News - GDC 2010

0 comments by INtense! on Nov 6th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Past success stories such as Everyday Shooter, Audiosurf, World of Goo, Blueberry Garden, Darwinia, Castle Crashers, and many more have made being an IGF finalist a lucrative thing for indie developers hoping to break out onto the game development scene. Following last weeks "call for entries" IGF have received a record 306 submissions which is a 35% increase over last year.

Only time will tell who will be featured at the Independent Games Festival taking place on March 9-13, 2010 at San Francisco's Moscone Center. From the pool of 306 entries, the finalists will be decided by more than 150 leading industry judges, and announced in January 2010. Games selected as finalists will be available in playable form on the GDC show floor and will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Excellence in Design, Art, the Audience Award and the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Winners will be announced at the IGF ceremony, taking place March 11, 2010, during the Game Developers Conference.

1 comment by Henley on Oct 28th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Game Developers Conference® 2010, presented by Think Services, has announced that the call for submissions is open for GDC's suite of Summits, which take place on the first two days of GDC week in San Francisco, March 9^th-10^th 2010.This year's GDC Summit line-up includes two new events in the form of the Social & Online Games Summit and iPhone Games Summit, alongside the GDC Mobile/Handheld, Independent Games, and Serious Games Summits, which are all accepting submissions through November 13^th.

The multi-track Social & Online Games Summit is focused around current and new opportunities for games on social networking services such as Facebook and MySpace. The Summit brings together leading thinkers and businesspeople to examine how social games have expanded the audience of gamers to encompass tens of millions of mainstream users, many of whom are not conventional gamers. This much-demanded Summit will also cover how online worlds have conquered the children's gaming market, and how the casual gaming space is also feeding in to the next generation of mass market multiplayer games.

The iPhone Games Summit, first held at Game Developers Conference® Austin 2009 to significant acclaim, marks its San Francisco debut at GDC 2010. This Summit will bring together top iPhone and iPod Touch developers from around the world to share ideas, business tips and best practices and discuss the future of Apple's increasingly important game platform.

The Summit will include a first day dedicated to detailed sessions from some of the iPhone game industry's top technical architects, with the second day of the iPhone Games Summit focusing on vital business and marketing strategies behind successful game companies in this extremely competitive market.

"GDC is in a constant state of evolution, just like the game industry itself," says Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference. "This year's exciting slate of summits speaks to the rapid growth of online & social network games, and the increasing importance of the iPhone as a gaming platform."

The two new summits represent a notable addition to the already comprehensive selection of GDC 2010 Summits, which take place immediately before the three-day GDC 2010 main program. Other Summits also held at GDC 2010 will include one or two-day events on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Game Localization, and the IGDA Education Summit.

GDC 2010 Summit submissions can be entered at the official submissions page, www.gdconf.com/conference/summitsubmissions.html. More information and registration specifics on the 2010 Game Developers Conference can be found at www.gdconf.com.