The Game Developers Conference is just a couple weeks away, taking place at The Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA from March 25-29. The official expo goes from the 27-29, but for developers and industry members, there are an incredible amount of panels, lectures, and roundtable discussions to take part in throughout the week-long event. As a writer, with a primary interest in game/fiction writing, I’ve compiled a personal schedule and I’d like to share it with you; just to give you a sense of what GDC offers those who pursue gaming as more than just a hobby. What follows is the rough schedule I’ve made based on my preferences, (meaning some time stamps will overlap because I’d rather show you both panels) but the entire list of sessions/panels can be found here for any who are interested. Take a look at some of the incredible offerings GDC will be presenting this year:
Seven (Or So) Techniques for Writing a Moral Game: Richard Rouse III (Microsoft Game Studios)
-Mon 10:00AM
The Arcane Art of Puzzle Dependency Diagrams: Noah Falstein (The Inspiracy)
-Mon 10:35AM
Games and the Ensemble Cast: Daniel Nagler (Large Animal Games)
-Mon 11:15AM
Tastes Like Chicken: Authenticity in a Totally Fake World: Jay Posey (Red Storm Entertainment)
-Mon 11:50AM
Narrative Generators: Sports Games and Story Engines: Peter Garcin (HB Studios)
-Mon 3:00PM
Balancing Act: Narrative and Mission Design in Assassin’s Creed III: Corey May (Ubisoft Montreal) and Philippe Bergeron (Ubisoft)
-Mon 3:35PM
Narrative in Games – Role, Forms, Problems, and Potential: Warren Spector (Independent)
-Mon 4:30PM
Is That a Gun in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me? Evolving the Emotional Content of Games: Chuck Beaver (Electronic Arts) and Susan O’Connor (Susan O’Connor Writing Studio)
-Mon 5:05PM
Bringing the Game to Life – Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Postmortem: Kevin Grace (343 Industries), Frank O’Connor (343 Industries), Kiki Wolfkill (343 Industries) and Matt Mc…
-Tues 10:00AM
Getting a Team on Board with Narrative Design: Matthew Weise (Harmonix Music Systems)
-Tues 11:15AM
Creating Immersive Narrative Games Without Big Budgets or Resources: Georg Backer (Hotsauce Interactive Ltd.)
-Tues 11:50AM
It’s Not in the Writer’s Manual: A Q&A Session for New Writers: Toiya Kristen Finley (Schnoodle Media, LLC), Antony Johnston (Independent), Christy Marx (Zynga), Chri…
-Tues 12:30PM
Storytelling as Problem Solving: Defender’s Quest: Lars Doucet (Level Up Labs, LLC) and James Cavin (Level Up Labs, LLC)
-Tues 1:45PM
We Are Not Heroes: Contextualizing Violence Through Narrative: Walt Williams (2K Games)
-Tues 2:20PM
Secret Sauce: How Diversity in Your Game Narrative = More Players and More Money (oh, and a better game too): Tom Abernathy (Microsoft Studios)
-Tues 3:00PM
Method Acting and Interactive Storytelling in Far Cry 3: Jeffrey Yohalem (Ubisoft)
-Tues 3:35PM
Storytelling in DC Universe Online: Jens Andersen (Sony Online Entertainment)
-Tues 4:30PM
The Future of Storytelling: How Medium Shapes Story: Jesse Schell (Schell Games)
-Tues 5:05PM
Overview of PS4 for Developers (Presented by Sony Computer Entertainment America): Sony Presenters (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
-Wed 11:00AM
Photorealism Through the Eyes of a FOX: The Core of Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes (Presented by Kojima Productions): Hideo Kojima (Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.), Hideki Sasaki (Konami Digital Entertainment Co….
-Wed 11:00AM
RPG Development: Inspiration and Perspiration: Yoshifumi Hashimoto (Marvelous AQL Inc.)
-Wed 11:00AM
Applying the 5 Domains of Play: Acting Like Players: Jason VandenBerghe (Ubisoft)
-Wed 2:00PM
Empowering the Player in a Story-Rich World: Co-Directing Dishonored: Harvey Smith (Arkane Studios) and Raphael Colantonio (Arkane Studios)
-Wed 2:00PM
Game Writers’ Roundtable: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques: Richard Dansky (Red Storm/Ubisoft)
-Wed 2:00PM
Intelligent Cinematic Systems: The Next Step: James Ricker (Slant Six Games)
-Wed 2:00PM
Child’s Play: Making Games for Kids Roundtable: Carla Fisher (No Crusts Interactive)
-Wed 3:30PM
Designing Compelling Achievements Microtalks: Cory Stockton (Blizzard Entertainment, Inc), David Vonderhaar (Treyarch), Greg McClanahan (Kongregate….
-Wed 3:30PM
Game Theft! What Game Makers Need to Know About Copyrights: Douglas Robbins (Wood Robbins LLP)
-Wed 3:30PM
Designing Virtual Markets for Fun and Profit: Vili Lehdonvirta (London School of Economics)
-Wed 5:00PM
Strange Love: Game Theory vs. Game Design: Frank Lantz (NYU Game Center)
-Wed 5:00PM
The Science Behind Shaping Player Behavior in Online Games: Jeffrey Lin (Riot Games)
-Wed 5:00PM
Tokyo Jungle and Japan’s Gaming Potential: Yohei Kataoka (Crispy’s Inc.)
-Wed 5:00PM
Whose Design Is It Anyway? Game Designers and Development Teams Roundtable: David Wessman (University of Advancing Technology)
-Wed 5:00PM
Under Construction: Crafting Fortnite’s Building System: Billy Bramer (Epic Games)
-Wed 5:35PM
Behind the Scenes of Dragon’s Dogma: A Look at the Development of Capcom’s Open-World Action Role-Playing Game: Hideaki Itsuno (Capcom Co., Ltd.)
-Thurs 10:00AM
Life After Permadeath: Game Design Within Self-Imposed Constraints: Keith Kawahata (Kabam Inc.)
-Thurs 10:00AM
The Applied Value of Player Psychology: Putting Motivational Principles to Work: Scott Rigby (Immersyve), Troy Skinner (WB Games) and Lowell Vaughen (WB Games)
-Thurs 10:00AM
Designing a Live MMORPG: The First Year of Star Wars: The Old Republic: James Ohlen (BioWare Austin)
Thurs 10:35AM
Commun-indies: Making the Most of Your Indie Community: Takumi Naramura (Nigoro)
-Thurs 11:30AM
Designing Grand Strategy: Making the Mechanics of Total War: James Russell (Creative Assembly)
-Thurs 11:30AM
Dialogue: When, Who, and Why: DB Cooper (DBCooperVO.com), Duncan Watt (Fastestmanintheworld Media), Jason Blair (Volition, Inc.), Ed…
-Thurs 11:30AM
Gaze Interaction and Eye Tracking, the Next Big Thing in Gaming (Presented by Tobii Technology): Carl Korobkin (Tobii Technology) and Fredrik Lindh (Tobii Technology)
-Thurs 11:30AM
Saving Doug: Empathy, Character, and Choice in The Walking Dead: Jake Rodkin (Telltale Games) and Sean Vanaman (Telltale Games)
-Thurs 11:30AM
Shout at the Devil: The Making of Diablo III: Jay Wilson (Blizzard Entertainment, Inc)
-Thurs 11:30AM
Virtual Reality: The Holy Grail of Gaming (Presented by Oculus VR): Palmer Luckey (Oculus VR, Inc.) and Brendan Iribe (Oculus VR, Inc.)
-Thurs 11:30AM
Controlling the Abyss: Designing Uncharted’s Controls for the PlayStation Vita: Ron Allen (Sony Computer Entertainment, Bend Studio)
-Thurs 2:30PM
Sex in Video Games: David Gaider (BioWare EA)
-Thurs 2:30PM
The 5 Key Plot Points to Creating a Great Story: Matthew Luhn (Pixar Animation Studios)
-Thurs 2:30PM
Visual Novels: Narrative Design in Virtue’s Last Reward: Kotaro Uchikoshi (Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd.)
-Thurs 2:30PM
Guardians of Middle-earth: Adapting MOBAs for the Console Crowd: Evan Lewis (Monolith)
-Thurs 3:05PM
Brave New World: New Bungie IP: Joe Staten (Bungie) and Christopher Barrett (Bungie)
-Thurs 4:00PM
Designing Journey: Jenova Chen (thatgamecompany)
-Thurs 4:00PM
How Free-to-Play Corrupts Games: Dino Patti (PlayDead)
-Thurs 4:35PM
Designing Humor in Borderlands 2: Anthony Burch (Gearbox Software)
-Thurs 5:30PM
How Hard Could It Be? The Story of a Cinematic: Brian Kindregan (Blizzard)
-Thurs 5:30PM
Of Choice and Breaking New Ground: Designing Mark of the Ninja: Nels Anderson (Klei Entertainment)
-Fri 10:00AM
When It’s Only Sound: Creating an Audio-Only ‘Video’ Game: Brian Schmidt (GameSoundCon)
-Fri 10:00AM
Crossing the Streams: Game Audio Rule Breakers of the Past Decade: Scott Selfon (Microsoft Corporation)
-Fri 11:30AM
Emotional Journey: BioWare’s Methods to Bring Narrative into Levels: Dave Feltham (BioWare)
-Fri 11:30AM
How to Build a Better Apocalypse: Dan Pinchbeck (thechineseroom)
-Fri 11:30AM
Rethinking How We Build Games and Why: The Papo & Yo Story: Vander Caballero (Minority Games)
-Fri 2:30PM
Bear in mind this is only a small taste of panels the Game Developers Conference includes, focused on my particular interests. Some of the speakers, from Bioware’s David Gaider to Gearbox Software’s Anthony Burch, are folks whom I absolutely admire with some impressive work under their belt. I’m always impressed by the quality of talks offered at GDC, and this year looks to be no different.
So, are there any aspiring writers, designers, or programmers among us? What panel would you most like to sit in on at this year’s conference? Let us know in the comments below.
