GDC 2014 adds board members, calls for talk submissions

The call for submissions to present lectures, roundtables and panel sessions for the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2014 is now open through Thursday, August 29. Organized by the UBM Tech Game Network, GDC 2014 is the game industry’s most comprehensive and longest running professionals-only event, where game developers converge for a week of learning, networking and inspiration. GDC 2014, the event’s 27th edition, will take place March 17th-21st, 2014 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. The GDC 2014 advisory board is looking for Main Conference submissions for the Audio, Business, Marketing & Management, Design, Production, Programming and Visual Arts tracks. Session proposals can be submitted via the official GDC website. GDC 2014 Summit submissions will open in early September. The GDC Main Conference advisory board, which includes game industry notables such as Square Enix’s Julien Merceron, PlayStation 4 lead architect Mark Cerny, Media Molecule’s Siobhan Reddy and Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman, is also very excited to welcome two new members to assist in content planning for the conference. Christina Coffin, founder of independent game development studio Light & Dark Arts, brings 19 years of experience in the game industry, during which she held programming and technical direction roles with a focus on rendering, optimization, and platform-specific low–level programming. She has worked on a diverse line-up of games, including Ultima Online, Midnight City II & III, Far Cry 2, Assassin’s Creed II, and Battlefield 3. During her time at DICE she developed and optimized the rendering systems for the Frostbite game engine. In 2011, she was awarded the Top Engineer award by the IGDA Women in Gaming Group. Chelsea Howe, Senior Game Designer at mobile game developer TinyCo, previously worked at Zynga, designing and analyzing features that touched tens of millions of people. She also held a position at SuperBetter Labs, where she researched positive emotion and social connection to make games more powerful, evocative, and meaningful. In addition to her role at TinyCo, Howe works with independent game developers such as Funomena and Kimochis. She also runs the San Francisco Global Game Jam and is an instructor at the California College of the Arts. In 2012, Howe received the Microsoft WIG Rising Star award and was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. “Our continuing goal with the GDC is to be the nexus of game design creativity and innovation, bringing compelling and practical sessions to our attendees,” said Meggan Scavio, General Manager, Game Developers Conference Events. “The additions of the fantastic Christina Coffin and Chelsea Howe to the 2014 advisory board are particularly exciting, as both women bring deep experience designing and programming a wide variety of games, and they will ensure even greater diversity in GDC programming that reflects some of the fastest growing sectors of the industry, like social, mobile, and independent game development.” For more details on the submission process and to view the complete list of GDC 2014 Main Conference advisory board members, please visit the official GDC website. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.