GDC Europe reminds on Indie Games Summit submissions for 2012 show

Organizers of the upcoming Games Developers Conference Europe are reminding prospective speakers that the submission deadline for presentations is Monday, April 16, and the show is currently seeking additional content for the growing Independent Games Summit. This popular GDC Summit, a staple of the San Francisco event since 2007, first debuted at GDC Europe in 2011. When the show returns to Cologne, Germany on August 13-15, organizers expect the Summit to debut more notable content featuring the best and brightest of indie game development, and are especially looking for 25 minute and 50 minute talks from European and global indies. Last year's successful Independent Games Summit at GDC Europe covered a wide swath of games, developers, disciplines, and issues, and featured talks from some of the most influential names in the indie game community. For instance, the Summit featured an inspiring presentation from Independent Games Festival chairman Brandon Boyer on the importance of supporting indies. There were also design-focused talks from prominent indie developers like Frictional Games studio head Thomas Grip (Amnesia: The Dark Descent) - whose acclaimed talk is streamable for free on GDC Vault as well. In addition, Douglas Wilson, the creative mind behind B.U.T.T.O.N. and Johann Sebastian Joust (pictured), discussed the implications of breaking conventional gameplay tropes [GDC Vault link], German indie devs outlined the possibilities of public funding, and Tale of Tales' Michael Samyn (The Path) explained why indie devs might save the European games industry. (Other talks outside the Summit that were indie-friendly included Braid creator Jonathan Blow discussing 'a new philosophy of game design' - also available as a GDC Vault free video.) GDC Europe organizers plan to continue on from that notable lineup this year with even more exciting lectures, postmortems and roundtables. Those interested in submitting a proposal to this year's Independent Games Summit can do so online via GDC Europe's official submissions page. Show organizers are also seeking proposals for the rest of GDC Europe, which includes two additional Summits on Social Games and Smartphone & Tablet Games, as well as the robust Main Conference, which includes tracks on Business & Marketing, Game Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts. Once again, proposals for all of these Summits and tracks can be submitted via the designated page on the GDC Europe website. The event itself will take place August 13-15 at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost, just before the popular trade show gamescom. For more information on GDC Europe, check out the official GDC news page, or subscribe to updates via Twitter, Facebook, or RSS. All GDC events are owned and operated by Gamasutra parent company UBM TechWeb.