gdc posts

While Big Download has been busy covering lots of big events this summer like QuakeCon. BlizzCon and the just completed PAX 2009, we will not be making it down to Austin, Texas for next week's GDC Austin. The conference, organized by the same company that also handles the main GDC event held in San Fransisco every March, covers all aspects of game development but tends to lean on the MMO genre.

That's why two of the event's keynotes will be all about massively multiplayer games. Sony Online founder John Smedley is scheduled to speak about their recent success with the free-to-play MMO Free Realms. Also Blizzard's Frank Pearce and J. Allen Brack will be making their own keynote address on the universe of their hit MMO World of Warcraft. If you happen to be in the Austin area there is still time to register before the event which runs from Sept 15-18.

Valve's zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead was certainly a big departure from the Half-Life universe that the developer had created before but it paid off in spades. According to a Shacknews story, Valve's Michael Booth revealed in a GDC panel this week that the game has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide.

That's a lot for any game (and that figure includes both PC and Xbox 360 numbers) but that may only be part of the story. As Shacknews states, the 2.5 million copies mentioned are only for retail sales. It does not include the sales of the PC version that have been made directly via Valve's Steam service. Valve is pretty notorious for not including specific sales figures for their games that have been sold via Steam.

Later today the annual Game Developers Conference gets underway in San Francisco but the nation's biggest event devoted to the creation and creators of video and PC is feeling the effects of the current economic situation. A new Associated Press article (via Google) says this year's GDC will feel the effects of the recession.

The event director of GDC, Meggan Scavio, admits that attendance for GDC 2009 is looking to be less than the 18,000 people that came for last year's conference. There will also be less parties and those that are held will be more informal. The news isn't all bad, however, Even with big cuts in jobs from publishers like EA, Microsoft, THQ and Midway a number of game publishers will be looking to hire people at GDC this year.

Next week the Game Developers Conference will be full of new game and game-related announcements. Today Paradox Interactive sent over word that they will be joining in with word that they will reveal a new publishing agreement with a currently unnamed strategy game at GDC.

Paradox states in its press release that the unnamed game is a "groundbreaking title that already has a groundswell of public anticipation behind it." Paradox will also be showing off a number of already announced games to the press including Hearts of Iron III, Majesty 2, Elven Legacy and the multiplayer expansion for Mount and Blade (which now has the title Mount and Blade: Warband).

In a bit of a surprise annnouncement, Crytek has revealed that it plans to demo the next generation version of its CryEngine game graphics technology at the Game Developers Conference later this month. CryEngine 3 is the first game engine from Crytek that is not just for PC games but for "console, online, MMO and Next-Gen game development."

Crytek developed the first generation CryEngine to use for their 2004 first person shooter Far Cry. CryEngine 2 made its debut in 2007 with the release of Crysis and was used again in 2008 for Crysis Warhead. Both engines have been licensed by a number of different game developers in the past. Crytek states it will be giving public demos of CryEngine 3 during GDC along with holding meeting with developers who are interested in licensing the game engine.

It seems like more and more people want to be able to find the next indie game that can break through into the mainstream like AudioSurf or World of Goo. Today our sister site GameDaily Biz has broken the news that a new indie game publisher has revealed itself . . . and it comes completely out of left field.

GamePro (yes of GamePro magazine and GamePro.com) has announced that it has launched GamePro Labs, their move into the game publishing business. The new venture will concentrate on publishing indie games that are developed on Microsoft's XNA platform (that means PC and Xbox 360 titles) along with Apple's iPhone. GamePro is trying to "find the unrecognized talent out there and give them the keys to publish their game", according to the article. The company's official web site has already launched with a form for developers to submit their games for consideration. Indeed some game have already signed with GamePro Labs and they should be announced sometime during GDC later this month.

It's the final major set of game awards for titles released in 2008 and today the Game Developers Choice Awards announced that game design legend Tim "Freakin'" Schafer will be the host of the awards ceremonies. The event will be held in San Fransisco during the Game Developers Conference on March 25.

The event's organizers also announced the winners of a couple of the awards in advance today. Harmonix founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy will receive the Pioneer Award for their work in making the music-rhythm game popular with their titles Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Additionally, the Ambassador Award, given to a game developer who has tried to improve the industry, will be given to Tommy Tallarico who, among other things, helped launch the video game music concert series Video Games Live.

The Game Developers Conference web site has gone live for the 2009 edition. As in previous years the five day event will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on March 23-27. Registration for the event has now begun and the web site reveals that two new summits have been added to GDC for the 2009 edition (the AI Summit and the Localization Summit).

For the 2009 show access for the press has been changed to "invite only" as opposed to earlier years when it was easier to obtain a press pass. Several months ago, now former GDC director Jamil Moledina stated to Kotaku, "It's meant to be a networking event for people who make games, but more and more we are seeing a lot of individuals who are obtaining press credentials who aren't full-time press. It's kind of open to being spoofed, in a way." At the moment there are no details on who will be in charge of the press invites for GDC 2009, what sort of credentials will be required or how they will be distributed.

Update: We just received word that press invites were in fact sent out yesterday.

Last month the Leipzig Games Convention was held in Germany and organizers boasted of 203,000 attendees. While the future of the Leipzig event is in question due to 2009's launch of GAMEScon in Cologne, Games Convention organizers have already announced they are thinking of moving to the North American market.

Now comes work via Gamekyo that the first such event might not happen in the United States but our neighbor to the north. According to a statement they received from Games Convention, "'We'll decide about the place of the new event in cooperation with the games industry. It seems to become a city in Canada, not in the US." Certainly the US is pretty full at the moment with events like GDC, E3, Penny Arcade Expo and E For All Expo, not to mention large events like CES and San Diego Comic-Con which have games as part of their exhibits.

Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie.

It's a phenomenon normally only seen in amateur communities, among people that do not have the drudgery of a nine-to-five job in their field. The freelancers and visionaries, the next great creators of the future. From writing, to art, to movie-making, competitions are not so much the realm of professional-level creation but rather for those that can crank out a prototype, an early draft, or a short movie in a single weekend. For these competitions, none seems to be as interesting as those created by the independent game development company.