GDC China Debuts Chengdu Forum, Confirms 2010 Dates

Author: by Staff

The 2010 GDC China Chengdu Forum's first event, held in late April, was a success, organizers say. The event, co-organized by Game Developers Conference organizers UBM together with the Chengdu Municipal Government, took place in Chengdu City's New Int’l Convention & Exposition Centre. With the themes of game outsourcing and talent cultivation, the Forum accelerated the current momentum in the area of government entities, studios and local institutions working together to promote industry advancement in Chengdu and other Western cities in China. The Forum adhered to GDC’s “content-first” tradition, and partnered with leading game developers to program the most relevant content to the local development community. There were a number of standout sessions, such as “The Relationship between Chinese Art Requirements and the Outsourcing Industry” delivered by Daisong Guan, Director of Art R&D Center from Shanda Games; “Game Outsourcing for The Global Market” by Aaron Pulkka, Director of Production from Activision; and “How to Transform Game Lovers into Game Developers” by Monte Singman, CEO of Radiance Software (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. Partners. With GDC’s major resources and reputation within the industry, experts from home and abroad were invited as honored speakers, providing the Chengdu attendees a rare opportunity to meet and network with their international peers. For the Western area-based game companies in attendance, the Chengdu event allowed a first-hand introduction to an area experiencing rapid growth within the game industry. Considered a highlight of the 8th Annual China International Software Fair, this GDC China-organized high-level forum in Chengdu successfully attracted more than 300 professionals from major companies in the space from Activision, Ubisoft, EA, Virtuos, Eidos, Pearl Digital, Chengdu Sheer, Shanda Games, Kingsoft, Tencent, and more. This event was a precursor to the main GDC China 2010 conference, which is scheduled for December 5-7 at the Shanghai International Convention Center, and will expand and build upon the major topics and issues raised at the Chengdu Forum. This December's event will follow on from the successful GDC China event in October 2009, which saw almost 3,000 attendees and keynotes from Prince Of Persia's Jordan Mechner and Nexon's Min Kim, GDC China 2010 will again present major Chinese and international speakers. The 2010 event will discuss online and social games in China, major business trends in the Asian market, the state of video game outsourcing, the evolution of mobile game markets in the region, and many other cutting-edge topics.