Guild Wars 2, SimCity design lectures highlighted at GDC 2013

GDC 2013 organizers are highlighting more top talks for its March conference, including design lectures on Guild Wars 2 and SimCity, Brenda Romero's F2P "morning after," and panels on indie incubators/accelerators and physical/digital game mixing. These newly highlighted talks will be part of GDC 2013's Main Conference, which will take place Wednesday-Friday, March 27-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. First up, the panel 'Incubators/Accelerators: An Inside Look at Startup Funding and Entrepreneurship Programs' will show to developers what help exists to start their projects or companies and to program leaders how several models support indies and entrepreneurship. Speakers in the panel will be Paul Bragiel (Founder, I/O Ventures), Jason Della Rocca and Keith Katz (Co-Founders, Execution Labs), Epona Schweer (Producer, Indie Bits), and Ken Seto (Co-Founder, Massive Damage). In 'The Beauty and Challenge of Mixing Physical and Digital Games,' attendees will learn the design tradeoffs between board games and video games,the different audiences for each format, and the mechanics that work best for asynchronous play. Speakers will include Tom Chick (Founder, Quarter to Three), Richard Garfield (Magic: The Gathering designer, now at Three Donkeys), Joel Goodman (CEO, Playdek), Eric Hautemont (CEO, Ticket To Ride publisher Days of Wonder), and Soren Johnson (Dragon Age Legends and Sid Meier's Civilization IV lead designer). Elsewhere, in Brenda Romero's 'Free-to-Play: The Morning After,' the award-winning Wizardry 8 designer will examine "the successes and failures of the F2P space, considers its effects on games, game design, and designers, and looks toward a possible future." Offering a behind-the-scenes look at one of 2012's most critically acclaimed MMOs, ArenaNet's Isaiah Cartwright and Chris Whiteside will present 'From Concept to Release: Designing Guild Wars 2.' Along with ArenaNet's philosophy of game design, attendees will learn the challenges faced in developing and supporting the game. Finally, EA/Maxis will offer a trio of lectures on its latest title, SimCity. Creative director Stone Librande's 'Simulating a City, One Page at a Time' will highlight the pros and cons of using one-page documents on a large-scale, multi-year project. Senior software engineer Dan Moskowitz's 'A Conscious Process of Discovery' will explore how they built the sandbox style game, giving specific examples from its simulation, player tools, and feedback mechanisms. Lastly, art director Ocean Quigley's 'Art in the Service of Simulation' will teach techniques used to make the dynamically composable, living world. The schedule builder of GDC 2013 is available online for attendees to plan their week of can't-miss lectures and tutorials, including those just highlighted. GDC still offers over $100 discounts to select pass purchases made by March 20th, at 11:59pm EST, with prices increasing for onsite registration. GDC 2013 itself will take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information on GDC 2013, 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.