GDC 2015 reveals new Summits and opens call for papers

Future GDC speakers, don't miss your chance to propose a talk for one of the GDC 2015 Summits! The call for submissions to present lectures and panels for the specialized Summits that kick off the 2015 Game Developers Conference closes on Friday, October 3rd at 11:59 PM PT. The GDC Summits take place on the first two days of GDC, signaling the start of the five-day conference. Covering a variety of topics from business models and platforms to industry trends and specific design elements within game development, the summits aspire to foster community building, expand the scope of games to incorporate new players, define market innovations and provide valuable insight into the future of gaming. Organized by the UBM Tech Game Network, GDC 2015 takes place March 2-6 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. New to the GDC Summit lineup this year are the eSports and Community Management Summits. Taking place on Monday, the Community Management Summit will cover every corner of this quickly evolving, crucial facet of video games. Summit content will focus on how to inspire, build, and maintain player loyalty and enthusiasm through the ups and downs of community opinion and adoption. It will discuss how to manage your community’s needs and interests to align with your company’s goals. The goal of the summit is to arm attendees with best practices and learnings from industry experts who will share case studies and postmortems on cutting edge community management strategies. Taking place on Tuesday, the eSports Summit will be a one day summit focused on all things eSports. The Summit will strive to bring together the most influential people in eSports to share their knowledge and expertise; from players to game developers, event organizers, casters, journalists, and streamers. Session content will share best practices for how to design, grow, develop, sustain and communicate within the competitive games industry. The Summits also welcome several new members to their advisory boards: In the eSports Summit, advisors include Rod Breslau (LiveOnThree), Frank Lantz (Area/Code, NYU), Lil Chen (TED/The New Meta), and Patrick Miller (Riot Games). New Community Management Summit advisors include Saralyn Smith (Blizzard Entertainment), Donna Prior (Independent), and Troy Hewitt (Motiga). In addition, advisors added to pre-existing GDC Summits include Akira Thompson of RainBros, joining the Independent Games Summit board, and Katherine Isbister of NYU Game Center’s Game Innovation Lab, joining the GDC Education Summit. The 2015 GDC Summits accepting submissions are: • Free to Play Design & Business Summit • Game Narrative Summit • GDC Education Summit • Game Career Seminar • Independent Games Summit • eSports Summit • Community Management Summit • Smartphones & Tablet Games Summit "The GDC Summits play an integral role for the Games Developers Conference, they set the stage for the types of indispensable knowledge developers and the video game community expect." said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of all Game Developers Conference events. "We strive to bring compelling content each year. It’s deeply rewarding to help ignite these engaging and thought-provoking discussions within the community that broaden our understanding of the space and open up the industry to more audiences." For more information regarding the submission process and guidelines for the GDC summits, please visit the online submission portal. For more information about GDC 2015 and advisory board members, please visit the official GDC website. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech