GDC China 2012 adds Bejeweled Blitz, Zombie Gunship smartphone talks

The growing session lineup for this November's GDC China in Shanghai is quickly gaining steam, and today the show's organizers have revealed three new talks in the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit. This time, these new sessions include an examination of PopCap's Bejeweled Blitz, a case study from Limbic Software on the challenges of mobile game growth, and Appy Entertainment on pivoting from 'premium to freemium' in the smartphone space. As part of the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, these sessions will run alongside the rest of GDC China from November 17-19 at the Shanghai Convention Center in Shanghai, China, and will offer specialized content covering the ins and outs of mobile game development. The full details on these new Summit sessions are as follows: - In "Bejeweled Blitz: One Year in the Life of a Top-Grossing Mobile Game," PopCap's Giordano Bruno Contestabile will discuss how Bejeweled Blitz made the jump from Facebook to iOS, and became one of the platform's most long-lasting success stories. Along the way, he'll explain how other cross-platform social game developers can emulate that success by combining smart game design, data analysis, and more. - Elsewhere, Limbic Software co-founder Iman Mostafavi will host "Getting out of the Garage: Managing Teams, Customer Relationships, Cloud Servers and 97 Other Things to Handle Growth." During this session, Mostafavi will examine Limbic titles like TowerMadness, Nuts!, and Zombie Gunship, and will detail the technical and operational challenges the studio faced as its games began to grow. It'll be a great chance to learn from Limbic's experience and gain a better understanding of how to deal with rapid changes in scale. - Finally, Appy Entertainment brand director Paul O'Connor (SpellCraft School of Magic, Trucks & Skulls) will present "Premium to Freemium: Pivoting Monetization Method for Best-Selling Apps," detailing how his studio "converted two best-selling premium apps to freemium monetization and increased their audience, grew their revenue and made the games better in the process." These talks join a number of other previously announced sessions for GDC China, including a handful of additional talks in the Smartphone & Tablet Summit, Main Conference sessions from Volition and Naughty Dog, and much more. More information on any of these sessions is available on the "Announced Sessions" page on the official GDC China website. Be sure to keep an eye out for even more updates on GDC China in the weeks ahead, as show organizers have plenty more to announce for the upcoming event. For all the latest information on GDC China, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.