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King to reveal how it tried to implement Pixar's 'Brain Trust' model - and why it went awry

The 2018 Game Developers Conference is coming up soon, so today organizers want to quickly let you know about a really interesting session taking place at the March event that's all about how one big, successful company adopted the proven practices of another big, successful company -- and why it went awry.

As part of the GDC 2018 Mobile Summit, King's Stephen Jarrett and Rob Woodburn will be presenting an earnest talk about "Implementing Pixar's Brain Trust Model at King, and How It All Went Wrong."

Pixar’s Brain Trust is, of course, a small group of creative leaders at Pixar who oversee development on all movies. The group came about during the development of 'Toy Story' and is an open candid forum where creative leaders get together with a movie’s director to openly discuss problems and solutions.

Pixar claims this is a huge success and has helped the animation powerhouse score 14 box office hits in a row. Sounds like this should work for game development too, right?

King tried to implement a similar system called the Product Champions, a team of talented and experienced individuals in production, art, and game design that would advise and help game teams lift quality. Together, Jarrett and Woodburn will speak at GDC 2018 about what went wrong,  the lessons they learned, and how. 2 years later, they may have finally made it work.

And of course, we have lots more GDC 2018 announcements to make in the coming months. 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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