Alongside the many technical and artistic talks you’ll find at GDC 2018, we’re also lucky to be joined by developers interested in talking about the impact video games have on culture at large. For years, game designer Julia Keren-Detar has been discussing the ways that historical events have influenced game design across the years, and this year she’s back with a session on inequality and player behavior that should be especially worth your time!

To get you ready for Keren-Detar’s talk, we’ve reached out to her for a brief Q&A about her work and philosophy on working in games. You can check it out below!

Don’t miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March is going to be full of interesting and informative sessions like Keren-Detar’s. For more visit the show’s official website.

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Heads up, game makers: the 2018 Game Developers Conference starts Monday, and this year organizers are excited to welcome a lineup of great talks from the folks at the Fair Play Alliance!

Formally unveiled this week, the Fair Play Alliance is intended to be a cross-industry initiative whose mission is to foster fair play in online games, raise awareness of player-behavior-related issues, and share research and best practices that drive lasting change.

Over 30 stakeholders in the game industry are part of the FPA, including Unity, Blizzard, Riot Games, Supercell, Epic Games, Discord, Twitch, and more. Together, they aim to support game developers and foster open collaboration, research, and sharing of best practices for encouraging healthy gaming communities and fair play.

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As you gear up for the 2018 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week, remember that this year marks the return of the Vision Track – a series of mini-keynotes featuring great speakers and forward-thinking companies discussing the future of the game industry!

These talks will give you new opportunities to learn from companies or individuals who are doing amazing work outside game dev that then feeds back into game innovation. You’ll also see talks from leaders in video games that will give you vibrant insight into how to take your work forward in the years ahead.

For example, NYU Game Center director Frank Lantz will deliver “This Is Your Brain On Games“, a session devoted to interrogating whether there’s any evidence that games are having this effect on us. Lantz will look at examples from specific games and extrapolate to a broad vision of how games might have the capacity to increase our collective intelligence.

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In less than a week the 2018 Game Developers Conference will be in full swing, and show organizers want to give you a heads-up about the brave developers who will be participating in the popular GDC Pitch event at GDC Play this year!

The ever-popular GDC Play will once again showcase some of the most interesting emerging/independent developers and their games, and the GDC Pitch event will help select GDC Play exhibitors hone their pitching skills in front of a panel of expert judges — as well as a live audience!

GDC Pitch will once again be hosted by Jason Della Rocca of investment platform Execution Labs and take place Wednesday and Thursday, March 21st and 22nd, during GDC 2018.

10 selected teams will each be offered pitch prep and training, then get 5 minutes to pitch, followed by questions, advice, and feedback from the judges. The judges will declare a “Best Pitch” on each day, and award each a complimentary All Access pass to GDC 2019.

Here’s the lineup for this year’s GDC Pitch!

GDC PITCH: DAY 1 | Wednesday, March 21, 12:45-1:45pm

Pitchers (Game)

• Furinkazan (Opticale)
• Ovni Studios (Ovni Spaces)
• Rogue Snail (Relic Hunters Legend)
• Supercombo Entertainment (Arcanium)
• Struckd (Struckd)

Judges

Sunny Dhillon (Signia Venture Partners), Guzman Diaz (Index Ventures), David Gardner (London Venture Partners), and Jason Della Rocca (Execution Labs)

GDC PITCH: DAY 2 | Thursday, March 22, 12:45-1:45pm

Pitchers (Game)

• 4DMACAU (Fight the Horror)
• BeautiFun Games (Professor Lupo and his Horrible Pets)
• Massive Work Studio (Dolmen)
• NeoCrux (Gala Collider)
• Stray Fawn Studio (Nimbatus)

Judges

Jonas Antonsson (Raw Fury), Ben Andac (Good Shepherd), Rebekah Saltsman (Finji), and Jason Della Rocca (Execution Labs)

GDC Play exhibitors opt-in to participate in GDC Pitch via GDC Connect. Selected studios are given strict format instructions and rules, as well as a time slot on one of the two days. As you can see, each of these events is expected to run about an hour and will take place at the Career Center Theater in the North Hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center.

It promises to be an engaging high-energy competition, so leave time to check it out as you’re planning out your conference schedule via the online GDC 2018 Session Scheduler!

And of course, for more information about GDC 2018 visit the show’s official website, and subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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As the success of Pokemon Go inspires more and more developers to experiment with augmented reality, there’s opportunity for multiple new genres of gameplay to emerge, including ones that take advantage of narrative design.

But if you’re a game developer working in the narrative space, how can you get started on working with geolocation design? At GDC 2018, developers Šarūnas & Žilvinas Ledas will be presenting a talk on this very subject. To get you ready for their session, we’ve reached out to the duo for a discussion about their work at game studio Tag of Joy.

Don’t miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March is going to be full of interesting and informative sessions like the Ledas’. For more visit the show’s official website.

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A week from today San Francisco plays host to the 2018 Game Developers Conference, and organizers want to be sure you know about a very cool talk taking place at the show about the state of the Steam marketplace from the creator of SteamSpy.

As part of the GDC 2018 Business & Marketing track of talks, Epic’s Sergey Galyonkin will be delivering an important talk on “Steam in 2017: State of the Marketplace“. Galyonkin created and maintains the popular SteamSpy tool, and as such he has a unique perspective on the all-important PC game platform.

In his talk Galyonkin will walk you through the significant changes that happened to Steam in 2017 and their effect on new games sales. He’ll also dig into the rise of China, the death of discoverability, the influx of low-quality titles, devs trying to outplay the algorithms, review bombing and other pleasant surprises.

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At GDC 2018, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with an array of sponsors who help fuel the games industry, including our Diamond Partners, whose support plays an integral role to the success of GDC.

To introduce you to our Diamond Partner Facebook, and what they’ll be showcasing at GDC 2018, we’ve reached out to Leo Olebe, Global Director of Games Partnerships who’s ready to get developers working on Instant Games!

Don’t miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March will be a hub for many more great industry titans. For more visit the show’s official website.

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With weeks to go until the 2018 Game Developers Conference, organizers are pleased to announce the eight winners of the Best in Play award program for exhibitors in the three-day GDC Play 2018 event, which helps emerging developers to show their games at GDC.

Being honored as a winner is kind of a big deal, because — as part of the Best in Play award program — all GDC Play exhibitors were judged on their in-development or complete games by a panel of veteran GDC organizers.

Now, each of these eight Best in Play award winners (listed below) will receive 2 All Access Passes to the 2019 Game Developers Conference. Winners will also receive special ‘Best In Play’ designations they can attach to their table at GDC 2018, where their games will be playable by all GDC attendees.

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The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is nearly here, and with it comes a fantastic presentation from the team at Epic Games about how they found the right look for their breakout success Fortnite!

As part of the Visual Arts track of talks, Epic art director Peter Ellis will be delivering a deep dive on the topic in his session on “Developing the Art of ‘Fortnite‘.”

You want to see this talk because Ellis plans to cover not just the evolution of art style used in Fornite, but also general best practices used to create a triple-A quality free-to-play game with a small art team. It’s especially worthwhile if you work in (or are thinking of working in) Unreal Engine, since Ellis aims to give you fresh insight into how to best create stylized art inside UE4.

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At GDC 2018, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with an array of sponsors who help fuel the games industry, including our Diamond Partners, whose support plays an integral role to the success of GDC.

To introduce you to our Diamond Partner at Microsoft, we’ve reached out to 3 key executives who are leading products, services, and initiatives that you’ll see on the expo floor at GDC 2018.

Don’t miss out! The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next March will be a hub for many more great industry titans. For more visit the show’s official website.

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