Halfbrick, Bejeweled, Pocket Gems talks added to GDC 2012 Smartphone Summit

Author: by Staff

With the 2012 Game Developers Conference inching ever closer, show organizers are highlighting new talks within the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, featuring Halfbrick on Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, PopCap on Bejeweled Blitz, and Pocket Gems on post-release development. These talks join an already jam-packed lineup for the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, which will feature sessions covering the latest and most influential practices in mobile development, spanning platforms from iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and more. All eight of GDC 2012's specialized Summits will take place during the first two days of the show -- from Monday, March 5 through Tuesday, March 6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Those interested in checking out these Summits can do so by registering for an All-Access or Summits & Tutorials Pass on the official GDC website. Here are some of the newest talks for the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit: - In a postmortem-style presentation, Halfbrick chief creative officer Luke Muscat will examine the ever evolving efforts to update and maintain some of the studio's most popular titles. His talk, "Iterating Design and Fighting Fires: Updating Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride," will cover some of Halfbrick's key lessons learned from updating its hit mobile titles, with anecdotes covering patches that crippled performance to updates that benefited millions of players. - Elsewhere, PopCap's franchise business director Giordano Bruno Contestabile will host, "Setting Bejeweled Blitz Free: Lessons Learned Moving From Premium to Freemium on iOS." Throughout his presentation, Contestabile will pick apart how PopCap turned Bejeweled Blitz into a free to play game, detailing the studio's primary challenges, the game's integration with iOS and Facebook, and the most important elements of cross-platform social gaming. - In an effort to examine the importance of post-launch support, Pocket Gems co-founder Daniel Terry will offer a session titled, "Hit Reset: Release is Day One of Development Cycle." Drawing examples from his studio's own Tap Zoo and Tap Pet Hotel, Terry will explain how consistent, long-term development efforts can breathe new life into a given title, and help it maintain its success for weeks, or even months at a time. In addition to these new sessions, GDC organizers are also highlighting Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit talks featuring Applifier's Jussi Laakkonen on the convergence of mobile and social games, and a panel of mobile gaming executives from companies including Tapjoy, Gamevil, Funzio and Glu Mobile on the essentials of cross-platform development and distribution. For more information on these or any other sessions at GDC 2012, please check out the event's official Schedule Builder, which shows the current (and constantly-growing) lineup for the show so far. To keep on top of all the latest news about GDC 2012, please subscribe to updates from the GDC news page via Twitter, Facebook, or RSS. GDC 2012 will take place March 5 through March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and is owned and operated by Gamasutra parent company UBM TechWeb.