GDC Europe Adds Cage Keynote, Early Reg Reminder

Quantic Dream founder and CEO David Cage will give a keynote at next month's 2009 Game Developers Conference Europe, say event organizers Think Services (also parent of Gamasutra). Cage, the Indigo Prophecy creator who's currently at work on the highly-anticipated Heavy Rain, will give a talk entitled "Writing Interactive Narrative for a Mature Audience." He'll focus on why mature games are necessary, what difficulties developers face in creating narrative-driven adult games, and will expose possible solutions and techniques in interactive storytelling. "I am excited to participate at GDC Europe and to represent France in such a well-rounded European keynote roster," he said. Providing a unified forum for the often-fragmented developer community in the different European countries is a large part of the goal of GDC Europe, says Frank Sliwka, vice president of European Business Development at Think Services' European Game Group. "This is our chance to show what happens in Europe, and what we have in development and services," he tells us. The lion's share of major publishers have their seat in either North America or Asia, says Sliwka, so the European development community has its own slate of unique needs. "Europe is focused so we have a lot of companies that work in the online games field," he says. "So a lot of what we want to do is give them a showcase." Sliwka says he expects some 1,500 attendees to come to GDC Europe for education, networking and learning experiences. All of the event's keynotes are European; the lineup includes Gameforge CEO Klaas Kersting, Remedy's Matias Myllyrinne, CCP's Hilmar Petursson and Crytek's Cevat Yerli. The latest addition to the lineup, Quantic Dream's Cage, discusses the values behind his keynote: "With the game audience maturing, we feel it's important to share visions and ideas to define how our industry should now evolve," he says. "I am convinced more than ever that the most important next gen feature is emotion. How to trigger more complex emotions is our biggest challenge in the coming years." Adds Sliwka: "I think it's safe to say that all GDC Europe attendees can expect an inspiring and thought provoking keynote on a topic not often addressed." GDC Europe is set for August 17-19 at the Cologne Congress East Center in Cologne, Germany, in conjunction with the GamesCom event. Early registration is now open. Interested parties can find further information at the event's official site. [UPDATE: Organizers have sent out a bulletin reminding potential attendees that July 29th at midnight GMT is the last opportunity to register for discounted, early rates at the event.]