Guido Henkel.

A number of significant talks have already been revealed on the Summit homepage. These include:

Continue reading "GDC 2010 Covers Major Platforms In Mobile, Handheld Summit" »

Posted by Staff at 02:09 PM | Permalink

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference 2010 have unveiled this year's 24-page magazine-style Preview Guide, detailing essential information about the premier game development industry trade show.

Now freely available online in a digital format, the guide provides a plethora of easily digestable information on the event, which is being held March 9 to 13 in San Francisco's Moscone Center.

This includes pass specifics, overviews of featured speakers, session and summit highlights, specifics on parties, receptions, and lobby bars, and a list of exhibitors for GDC's Expo floor.

The guide also reveals what the GDC audience derives from the show. In a survey of GDC 2009 attendees, 75 percent said they gained new insight into their competition, 72 percent met a new useful industry contact, and 76 percent brought home specific ideas for their game. Overall, 80 percent of attendees found the show to be worth the money.

Also included in the Preview Guide is a practical visual schedule of GDC 2010's week-long session lineup, specifics on sponsored tutorials and sessions, highlights of the various discipline-specific Summits and Main Conference session tracks, and an alphabetical list of show speakers and their employers.

"This year's GDC is set to inspire and ignite new ideas that challenge us into new and even higher levels," reads the guide's preface by GDC director Meggan Scavio. "We have a week-long set of inspirational speeches and technical talks that will give you a real insight into the future of the gaming world."

The full GDC 2010 digital Preview Guide is now available for free browsing and downloading, and is also accessible via the official Game Developers Conference website, which includes comprehensive session listings and registration information.

Posted by Staff at 04:34 PM | Permalink

Scrum trainer Clinton Keith has announced a two day pre-GDC course in San Francisco to educate game developers on the principles of agile project management method Scrum.

According to game industry veteran Keith, a former High Moon Studios CTO with 15 years of game industry experience, "the two-day course provides the fundamental principles of Scrum through hands-on experience and interactive project simulation."

Along the way, the "attendees will learn why such a seemingly simple process as Scrum can have such profound effects on an organization."

Participants who successfully complete the course and follow-up test will become Certified ScrumMasters through the Scrum Alliance, and receive a two-year membership in the organization -- where additional ScrumMaster-only material and information are available.

Some of the topics covered in the course will include:

- The essentials of getting a project off on the right foot.
- How to build a product backlog and plan releases.
- How to help both new and experienced teams be more successful.
- How to successfully scale Scrum to large, multi-continent projects with team sizes in the hundreds
- How to help producers, artists, designers and programmers work together effectively.
- How to work with publishers and others outside the team who may not be familiar with Scrum.
- Tips and tricks from an instructor with 15 years of game development experience and 5 years of experience applying Scrum to game development.

Clinton Keith, who is partnering with the Think Services Game Group to run this pre-GDC course, is a Certified Scrum Trainer, and has over 20 years of professional development experience and 15 years in video game development experience. His games include Midnight Club, Smuggler’s Run, Darkwatch, Bourne Conspiracy and numerous others, and he first introduced agile development methodologies to the video game industry in 2003.

More information on the course, which is being held on March 9th-10th at the downtown San Francisco Marriott -- including pricing and other specifics -- is available via a weblog post on Keith's agile game development-specific blog.

Posted by Staff at 08:30 AM | Permalink

The 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards have announced that the key figures behind popular webcomic Penny Arcade, the Child’s Play Charity and the Penny Arcade Expo events -- writer Jerry Holkins, artist Mike Krahulik and business guru Robert Khoo -- will be awarded the prestigious Ambassador Award.

The Special Award honors an individual or 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 an advocate for video games and help further our art."

It is chosen by the elite Choice Awards Advisory Committee, part of the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game creation, which includes game industry notables such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), and many others.

Holkins, Krahulik and Khoo will receive their award for their genuine, gamer-friendly empire they've built over the past decade, lovingly skewering video game culture and developers while building up a following, events and an industry-leading video game charity that help epitomize the positive elements of 'gamer spirit'.

Continue reading "Game Developers Choice Awards Give 2010 Ambassador Award To Penny Arcade" »

Posted by Staff at 07:15 AM | Permalink

Organizers of Game Developers Conference 2010 have announced that Sid Meier, the Director of Creative Development and co-founder of Firaxis Games, will speak from his 25 years of experience in game design in the keynote address at GDC 2010 this March.

Best known for his work designing the genre-defining Civilization strategy game franchise, Sid Meier will present a keynote entitled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)."

In this rare address, Meier will describe how real-world, historical and mathematical facts cannot form the foundation of a successful game design. Instead, Meier will argue, the driving force of a game's design should be the psychology of the player.

Along the way, the seminal game designer will draw illustrative examples from his canon to illustrate how the complexities of human psychology can inform game design more than the laws of logic, physics, or algebra. In this development model, egomania, paranoia and delusion become part of the designer's toolkit, as the player's perception becomes the real reality, connecting gameplay to the player's psychological experience.

Continue reading "Sid Meier Keynote, Major New Lectures Announced For GDC 2010" »

Posted by Staff at 07:03 AM | Permalink

The 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile, an event that celebrates excellence in games for Apple's iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone operating systems (OS), Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation Portable, and other handheld devices, has named the finalists for its third annual competition, with a host of outstanding portable titles showcased this year.

This year's IGF Mobile marks a record number of entries with 170 titles submitted for the competition, up nearly 65 percent from last year's total, which itself was double over the previous year. The finalists for IGF Mobile will compete for $5,000 in prizes, including specialized awards for art, design, audio, technical prowess, and iPhone game creation, as well as the IGF Mobile Best Game award.

Some of the notable titles nominated for this year's IGF Mobile Awards include iPhone games such as double nominee, Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor, downloadable games for Nintendo's DSi including Powerhead Games' Glow Artisan, and promising titles from a host of worldwide indie developers, from England's Studio FungFung through Finland's Secret Exit and beyond.

This year, overall winners in each category will be announced on Feb. 8, 2010, with the category winners receiving $500 in prizes, a place as an overall IGF Mobile Best Game finalist, and the opportunity to showcase their mobile game at the IGF Pavilion during Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco this March.

In addition, all finalists for 2010's IGF Mobile competition -- whether category winners or not -- will receive one All-Access pass to attend GDC 2010 and attend the multiple mobile-specific Summits there, including the GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit and the iPhone Games Summit. (The IGF Mobile judges have also named three games in each category as 'honorable mentions' which - while not quite making it to become a finalist this year - are commended as some of the most intriguing and high quality independent mobile games of the year.)

The full list of finalists and honorable mentions for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition are:

Continue reading "2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile Reveals Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 03:32 PM | Permalink

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have announced that they are working together with Google "to celebrate and inspire the mobile and independent game development communities" by offering free Nexus One and Verizon Droid by Motorola phones to select attendees.

The newly announced offer, part of Google's outreach into the mobile phone space as it expands use of its Android operating system, is open to qualifying developers who register to attend GDC 2010 by February 4th, 2010.

The Game Developers Conference, as the world’s largest professional-only game developer event, has been at the center of the industry’s discussions on these topics.

It serves as home to major Summits such as the GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit and the Independent Games Summit, as well as the IGF Mobile competition to award handheld game innovation.

In recent years, the smartphone has become one of the most widespread and widely-used game platforms, and has proven particularly suited to independent developers experimenting with new and unusual gameplay.

As an official statement on the tie-in notes: "This makes conference attendees great potential developers of new content for phones using the Android operating system." Alongside the announcement, Google's Eric Chu has posted about Android's GDC 2010 presence on the official Android Developers weblog.

"At the GDC, we are constantly looking for ways to help the game development community learn and thrive. The mobile and independent game spaces having been providing so many of those opportunities for years now," said Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference. "We are so appreciative that we can better reach those goals by actually putting a new opportunity – Android-powered devices – into the hands of our attendees."

Early Bird rates for GDC 2010 end February 4. For more information about the 2010 Game Developers Conference, including the eight summits and the Android phone promotion, please visit the official Game Developers Conference website.

Posted by Staff at 11:41 AM | Permalink

GDC 2010 organizers have revealed an initial set of Independent Games Summit talks for the March event, including notable lectures by Ron Carmel (World Of Goo) and Randy Smith (Spider).

The summit, now in its fourth year and taking place on March 9th-10th during Game Developers Conference 2010 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.

Overall, the 2010 Independent Games Summit "seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from game design philosophy, distribution, business, marketing, and much more."

Advisors for the Summit include Independent Games Festival chairman Simon Carless and independent developers such as Flashbang Studios founder Matthew Wegner (Off-Road-Velociraptor Safari), as well as colleague Steve Swink (Shadow Physics).

With a final set of lectures to be announced soon, a number of major talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage. Highlights include the following:

- Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked
In IGS 2010's kickoff talk, 2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel (World Of Goo) will discuss "the problems with the current model (a tenant farming ecosystem built upon a weak security model), contrast how Valve and Microsoft deal with developers, and propose that creating more transparency in the game industry will give rise to a healthy model for developers and publishers/distributors to work together."

- Increasing Our Reach: Designing To Grab and Retain Players
During his keynote talk, Looking Glass Studios veteran and Steven Spielberg collaborator Randy Smith (Thief) will talkk about the design concepts behind 'immediacy with depth', as applied to his recent iPhone hit Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor. He notes: "The indie games movement should be the wellspring of daring and innovative ideas, but we need a sizable and devoted audience to help us realize that potential. How do we reach more players? Is there something we’re doing wrong?", and vows to look at design solutions.

Continue reading "GDC Debuts 2010 Indie Games Summit Line-Up" »

Posted by Staff at 09:02 AM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival, the popular industry event highlighting and awarding the talents of independent game developers at Game Developers Conference 2010, has announced the winners of the 2010 IGF Student Showcase, which recognizes outstanding indie game development taking place on school and university campuses around the world.

This year's set of ten Student Showcase winners include titles such as Utrecht School of the Arts & USC's virtual paper-folding puzzle game Paper Cakes, DePaul University's first-person 'sound visualization' title Devil's Tuning Fork, and Chalmers University's ingenious card-shuffling platform game Continuity.

These ten games will go on to compete for the Best Student Game Prize, announced on stage at the Independent Games Festival Awards, held Thursday, March 11, 2010, in San Francisco at GDC 2010.

The Student Showcase-winning games -- all of which will also be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC 2010 show floor -- were chosen from a remarkable field of entries by an opt-in subset of the more than 150 notable game industry figures judging the IGF Main Competition.

The full list of this year's winners is as follows:

Continue reading "2010 IGF Reveals Student Showcase Winners" »

Posted by Staff at 03:53 PM | Permalink

The organizers of Game Developers Conference 2010 have revealed major Programming Track talks for the March 9th-13th event, including lectures on God Of War III, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Starcraft II, Uncharted 2 and more.

The announcements continue a set of GDC 2010 track-specific announcements, this one focusing on the Programming Track, which "focuses on these challenges and the opportunities presented by next and current generation development including: mature consoles, new handhelds, a highly competitive sales environment, and increased demand for very high production values in games."

The subset of the Game Developers Conference 2010 Advisory Board tasked with programming this track include major industry figures such as Bungie's Chris Butcher, industry veteran Mark Cerny, and former EA fellow Chris Hecker.

Some of the highlighted Programming lectures just announced for the San Francisco Moscone Center-based event include the following:

- Shadows In God of War III
This lecture, conducted by SCEA's Ben Diamand, "provides a detailed view of Sony Santa Monica's approach to shadows in its upcoming title, God of War III. It covers the general techniques employed, and a variety of specific details about what features were supported and what tradeoffs were made."

- Designing for Performance, Scalability & Reliability: StarCraft II's Approach
Blizzard's Dominic Filion will present a detailed lecture "on how Blizzard approached engine development on StarCraft II, centering on aspects of developments that are central to Blizzard's philosophy: scalability, performance and robustness. Lessons learned throughout StarCraft II's development will be demonstrated and a variety of techniques to handle these issues will be presented."

Continue reading "GDC 2010 Adds Programming Talks On God Of War III, Starcraft II, More" »

Posted by Staff at 01:58 PM | Permalink

Organizers have revealed the nominees for the tenth annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the leading peer-based video game industry awards, to be given out at Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco this March. Nominations this year are led by Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, with seven nominations.

The acclaimed title is closely followed by five nominations for Thatgamecompany's evocative downloadable game Flower, and four nominations for Ubisoft Montreal's well-received Renaissance action game sequel Assassin's Creed II.

In addition to the aforementioned Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Assassin's Creed II, this year's Game Of The Year nominations are rounded out by BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins, From Software's Demon's Souls, and Rocksteady Studios' Batman: Arkham Asylum. Other multiple nominees include notably diverse titles such as PopCap's Plants Vs. Zombies and Infinity Ward's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The changes in today's game industry are well represented in the Game Developers Choice Awards this year by the inclusion of multiple iPhone titles (including Flight Control and Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor) as nominations in existing categories, as well as console downloadable titles such as Q Games' PixelJunk Shooter and RedLynx's Trials HD.

Organizers have also further diversified the awards by adding a Best New Social/Online Games category this year, with both Facebook and free-to-play online games competing for the new prize.

Continue reading "Uncharted 2, Flower, ACII Lead 10th Choice Award Nominations" »

Posted by Staff at 08:05 AM | Permalink

Think Services' Game Developers Conference Canada will be returning for its second year this May, offering lectures and networking opportunities focused on the burgeoning Canadian development scene.

Registration is now open for the event at the official GDC Canada website. The event will be taking place at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC from May 6-7 2010.

This year, new tracks will focus on more hot games industry topics including digital distribution, social games, and iPhone games. The event will also once again host tracks about game design, business and production, programming, and visual arts.

Making a return to GDC Canada is the Game Career Seminar, a one-day event aimed at students and individuals looking to break into the video game industry. GDC Canada, presented by Reboot Communications and the Think Services Game Group, will also host evening networking events as well as an expo hall.

The event will be offering keynotes, lectures, panels, and roundtable discussions programmed by an advisory board of Canadian games industry veterans including Brenda Bailey (Deep Fried Entertainment), Steve Bocska (Pug Pharm), Howard Donaldson (Disney Interactive Studios), Dave Elton (EA Blackbox), Tabitha Hayes (EA), Dan Irish (Threewave), Jerome Kashetsky (National Research Council of Canada), Colin Macrae (EA), Gerri Sinclair (Great Northern Way Campus), Tarrnie Williams (EA), Kerry Whalen (Ubisoft), and Kelly Zmak (Radical Entertainment).

"Attendees to this year's GDC Canada will gain new insights to current technologies across different game platforms as well as new business opportunities and distribution models," said Izora de Lillard, event director. "We're proud return to Vancouver and provide the forum for Canadian developers to connect, celebrate, and further the industry."

Posted by Staff at 04:24 PM | Permalink

With the success of Mega64's commissioned skits for last year's IGF/Game Developers Choice awards last year, organizers for the 2010 Game Developers Conference have brought in the group to record a commercial for the upcoming March 9th-13th San Francisco event. Unfortunately, there was a little miscommunication between the two parties, and the promo didn't turn out as planned.

After all the time and effort spent on producing the video, GDC organizers considered re-arranging the conference to reflect Mega64's promises, booking Sarah Silverman to deliver the opening keynote, replacing the Game Career Seminar with a rave party, and scheduling a panel on mixing drinks.

But they decided that it might be better to just leave the conference as is. Keep an eye out for more clips from the Mega64 gang both before this year's show and at 2010's Game Developers Choice Awards.

Posted by Staff at 09:27 AM | Permalink

The 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, the highest honors in video game development, has named Valve co-founder Gabe Newell as the winner of this year's Pioneer Award, with Newell to be honored in-person at GDC 2010 in San Francisco this March.

The Pioneer Award was originated by the Game Developers Choice Awards organizers at the 2008 Awards, is presented at Game Developers Conference each year, and was the first award to honor breakthrough figures in the game industry. It celebrates those individuals responsible for developing a vital technology or game design at a crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the many who followed them.

This year, the Choice Awards Advisory Committee, which includes notables such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), and others voted to give the Pioneer Award to Valve's Newell.

He is being awarded for his work in co-creating PC key digital download service Steam, and helping to make possible some of the most important video games of the past two decades -- from the Half-Life series through Portal to Team Fortress and beyond.

Continue reading "Valve’s Newell To Receive 2010 Game Developers Choice Pioneer Award" »

Posted by Staff at 07:08 AM | Permalink

GDC and technology site VentureBeat are partnering to debut GamesBeat@GDC, a game business summit that's part of GDC 2010 in San Francisco this March, including a "fireside chat" with EA COO John Schappert.

GamesBeat@GDC, a partnership between Venturebeat and the Think Services Game Group, will take place on the second day of the GDC Summits, Wednesday, March 10.

Following a debut last year off-site which included speakers such as Curt Schilling of 38 Studios, John Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment, and Seamus Blackley of Creative Artists Agency, GamesBeat@GDC will "continue to focus on game business and host executive-level speakers from a wide variety of companies, from the smallest startups to the biggest in the industry."

The Summit will "discuss the fate of the game platforms, where investors are putting their money in games, how big companies and brands are adapting to the growth of social and mobile gaming, new trends such as cloud-based gaming, and games as a service."

The first confirmed lecture at GamesBeat@GDC is a "fireside chat" with John Schappert, chief operating officer of Electronic Arts and a 17-year veteran of the video game industry, discussing EA's move into social gaming and its overall business plans.

The GamesBeat@GDC event will also host a startup competition, where judges and the audience can vote for the best game startup. And by having GamesBeat located at the GDC, speakers and attendees can enjoy even more compelling content and opportunities for networking and business.

Attendees can access GamesBeat@GDC -- which will be programmed by veteran game journalist and business writer Dean Takahashi -- with several different passes, including a GDC All Access pass, a Summits and Tutorials pass, as well as a GamesBeat@GDC pass.

"Thousands of developers are already showing up at the GDC," said Matt Marshall, founder of VentureBeat. "So we’re bringing GamesBeat to them, letting those developers participate in the debate around the industry's most disruptive companies and ideas. This is a win for everyone."

"GDC is excited to welcome GamesBeat to our lineup to this year," said Meggan Scavio, GDC event director. "VentureBeat’s editorial content and GamesBeat’s event offering represent a critical facet in our industry's economy. GDC attendees will appreciate the addition of this Summit and the new networking opportunities it presents."

Posted by Staff at 11:54 PM | Permalink

[In her latest Bosslady Blog update, Game Developers Conference event director Meggan Scavio fills attendees in this year's new summits and some changes to the 2010 event.]

Now that my calendar reads 2010, I can officially start the “Countdown to GDC.” It goes a little something like this:

1. Find March 9th on my laminated wall calendar
2. Count the weeks back until I reach the current week.
3. Curse out loud
4. Start a list of all the things yet to do
5. Break into a light sweat.

One of the items on my to-do list is to talk a little bit about what we’ve been up to here at GDC headquarters - besides being excited about the Independent Games Festival Nominees while also being inflamed about Spider-Man 4. Inflamed!

When not already missing Sam Raimi even though Spider-Man 3 was awful, we’re surprisingly productive.

Some of you may have seen the announcement of the newly-formed iPhone Summit taking place March 9-10. Focusing on both the technical and business aspects of developing games for the platform, the iPhone Summit at GDC 2010 will run 1050m before hitting a wall and tumbling to a Canabalt postmortem.

To avoid tumbling to your death, there will also be a session on knowing what you’re signing by understanding the iPhone contract along with how to capture the female iPhone gamer (hint: hot vampires.) The iPhone Summit program is coming together quite nicely, and I suspect there will be more good stuff to announce in that department soon.

Continue reading "GDC Bosslady Blog: The Countdown Begins!" »

Posted by Staff at 10:59 PM | Permalink

The organizers of Game Developers Conference 2010 have added several new Audio Track lectures, including talks on prominent titles such as Final Fantasy XIII, Dante's Inferno and the Halo franchise.

Continuing the GDC 2010 track-specific announcements, following new Business Track details, the Audio Track "looks at the game development process from the standpoint of developing dynamic videogame sound and offers direction for developers who wish to understand complex sound composition strategies."

The notables at the Game Developers Conference 2010 Advisory Board tasked with programming the Audio Track include Media Molecule's Kenneth Young (LittleBigPlanet), veteran composer Chance Thomas (Lord Of The Rings Online, Avatar), Video Games Live co-creator Tommy Tallarico, and more.

Some of the new Audio Track lectures confirmed for the March 11th-13th Main Conference track devoted to game audio include:

- Final Fantasy XIII's Motion-Controlled Real-Time Automatic Sound Triggering System
This presentation from two Square Enix Japan notables working on Final Fantasy XIII, Yoshinori Tsuchida and Tomohiro Yajima, will explain how, in the big-budget RPG, "new techniques have been introduced for creating sound effects that automatically trigger in response to the angles and velocities of characters -- as well as collision detection algorithms assigned to every terrain in the game environment."

- Lost Planet 2: Bridging the Gap Between Developer and Contractor
Audio director Tomoya Kishi and supervising sound designer Peter Zinda will discuss the sound design work flow on Capcom's Lost Planet 2, which represented a major shift for the long time collaborators. The lecture will "concentrate on how Capcom involved sound designers in the audio implementation process, as well as technology used to enable long distance collaboration."

Continue reading "Final Fantasy XIII, Halo Audio Sessions Added To GDC 2010 Line-Up" »

Posted by Staff at 02:08 PM | Permalink

The organizers of Game Developers Conference 2010 have revealed major Business Track talks for the March 9th-13th event, including EA DICE's Ben Cousins on "what Wal-Mart tells us about gaming", and the Tripwire and Tiger Style founders on game biz success.

The announcements come as part of the first of a series of GDC 2010 track-specific announcements, this one focusing on the Business & Management Track, which "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."

The subset of the Game Developers Conference 2010 Advisory Board tasked with programming this track include notables such as Epic Games president Mike Capps, InstantAction CEO and Westwood Studios co-founder Lou Castle, and Warner Bros. Seattle studio GM Laura Fryer.

Some of the highlighted Business Track lectures already announced for the San Francisco Moscone Center-based event include the following:

- Crushing The Overhead: Case Study of A Microstudio Start-Up
In this lecture, Thief designer Randy Smith explains his indie studio Tiger Style released Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor on the iPhone, topping the App Store charts amidst praise from players and press and netting over a quarter of a million dollars. He will discuss "team building, infrastructure, sales, compensation, process, schedule, project direction, product design, marketing, and more."

Continue reading "GDC 2010 Debuts Major Business-Focused Talks" »

Posted by Staff at 04:20 PM | Permalink

GDC 2010 organizers have revealed the initial iPhone Games Summit line-up for the March 9th-10th event, including tech and biz talks from the creators of Canabalt, Touch Pets Dogs and more.

The notable new summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco next March, will bring together top game developers from around the world to explore ideas, share best practices, and discuss the future of Apple's handheld platform.

The two-day program will highlight the best of iPhone development, with an entire day discussing the nuts and bolts of technical and design techniques. The second day will focus on the business and marketing strategies behind successful iPhone game companies.

Some of the heavyweight Summit advisors for the event from the world of iPhone games include Electronic Arts' mobile VP Travis Boatman, Snappy Touch founder Noel Llopis (Flower Garden), and Ngmoco VP Alan Yu.

With other major lectures to be announced soon, a number of significant talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage. These include:

Continue reading "GDC 2010 Announces iPhone Games Summit Line-Up" »

Posted by Staff at 11:03 AM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival has announced the Main Competition finalists for the twelfth annual presentation of its prestigious awards, celebrating the most innovative creations to come out of the independent game development community this year.

Nearly $50,000 in prizes in various categories, including the $20,000 Seamus McNally Grand Prize will be awarded on stage at the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 11, 2010 during the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The record-setting 306 Main Competition entries represent a 35% increase over last year's record 226 entries, many of them striking new titles from leading indie developers.

This year's finalists are led by multiple nominations for several notable games, including three nominations for innovative light-centric puzzle platformer Closure, and two nominations each -- including a Grand Prize nomination -- for Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op heist game Monaco, Hello Games' polished stunt motorbike title Joe Danger, Ratloop Asia's cinematic avian action title Rocketbirds: Revolution!, Krystian Majewski's gestural photographic adventure game Trauma, and Team Meat's cartoon-gory 2D action title Super Meat Boy!.

To ensure the highest-quality judging for the IGF, more than 150 leading indie and mainstream game industry figures -- from 2D Boy's Ron Carmel through Spore's Soren Johnson to ThatGameCompany's Kellee Santiago and beyond -- were recruited to choose finalists via a carefully constructed empirical process.

The Festival is particularly keen to give constructive, written feedback to Main Competition entrants -- even if they did not place as a finalist. As a result, over 1500 written, anonymized judge comments will be passed along to entrants in the next few days, an important part of deriving value and takeaway from entering the IGF.

In addition, for the first year, the IGF's Nuovo Award, intended to "honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games", was judged by a separate, smaller juried panel of notable game and art world figures. These spanned previous IGF Nuovo winner Jason Rohrer (Passage), Area/Code's Frank Lantz, N+ co-creator Mare Sheppard, EA division head and art-game creator Rod Humble, and more.

The jury for the $2,500 Nuovo Award, which allows more esoteric 'art games' to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles, has released a statement about the chosen Nuovo finalists, including several 'honorable mentions', on the official IGF website.

The finalists for the 2010 Independent Games Festival are:

Continue reading "Independent Games Festival 2010 Announces Main Competition Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 12:58 PM | Permalink

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers are reminding 2008 and 2009 GDC attendees that December 22nd is the last day to register with an alumni discount for the March 9th-13th, 2010 show in San Francisco.

As GDC show organizer Meggan Scavio explained in her 'Bosslady Blog' post last week: "If you paid for any GDC conference pass over the last two years (2008 or 2009), you qualify for the biggest discount we offer. If you buy your GDC pass by Tuesday, you’ll save 40 percent off an All Access pass and 50 percent off a Main Conference pass."

Recent GDC 2010-related announcements have included keynotes and first sessions for Summits, with notables including Facebook's Gareth Davis (Social & Online Games Summit) and Spider's Randy Smith (Independent Games Summit) headlining the pre-Main GDC events on March 9th and 10th.

Overall, the GDC 2010 Summits highlight the leading edge of game development in emerging and notable areas including; iPhone Games, Social & Online Games, Game Localization, Mobile/Handheld Games, Independent Games, Artificial Intelligence and Serious Games.

In addition, a number of major talks have been announced for the GDC 2010 Main Conference, including world-first lectures from the creators of Uncharted 2, Braid, Dante's Inferno and Brutal Legend. There are already scores of confirmed GDC 2010 lectures viewable in the GDC 2010 Schedule Builder, including notable, practical talks in the Design, Programming, Production, Business, Art, and Audio tracks.

Finally, major events such as the GDC 2010 keynotes are still to be revealed, and attendees can also visit the major GDC Expo Floor, filled with industry-relevant firms and the IGF Pavilion -- and attend the industry-leading Game Developers Choice and Independent Games Festival awards on Thursday, March 11th.

Registration is currently open for Game Developers Conference 2010 for all potential attendees, regardless of alumni status. However, anyone who attended GDC last year or the year before should have received an Alumni registration invitation via email. If you haven’t, please contact the GDC 2010 Registration team via the official 'Contact Us' site form.

Posted by Staff at 09:56 AM | Permalink

Organizers have announced that the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, the most prestigious honors in the world of video game development, are now open for nominations through Jan. 4, 2010.

In its tenth year of honoring the best games and developers, the Game Developers Choice Awards -- the leading awards voted on by developers, and created for developers -- has adopted a new voting methodology.

Nominations - as always - are selected by any game professional worldwide, simply by submitting ballots via the Game Developers Choice Awards website. (Submitters are required to log in with a Gamasutra.com username and password so professional developer status can subsequently be verified.)

Category finalists and Special Award winners are selected by the 20 person-strong Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Committee, including notable industry veterans from Harmonix, Valve, PopCap, Ubisoft, BioWare, and more.

Starting this year, winners are now being selected by the Game Developers Choice Awards-specific International Choice Awards Network (ICAN), which is a new invitation-only group comprised of 500 leading game creators from all parts of the video game industry.

Choice Awards organizers believe that, in tandem with their goal of having the most focused, impartial awards in the game industry, this additional voting transparency will further boost the awards' reputation.

The 2010 award categories are open for nominations to any member of the video game community until January 4th, combining both Regular and Special Award nominations, are:

Continue reading "2010 Game Developers Choice Awards Open For Nominations" »

Posted by Staff at 01:39 PM | Permalink

[In her latest Bosslady Blog update, Game Developers Conference event director Meggan Scavio makes her debut post of the 2010 GDC season to remind 2008 and 2009 GDC attendees to sign up for their discounted pass before December 22nd.]

Yesterday, Chris Charla from Foundation 9 changed his Facebook status update to read “Only 83 days till GDC!!” After they revived me with smelling salts (who knew we kept those in the office?), I wobbled to my desk and got started on this blog post.

Yes, Game Developers Conference 2010 is less than 3 months away, but there is another deadline quickly approaching and that is December 22nd -- the Alumni deadline. If you paid for any GDC pass over the last two years (2008 or 2009), you qualify for the biggest discount we offer.

If you buy your GDC pass by Tuesday, you’ll save 40% off an All Access pass and 50% off a Main Conference pass. Without trying to sound like a car salesman, it doesn’t get any better than this, people.

At that point, you can just sit back, relax and watch all the impressive session content magically appear on the new GDC Scheduler app, knowing that the only thing left for you to do is show up. Well, that and reserve all your travel, book meetings, create and print your daily schedule, figure out where the parties are and how to get invited to them, and break in those new shoes. Other than that, you’ll be set!

If you attended GDC last year or the year before, you should have received an Alumni registration invitation via email. If you haven’t, but think you should have, contact the GDC 2010 Registration team via the official 'Contact Us' site form. Hurry, December 22nd is this coming Tuesday.

Posted by Staff at 06:08 PM | Permalink

Organizers of next March's Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco have revealed keynotes and first sessions for Summits, with notables including Facebook's Gareth Davis (Social & Online Games Summit) and Spider's Randy Smith (Independent Games Summit).

Taking place March 9-10th, the GDC Summits highlight the leading edge of game development in emerging and notable areas including; iPhone Games, Social & Online Games, Game Localization, Mobile/Handheld Games, Independent Games, Artificial Intelligence and Serious Games.

Of the major Summits, Facebook's platform manager Gareth Davis will deliver a keynote at the newly formed Social & Online Games Summit titled 'How Friends Change Everything'. It will discuss Facebook's massive disruption in who plays games, as well as how games are best discovered, distributed, designed and monetized on the service.

In addition, Randy Smith, owner and game designer at Tiger Style will keynote the Independent Games Summit. Tiger Style is the developer of the critically and commercially successful iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, named by Apple as their top-rated game of 2009. Smith, who is also a veteran of Thief creator Looking Glass, will deliver a broad keynote address, 'Increasing Our Reach: Designing to Grab and Retain Players.'

Alongside these notable announcements, all of GDC's market-leading Summits have announced initial lectures, with a large number of new speakers and topics now confirmed for the event.

Other notable featured talks at the one and two-day Summit events include:

Continue reading "First Summit Sessions and Keynotes Revealed For GDC 2010" »

Posted by Staff at 04:51 PM | Permalink

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have announced its first set of Main Conference lectures for the March 9th-13th event, with Uncharted 2, Braid and Brutal Legend-specific talks already confirmed.

An initial set of talks for the Audio, Business, Design, Production, Art, and Programming tracks for next March's event are now viewable in GDC 2010's schedule-building app or via the official Game Developers Conference website.

Organizers of the industry-leading San Francisco-based event will be highlighting track-specific talks gradually over the next few weeks, but some of the notable lectures already posted include:

- Among Friends - An Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Post-Mortem (Production Track)
In this postmortem, Naughty Dog co-lead game designer Richard Lemarchand examines what went right and wrong in the creation of the critically acclaimed PS3 title, "...in expanding our gameplay through the use of new traversal, combat and AI technologies, introducing characters that shed new light on our hero Nathan Drake, and tackling our first foray into multiplayer in four years."

- Rock Show VFX - The Effects That Bring Brutal Legend to Life (Art Track)
Two of Double Fine's key employees -- lead platform programmer Peter Demoreuille and technical/VFX artist Drew Skillman -- will discuss the making of the visual effects for action-adventure Brutal Legend, covering "the design and most commonly relied upon features of our particle rendering, simulation, effects timeline and climate packages."

- Scoring Hell: How We Created the Score for EA's Dante's Inferno, from Inception to Final Implementation (Audio Track)
In this notable audio lecture, composer Garry Schyman and EA audio director Paul Gorman discuss "an exploration from both the composers and audio director's point of view" on making sound for EA's upcoming action title Dante's Inferno, including working with choir and orchestra in London, tech info, and implementation issues.

- The Implementation of Rewind in Braid (Programming Track)
Braid creator Jon Blow explains in his lecture description regarding his indie hit: "In Braid the player can rewind time at will... the game design required the player to be able to rewind a large amount of gameplay (30 to 60 minutes) and the memory of this gameplay had to fit into a small space (40 megabytes on consoles)." In this technical lecture, Blow will explain the intricacies and practicalities of doing just that.

- Why Owning Your Own IP is a Bad Idea: Giving Up Your Rights for Fun and Profit (Business Track)
Foundation 9 VP Chris Charla presents an interesting argument: "Conventional wisdom says you should always own your own IP. In the games space, we argue that the conventional wisdom is no longer valid. For independent developers to maximize their chance of popular and commercial success (and getting action figures made of your characters!), retaining ownership of your IP may be the worst decision you can make."

Alongside the full set of announced lectures thus far comes news on reduced conference pass prices for GDC 2010, with the introduction of optional lunch packages. Attendees now have the option to purchase lunch provided by the Moscone Center based on their GDC week schedule, or to find their own lunch alternatives.

Game Developers Conference 2010 will also play host to the GDC Expo Floor, the GDC Career Pavilion, the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival and the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

Alumni registration for GDC 2010 ends December 17, 2009 and Early Bird rates end February 4, 2010. For more information on the 2010 Game Developers Conference, visit the official GDC 2010 website.

Posted by Staff at 03:19 PM | Permalink

As organizers of GDC 2010 start to announce the line-up, the new Social & Online Games Summit has revealed initial speakers for the March 9th-10th event, including Zynga, Playfish and IMVU execs talking Farmville, Spore Worlds and more.

The major new three-track Summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco next March, has been designed to educate and inspire on the rise of socially connected gaming.

As the Summit advisors, which include notables like Metaplace's Raph Koster, Habbo's Sulka Haro, Playdom's Steve Meretzky, and Playfish's Sebastien de Halleux, explain: "Today we see that many of the most popular games in the world are played on social networking services such as Facebook, MySpace, and hi5. These games are capturing tens of millions of mainstream users, people who do not consider themselves gamers."

GDC 2010's Social and Online Games Summit has been engineered to sit at the intersection of multiple converging trends, "bringing together leading thinkers and businesspeople to provide the attendee a snapshot of the industry and where it is going."

With other major lectures and keynotes to be announced soon, a number of significant talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage. These include:

- Rapidly Developing Farmville: How We Created and Scaled a #1 Facebook Game in 5 Weeks
In this lecture, Zynga's Amitt Mahajan will discuss "lessons learned and techniques used developing Farmville, a Flash game that was developed in just over a month, and then went on to become the #1 application on Facebook." Both fast iteration and back-end technical issues will be discussed in-depth.

- Why Are Gaming Veterans Flocking to Social Gaming?
A panel of core and casual gaming heavyweights, including Zynga's Brian Reynolds, Playdom's Meretzky, and veteran creators Noah Falstein and Brenda Brathwaite "will discuss what prompted them to join the social gaming revolution, what's unique about the industry, and how the 'old rules' do and don't apply." Never shy about going out on a limb, they'll also share their predictions about social gaming's future and what it means for the broader gaming industry.

- From Casual to Social Design: What to Pack
Playfish's Jeferson Valardes, a studio director for the London studio of the Pet Society creator, is using this design-centric lecture to discuss how "many assumptions have to be challenged" for social games, but "some of the core and casual mantras can be applied." As he explains: "This presentation is intended as a rough guide on what to pack from your past experience when moving to this fresh new frontier, and is based on personal experience."

- From the Box to the 'Book: Bringing a Retail Franchise into the Social Gaming World
In this talk, Maxis' Caryl Shaw and Area/Code's Demetri Detsaridis will discuss the process of taking a AAA brand, conceived of and optimized for the traditional retail environment, and extending it into the world of social gaming, with particular reference to creating Spore Islands for Facebook: "the first social game based on familiar game-industry IP that's not just an advertisement, or a brand-awareness campaign, but a legitimate platform extension."

- Lessons from the Inside: Building and Optimizing a Virtual Goods Business
IMVU vice president Lee Clancy's company has been working with virtual goods for some time, as IMVU's 40 million registered users purchase a wide range of user-generated items, from clothing for their avatars to furniture for their virtual rooms. These items drive 85% of IMVU's revenue, and he'll discuss, via "real-world examples and data-driven learnings", practical insights into the virtual goods market.

Other topics covered the Social & Online Games Summit, which can be attended via All-Access or Summit-specific GDC 2010 passes, will include the secrets of virality, the next generation of mass market multiplayer, and the ways in which virtual worlds are changing to meet the demands of an ever-growing audience -- plus opportunities for new players in both mature and emerging markets.

Posted by Staff at 09:52 AM | Permalink