Austin GDC: The Best Of Wednesday's Coverage

Gamasutra was at Austin GDC 2008 this week, and we've compiled the best of our industry-leading coverage of the major MMO and virtual world, game writing, and audio lectures presented since Wednesday. You can also read our coverage from Monday's presentations and Tuesday's sessions. AGDC, which is organized by Gamasutra parent Think Services, is took place in the Austin Convention Center from Monday 15th-Wednesday 17th September, and multiple Gamasutra reporters were on hand to document many of the lectures and panels taking place there. Here are the highlights of Wednesday's sessions at AGDC 2008: AGDC: Paharia, Andrade On Making Dunder Mifflin Infinity "In a unique keynote for the Worlds In Motion Summit, Bunchball's Rajat Paharia and NBC.com's Stephen Andrade discussed the creation of the Dunder Mifflin Infinity website, a promotional website for 'The Office' TV show which has surprisingly detailed and game mechanic-inspired social website." AGDC: Storytelling at id Software: The Experience Matters "FPS pioneer id Software doesn't exactly have a reputation rooted in strong game stories. But in his presentation at AGDC, Rage creative director Tim Willits urged developers to change the way they look at stories -- and emphasize just what's important to players in delivering them -- and also offered a few new tidbits of information about the upcoming Rage." AGDC: Building Battlefield Heroes, EA's First Free To Play Game "How did EA DICE's free to play Battlefield Heroes take shape? Development Director Bjarne Rene delivered a comprehensive pre-mortem on what he would probably call the beginning of the project -- getting the game and the service that supports it up and running." AGDC Interview: How NetDevil Got The LEGO Universe Deal "The 'hot thing' in recent months has been branded online worlds -- the industry's now got multiplayer spaces for everything from Hello Kitty to Build-a-Bear Workshop, and toy tie-ins like Webkinz are beginning to crop up everywhere." AGDC: Area/Code's Lantz On Creating Parking Wars For Facebook "Area/Code co-founder Frank Lantz has been discussing the creation of Parking Wars, the Facebook game sensation created as a promotion for the A&E TV show, and pinpointing the 'core values of good games' along the way." AGDC: Sony's Page: 'Next Gen Audio - Is That It?' "In his delightfully morose keynote at the Austin Game Developers Conference, Jason Page, Sony Europe's R&D audio manager discussed the present and future of game audio, musing that 'working in the games industry can be an insular experience,' but then going far beyond -- revealing new Sony tools Sulpha and Awesome along the way." AGDC: If You Build An Online Game, Will They Come? "Margaret Wallace of venture-backed startup Rebel Monkey -- itself developing an MMO -- was at Austin GDC's Worlds in Motion Summit to discuss user retention in multiplayer spaces. The question she posed: If you build it, will they come?" AGDC: Arkane's Smith Reveals iPhone Strategy Game, 'Immersive' First-Person RPG "Former Ion Storm and Midway designer revealed that Arkane Austin is working on both an "immersive first-person RPG" and an iPhone casual strategy title at the Texas developer."