GDC Online Adds LocoRoco Talk, Turbine Free-To-Play Lecture, Networking Specifics

Author: by Staff

GDC Online has debuted partner content for next month's Austin show, including LocoRoco creator Tsutomu Kouno on PlayStation Home, plus Turbine's Kate Paiz on moving to free-to-play and subject-specific mixers from the Writers Guild, Epic, Crytek, hi5 and more. The Austin, Texas based conference -- formerly known as GDC Austin -- is sharply focused on the development of online games, and there are now more than 120 panels, lectures and tutorials currently scheduled for the October 5th-8th event. Following the confirmation of a keynote from Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds (FrontierVille), and track keynotes from Blizzard's Greg Canessa (on Battle.net), Playdom's Raph Koster (on social mechanics), and Bigpoint's Heiko Hubertz (on the rise of Europe in online gaming), organizers are revealing vendor-supported talks and receptions of relevance to attendees. Some of the key new vendor-specific sessions and supported mixers, receptions and parties of relevance to all GDC Online attendees are as follows: - As part of the recently confirmed GDC Online tutorials, Sony's full PlayStation Home day will include a keynote from LocoRoco creator Tsutomu Kouno on bringing the LocoIsland and Mui Mui Ship add-ons into Sony's PS3 online world. The full-day tutorial on Wednesday, October 6th, open to all GDC Online pass-holders (excluding Game Career Seminar) also includes talks from key PlayStation Home execs, a developer panel including nDreams, Jet Set Games, Hellfire, and Codename execs, and an end-of-day mixer. - In addition to a GameSpy Technology developer day on Tuesday, October 5th -- with industry speakers to be confirmed in the near future -- the sponsored monetization track has rounded out its schedule with lectures from RockYou and from SuperRewards. As previously mentioned, Platinum Sponsor Playspan has the full line-up for its self-programmed lectures on the afternoon of October 7th, including Playfish co-founder Sebastian De Halleux, Turbine's Kate Paiz, Facebook's Deborah Liu, Adobe's Danielle Diebler, Yahoo!'s Kyle Laughlin, Nexon's Min Kim and more -- with a Monetization Track Mixer at the end of the day. - With a vibrant Expo floor, including an independent game showcase from IndiePub Games in place and several after-hours events still to be announced, the parties and networking opportunities at GDC Online are rounding out rapidly, with the GDC Online Opening Night Party already confirmed for Wednesday, October 6th from 7-10pm at Maggie Mae's, and sponsored by Unreal Engine creator Epic Games. Details on Tuesday and Thursday night open-to-all parties will follow, and the GDC Online networking page also details the iPhone Summit Mixer, sponsored by Aurora Feint, the 3D Stereoscopic Summit Mixer sponsored by Crytek, the Game Narrative Summit Mixer, sponsored by Writers Guild of America, and a hi5 Networking Mixer -- all providing key sector-specific networking. Finally, the GDC Online Awards on the evening of Thursday, October 7th also include a pre-awards networking reception. These vendor supported opportunities add to the plethora of sessions across four days at GDC Online, which is operated by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website. The event will take place October 5-8, 2010 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas, and to learn more about lectures across all tracks and summits for the event, for which registration is still open, please visit GDC Online's official website.