GDC 2014 adds talks from devs of Ryse, Saints Row, Dead Space

Passes for the Game Developers Conference 2014 are going fast, and today we're announcing even more sessions for the Main Conference that you'll want to check out. Today’s highlights include Crytek’s Agile lessons learned from Ryse, tips on maximizing productivity without torpedoing creativity from the developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and more. Now in its 28th year, GDC is the world's largest and longest-running professionals-only game industry event, and will once again take place at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California during March 17-21, 2014

Lessons learned from Ryse and Crysis 3

Agile development methods have become eminently popular since the Agile Manifesto was published back in 2001, but despite their broad appeal we still have lots to learn about the most efficient way to apply Agile project management techniques to game development. Crytek Project Manager Patrick Payne is giving an interesting talk at GDC 2014 titled Agile Lessons from Ryse and Crysis 3 that, as you might expect, will run through some of the lessons the folks at Crytek learned while using Agile techniques during development of their latest games. Payne intends to foster discussion among developers, especially managers and producers, about when and how project management techniques are best applied during game development, using examples from Crytek’s experiences developing Crysis 3 and Ryse.

Defining your vision

Greg Donovan serves as a senior producer at Volition, where he worked on multiple entries in the Saints Row franchise, and he’s coming to GDC 2014 to share advice on turning the abstract “vision” for your game into a concrete, actionable plan. His talk, titled Volition’s Challenge: Defining Project Vision, is expected to provide insight, ideas and useful tools/processes for anyone looking to define their vision for a project and communicate it to a large team. While the talk will likely be most useful for folks who are working with large teams within large studios, Donovan expects to reference specific examples from his time working on the Saints Row franchise -- as well as a cancelled Volition game -- that will be useful for just about anyone.

Maximize creativity without sacrificing productivity

The co-founders of Sledgehammer Games, known for their work co-developing Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward, are giving a talk at GDC 2014 about their experiences attempting to foster creativity without sacrificing production time on big AAA titles. Before co-founding Sledgehammer both Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey worked at Visceral on Dead Space, and they expect to use concrete examples from their time working on both Visceral and Sledgehammer titles during their talk, titled Quest for Quality: Maximizing the Relationship Between Creative and Production. The pair intend to dig into their philosophies on hiring techniques, deployable “strike teams” and layered task design to maximize efficiency while simultaneously inspiring creativity in order to deliver the best final product possible.

More essential GDC details

Earlier GDC 2014 announcements include a talk from Don Daglow about how to know when going indie is right for you, the return of the popular #1reasontobe panel, and a postmortem from Trion Worlds detailing the process of transforming Rift from a subscription-based game to a free-to-play MMORPG. Developers on Destiny, Robotron 2084, and Maniac Mansion will also be giving talks. All of the announced talks are now available in the online GDC 2014 Session Scheduler, where you can begin to build your conference week and later export it to the up-to-the-minute GDC Mobile App, coming soon. GDC 2014 itself will take place March 17-21, 2014 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. You can register for the event by visiting the info page on the official GDC 2014 website. For more information on GDC 2014, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech