GDC 2012 Announces Two New Summits, Opens Call For Submissions

Author: by Staff

GDC 2012 organizers have opened the call for submissions through October 31 for the show's specialized Summits, revealing new Games For Change and Game IT Summits for the March 2012 event. These Summits will kick-off Game Developers Conference 2012 during the first two days of the conference -- which runs March 5th-9th, 2012 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Summit events will cover pertinent topics in emerging sectors of the games industry, particularly focusing on broadening the scope of the medium to encompass new audiences, new platforms, and of course new gameplay ideas. This year, GDC will add two brand new events to the existing lineup for the March 5th-6th Summits: the Games for Change @ GDC Summit and the Game IT Summit. Games for Change @ GDC is an event hosted in partnership with the Games for Change non-profit organization, which facilitates the creation and distribution of games that exist for humanitarian or educational purposes. This new GDC event, which complements the annual Games for Change Festival in New York, will allow funders, educators, governmental agencies, and other organizations to interact with indie and commercial game developers to help leverage interactive entertainment for social good. The latter Game IT Summit is a daylong event, curated by notables such as Jane McGonigal, Ian Bogost and Ben Sawyer, that explores how video games can be used to tackle common organizational goals, encouraging discussions about the link between games and the technology-oriented practices used by today's forward-thinking organizations. "The introduction of the Game IT Summit and the Games for Change @ GDC demonstrates how the Game Developers Conference continues to offer attendees a unique opportunity to participate in diverse conversations that will shape the technology landscape for years to come," said Meggan Scavio, event director. With these two new additions, GDC 2012 will now host eight unique Summits, with the remaining Summits including the AI Summit, the Localization Summit, the GDC Education Summit, the Independent Games Summit, the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, and the Social & Online Games Summit. In addition, the show will also host the Game Career Seminar for students and aspiring developers, with submissions for this event also now open. To submit a proposal for any of these Summits, simply head to the official GDC 2012 website, where you can find information on submission guidelines, restrictions, and more. Submissions will remain open though Monday, October 31 at 11:59pm ET. Along with these Summit announcements, the GDC Summit advisory committee has added several new members to its ranks. The first new members include the co-presidents of Games for Change, Asi Burak and Michelle Byrd, who will lead Games for Change @ GDC. Other additions include Robot Invader founder Chris Pruett, and ngmoco executive producer Caryl Shaw, who will both join the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit committee, and K2 Network/GamersFirst's Frank Cartwright, and Spry Fox CEO David Edery, who will join join the Social & Online Games Summit committee. For more information about GDC 2012 as the event takes shape, please visit the event's official website -- GDC is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb, as is this website. And to submit your Summit proposal, please visit the GDC 2012 Summits page now.