Here's how closed captioning will work at GDC 2021

The organizers of this year’s all-digital Game Developers Conference have been working diligently to ensure this year’s online event is accessible to attendees in need of audio accommodations.

It goes without saying then that said organizers are pleased to announce that at GDC 2021 all the content you can access will include closed captioning.

Since GDC 2021 will feature a mix of live and pre-recorded content, we wanted to take time today to break down for you exactly how closed captioning will function, in order to better help you plan your event.

Here’s a breakdown of each of our session types, and how closed captioning will function:

Pre-recorded sessions: We’ve been working with speakers to pre-record a large chunk of our 400+ GDC 2021 talks in advance. When these talks go live on Swapcard, they will include English subtitles burned into the video.

Shortly after each talk finishes airing, attendees will have the ability to watch it again (or catch it for the first time, if they missed the original broadcast) with a new suite of closed caption options. While watching on-demand versions of talks, you will be able to choose between English, Japanese, Spanish, and Mandarin subtitles.

Live sessions: The GDC operations team will be working to ensure that live sessions (including Ask-Me-Anything Sessions, Fireside Chats, and GDC Podcast Live!) will be live-captioned in English in real time.

And just like with pre-recorded talks, archived versions of these talks will include the option to play English, Japanese, Spanish, or Mandarin for the rest of the conference.

Attendees looking to view these captions should be aware---due to the long production time with live sessions, these captions will be available 72 hours after the original broadcast.

The GDC event platform will remain online after the event formally ends so that you have time to watch these captioned sessions.

Zoom sessions: Like you, we’ve been getting used to using Zoom over the last year and a half. At GDC 2021, a number of session types (Speaker Q&As, roundtables, and workshops) will have attendees participate over Zoom during the conference.

Attendees who need closed captions will be able to use the automated closed caption function in Zoom during these sessions. Please make sure you have downloaded the latest version of Zoom.

We’re so close to this year’s event! Register today to start picking sessions to check out at this year’s show.

For more details on GDC 2021 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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