GDC China 2011 Closes With Record Attendance

Author: by Staff

Organizers of the fourth annual GDC China, which concluded Monday, November 14 in Shanghai, have announced that more than 3,000 international attendees were present over the three-day event, marking an all-time high for this branch of the Game Developers Conference. This year, GDC China hosted over 70 international speakers, over 45 sponsors and exhibitors, as well as the third annual Independent Games Festival China, and once again gave game developers in Asia a chance to meet other industry professionals, gain practical experience, and share valuable ideas with their peers. GDC China's Main Conference featured four tracks, covering Global Game Development, Online Game Development and Business and Social Gaming, alongside two specialized Summits focusing on Indie Games and Mobile Games. Gamasutra covered the event in-depth throughout the show, with featured talks including a keynote from Interplay veteran and inXile founder Brian Fargo, who examined the history of role-playing games and offered his take on the most important elements of the genre. Other standout talks from the show include Independent Game Summit talks with Capy co-founder Nathan Vella on the importance of creative risk, and Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman on key opportunities for indie developers. In addition, the show featured notable talks from DeNA's Kenji Kobayashi on the (lack of) competition in the smartphone market, Amir Rao of Bastion dev Supergiant Games on leveraging new IP, and Microsoft's Brian Prince on the current trajectory of cloud gaming, among many others. The show also played host to the third annual Independent Games Festival China, which showcased some of the best independent games developed in Asia and other surrounding regions. Winners included Feng Li's Pixel May Cry, Ant Hive Game's The Line HD, and more. In the weeks following the show, lectures and slides from the show's numerous sessions are set to debut on the GDC Vault website, in both free and member-based tiers. GDC China took place from Saturday, November 12 to Monday, November 14 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center in Shanghai, and is currently the only official developer event supported by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China.