Crytek CEO Yerli To Keynote Lyon GDC

Organizers of the first annual Lyon Game Developers Conference have announced that Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli will present a keynote on his company's Crysis at this year's event, as well as detailed sessions from Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack. Lyon GDC will feature 60 classes over a two day period, as well as one day of master classes and tutorials that will overlap with Game Connection business meetings. The conference's main objectives are to provide a global picture of game development today, where attendees will share core technical expertise, and to learn from experiences at the cutting edge of European and global game development. Sessions will drill down into the six core disciplines of GDC (programming, visual arts, game design, audio, production, and business and management), and explore the broadening creative and business options for developers across multiple platforms and distribution channels. Amongst the sessions detailed on the conference's website are Denis Dyack's talk on forming a one-console future, promising a "positive view" and "better understanding of the inevitability of technology commoditization based on past technology trends." Alongside other notable lectures from veteran game designer Noah Falstein and BreakAway Games president Doug Whatley, Xbox Live portfolio planner David Edery will also be presenting a session on "the rapid spread of free, microtransaction-supported games" like Xbox's Burger King titles and new ad-supported PC catalog titles like Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, explaining how to compete and survive against this "rising tide." For more information on the conference, including track descriptions, registration pricing, and the advisory board lineup, or to register for the event, visit the official Lyon GDC website.