'Unconsoles', BBC, Village Life! talks added for GDC Europe

Editor's note: A previous version of this announcement incorrectly listed Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman as a participant in the 'unconsoles' panel. The post has been updated to accurately reflect the panel participants; we regret the error. As GDC Europe 2013 approaches this month, organizers highlighted new sessions for the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, with talks on Nvidia's (Project) Shield, GameStick, MOGA and other 'unconsoles', plus Playdemic on the cross-platform Village Life! & the BBC on children's game strategies. GDC Europe will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany -- just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event, with all GDC Europe passes also guaranteeing entrance to Gamescom. Firstly, developers will learn how to cope with the challenges of implementing different control schemes and designing for near and far screens, as well as finding the right business model for each of the new channels in the panel 'Will Unconsoles Become the Real Next-Gen Consoles?'. This panel will include Michael Schade, CEO of Fishlabs (Galaxy of Fire); Phil Scott, technical evangelist at Nvidia (the Project Shield portable console); Sameer Baroova, Head of Games at PlayJam (casual game provider for smart TVs, GameStick, and more); and Brian Bruning, director of mobile phone pocket controller provider MOGA as they discuss what they've dubbed to be "possibly the most disruptive year in video game history." Speaking in 'Divided Loyalties: Developing and Running Cross-Platform Social Games,' Playdemic COO Gareth Jones will discuss how they developed hit social game Village Life! completely cross-platform for Facebook and mobile. Along with success metrics, he will discuss UI and UX issues, technology choices, and management of at least two distinct platforms. In 'Games and Broadcasters: Destination Tablet?,' BBC executive product manager for future development Jon Howard (who has worked on brands such as Scooby Doo and Tree Fu Tom) will discuss BBC Children's strategies for engaging audiences that are directly interacting with their tablets and treating the TV as their 'second screen' by developing TV branded desktop and mobile games. Topics will include opportunities available for collaboration, and insights on user behavior based on metrics from BBC Children's portfolio of 400 games. Attendees can plan ahead for these and the other 80-plus sessions using the online schedule builder, and they can also browse the list of exhibitors appearing on the GDC Europe Expo using the current floor plan. Online registration for GDC Europe is still available, with individual savings for VIP and All Access Passes compared to onsite prices. Group admission discounts are also available. For all the latest news on GDC Europe, subscribe for updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.