GDC Europe debuts VR, #1ReasonToBe talks; last day for early reg!

With less than a day left until early registration for Game Developers Conference Europe 2014 ends on July 16, conference organizers are announcing two new talks for the show and encouraging anyone interested in attending to register now at the discounted rate. The event covers topics spanning AAA through mobile gaming and indie, both technical and business-focused. The industry's leading authorities are presenting talks on everything from VR development to indie marketing strategies and AAA technical design tricks, and they should offer learnings for the entire community. Organized by UBM Tech Game Network, GDC Europe, now in its sixth year in Germany, will run Monday through Wednesday, August 11-13 at the Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany, co-located with Europe's biggest video game trade and public show gamescom. Below are just some of the over 60 talks that have been announced for GDC Europe 2014, with more to come in the weeks leading up to the conference. #1ReasonToBe and Project Morpheus talks announced for GDC Europe 2014 - The #1ReasonToBe panel makes its GDC Europe debut this year with a rapid, fun microtalk-style celebration and exploration of what it means to be a woman in games, European style. Each panelist will share their experience, its highs and lows, and explore a vision for a future industry that is inclusive for everyone. The session will be hosted by Brenda Romero (Game Designer & Program Director, Romero Games/UC Santa Cruz) and Leigh Alexander (Editor at Large, Gamasutra); Panelists include Auriea Harvey, (Co-Founder, Tale of Tales), Zuraida Buter (Curator and Events Organizer, Playful Arts Festival/Global Game Jams), Henrike "Riker" Lode (Art and Biz Development, Machineers) and Siobhan Reddy (Studio Director, Media Molecule). - Conference attendees can also look forward to learning more about the nuts and bolts of developing for Sony's Project Morpheus VR headset by attending "Rebooting Game Design for Virtual Reality," a session led by Sony's Jed Ashforth. As the senior game designer for Project Morpheus, Ashforth has spent several years exploring this exciting new frontier and compiling a novel set of guidelines and best practices for how developers should approach, and make best use of, the new game design principles that virtual reality affords us. Other notable GDC Europe talks - Charles Cecil, the influential British game designer best known for his work creating seminal adventure games like the Broken Sword franchise and Beneath A Steel Sky, will be delivering a Classic Game Postmortem on seminal '90s adventure game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars at GDC Europe 2014. - Capybara Games co-founder and creative director Kris Piotrowski is joining us at GDC Europe 2014 to give a talk titled "The Isle: Creating A Space Worth Exploring." In his session, Piotrowski hopes to delve into the ongoing process of creating The Isle, the mysterious setting for Capy's upcoming game Below. - Double Fine's Anna Kipnis will be bridging the Design and Programming tracks of the conference with her talk, "Dialog Systems in Double Fine Games." Kipnis plans to explain the technical details of how a line of dialog finds its way into a finished Double Fine title, starting from the moment a line is written and working all the way through to the point where you're hearing and seeing the line in the engine, even in a foreign tongue. Check out our interview with Kipnis to learn more about her work at Double Fine and how it uniquely qualifies her to deliver this much-needed talk. - Oculus VR software architect Tom Forsyth is speaking at the conference about the future of VR game development, "Developing Virtual Reality Experiences with the Oculus Rift," that should help shed some light on some of the most common challenges game creators face while working with this rapidly-evolving technology. - On the Design track, Ubisoft's Quentin De Beukelaer is stepping up to lead a talk titled "Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag Multiplayer: Crafting Good Monetization on the Traditional Console." His session will cover the monetization design in the multiplayer portion of Assassin's Creed, and share a retrospective look back at how Ubisoft progressively introduced monetization systems into the franchise without upsetting players. - Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades is planning to give a talk titled "The AAA Design Postmortem" which will detail the 14-year journey of Ninja Theory, creators of standout titles like Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Journey To The West, and DmC: Devil May Cry. Antoniades will also explain the sacrifices and concessions made by the studio to stay in the game, share footage of unreleased games and the reason why they didn't go to market. Of course, these are just some of the many exciting talks that will be given at GDC Europe 2014. A full list of announced talks is now available for your perusal, and early birds can still register for GDC Europe 2014 by July 16 to save 200 euros on an All Access Pass. In addition to planning out your must-see talks, attendees can also browse companies at the GDC Europe Expo using the current floor plan. Also, this year marks the GDC Europe debut of the Student Pass, a more affordable alternative to the All Access Pass created specifically for qualified students interested in learning and networking at GDC Europe 2014 - as well as the return of the Indie Games Summit pass. All GDC Europe passes also allow visitors to attend Gamescom from Wednesday to Friday. For more information, please visit the GDC Europe website. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech