GDC Online 2012 Speaker Roster Features Thought Leaders In Online, Social, Mobile Game Development10th Anniversary Event Welcomes Industry Veterans from Zynga, Playdom, Bioware Austin, Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment, Riot Games and more to Discuss Past, Present and Future of Connected Game Development; Early Bird Registration Ends August 2Aug 22, 2012 SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2012 Game Developers Conference® Online (GDC Online), organized by UBM TechWeb Game Network, will host a robust schedule of 100+ lectures, panels, keynotes and roundtable discussions led by notables in the connected, mobile and social game development sectors. The annual event returns to Austin, October 9-11. Early Bird registration for GDC Online is still open through Friday, August 24; visit www.gdconline.com for more information on ways to register. Mobile and social games will have an increased prominence this year, reflecting developments across the games landscape. Vijay Thakkar, Zynga technical director, will lecture on the importance of searching for and developing new IP while Kabam general manager Justin Lambros and art lead Josh Viers give a joint session to offer attendees a behind-the-scenes review of the design development decisions they made while creating the studio's hardcore social-strategy game, Trojan War. Gary Gattis, CEO of Austin-based mobile, social MMO developer Spacetime Studios, will also be on hand to detail his applied "engagement and respect" philosophy at Spacetime, which has retained more than 90% of its employees for several years. GDC Online will also continue to adhere to its core focus on online games. Damien Schubert, principal lead systems designer at BioWare Austin, and one of the minds behind Star Wars: The Old Republic, and John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, will both offer lessons from their experiences developing and launching big-budget, large-scale MMO titles. As a special treat, attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the challenges of developing, launching and maintaining a landmark MMORPG title during the Ultima Online Classic Game Postmortem. Rich Vogel, Raph Koster and Starr M. Long, three chief members of the original Ultima Online team, will be on-hand to discuss the challenges they faced during the creation of the seminal game. Introduced at the 2011 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Classic Game Postmortems provide a forum for the game creators behind legacy titles to deconstruct what they learned during the process of development. Key 2012 GDC Online speakers and sessions include:
GDC Online, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, focuses on the development of connected games including social networking titles, large-scale MMOs, cloud games and beyond. The conference, which attracted more than 3,350 attendees in 2011, affords game industry professionals countless learning opportunities across five main conference tracks – Business & Marketing, Design, Customer Experience, Production and Programming – and summit sessions, which this year include the Game Narrative Summit and the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, both returning alongside two new summits, the Game Dev Start-Up Summit and the Gamification Day. Information about all of the announced sessions can be found at www.gdconline.com. Early Bird registration for GDC Online 2012 ends on Friday, August 24; those who wish to save up to 40% on registration passes should visit www.gdconline.com to explore pass options before the deadline. About the UBM TechWeb Game Network About UBM TechWeb
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