Lyon GDC Confirms 450 Attendees, 2008 Plans

Organizers of the first annual Lyon Game Developers Conference have announced that the event hosted more than 450 professional attendees mainly from the French development industry, in addition to developers from 20 other countries including the UK, the US, Canada, China, Korea, Poland, Russia, Brazil, and Nigeria. The event was presented by Connection Events, the company behind the Game Connection event, and Gamasutra parent the CMP Game Group, presenters of the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The organizers have begun plans for a 2008 GDC in France. Gamasutra's coverage Lyon GDC so far includes reports on Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli's keynote, Silicon Knights' president Denis Dyack's vision of a one-console future, and art director Viktor Antonov's talk on working on Half-Life 2. The Lyon GDC keynotes included "The Making of Crysis," presented on Monday by Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, and "Rayman and the Raving Rabbids: How to Build a Game Delivering a Mix of Social Fun and Absurd Humor," which was led by Ubisoft's Nicolas Normandon, creative director, and Loïc Gounon, international product manager. Lyon GDC secured solid support from French and international game companies and associations, including Perforce, the Ontario Technology Corridor, the French clusters Imaginove and CapDigital as well as Intel, ruCap and Illuminate Labs. Said Crytek's Yerli, “Lyon GDC is a great platform for us to share our learnings and knowledge with developers, and hopefully, to raise the European development culture. We are very happy to be able to share our experience."