2009 GDC Austin Adds Keynote From Playfish's De Halleux

Author: by Staff

2009 GDC Austin organizers have announced its final keynote, with Playfish co-founder Sebastien de Halleux (Pet Society) talking about Facebook and social network gaming at the September 15th-18th conference. London-headquartered Playfish is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing social games companies, with hit microtransaction-powered titles such as Who Has The Biggest Brain? and Crazy Planets on Facebook and other networks. By examining the inherent strengths of the community on social networks, de Halleux’s keynote will "provide insight on how these platforms can be used to create engaging games, and why developers should be looking at social networks as a burgeoning area of video game design and business development." Playfish itself has a verified base of more than 100 million game installations across nine titles, reached only 18 months after the company’s launch in late 2007, and de Halleux was recently interviewed about social gaming trends on Gamasutra. This keynote joins two others -- by Sony Online Entertainment head John Smedley on the company's move into a wider market, and by a notable Blizzard duo on 'The Universe Of World Of Warcraft', as well as over 90 other lectures at the event, which has three days of main conference content focused on connected games, online games, virtual worlds, and social networking game play. GDC Austin (part of Think Services, as is Gamasutra) also has four two-day summits including the Game Writers, Game Audio, iPhone Games and Independent Games Summits, takes place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas September 15-18, 2009. More information is available on the official event website.