Registration Opens and Website Goes Live
CMP Technology’s 2008 Game Developers Conference returns to the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco to bring the videogame industry together for a week of networking, learning, and inspiration February 18-22, 2008. The world’s largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment has taken steps this year to boost its focus on community-building and networking with the expansion of its lineup of summits that take a closer look at the industry’s emerging trends, and through its myGDC initiative, which features enhanced social/professional networking capabilities on the GDC site. The conference is also simplifying the pass structure, to provide more intuitive access to the diverse experiences at the GDC. Complete details and registration for the conference are available now at www.gdconf.com.
“Now that the Game Developers Conference is the world’s largest professionals-only game industry event, it’s more essential than ever for us to foster microcommunities that will enable clusters of attendees with similar interests to share with and challenge each other,” said Jamil Moledina, Executive Director of the Game Developers Conference. “We are taking a cue from our own content this year by broadening our trademark exploration of breakthrough game development with particular attention to the rise of casual and social online spaces. To embody these trends, we are increasing our support of focused communities through summits, and have enabled more individual profile development and professional networking on our website starting next month.”
The GDC has made some significant changes in order to bring attendees closer together and provide them with the most relevant content in 2008. The timing for the content programming cycle was adjusted forward to ensure that sessions reflect the most current trends and issues for the game development community, and feature the most cutting-edge technologies. In addition, the conference has expanded its lineup of single-track summits dedicated to specific communities. The 2008 lineup includes the return of the Serious Games Summit, the Independent Games Summit and the Casual Games Summit. New to the schedule this year are the Game Outsourcing Summit, pioneered in 2006 at the GDC’s successful standalone summit in Los Angeles, and the Worlds In Motion Summit, focusing on the intersection between games and online worlds. The standalone GDC Mobile event continues as well, as a dedicated conference with breakout sessions.
Community interaction before, during, and after the GDC is also being emphasized through new offerings including the myGDC social networking features on GDConf.com launching in early November. All registered conference attendees will be able to create, search and share profiles; connect and collaborate with other GDC attendees; and continue the networking long after the show. In addition to these virtual enhancements, conference attendees will also gain more onsite face-to-face time with this year's new option to purchase hourly attendee meeting rooms at the conference, for a more professional and distraction-free pitch or business meeting.
More than 16,000 game industry professionals will convene during GDC and, as such, intuitive access is another priority for the conference. GDC passes are therefore now being divided into five easily navigable categories. The All Access Pass offers entry into all GDC offerings including lectures, panels, roundtables, keynotes, tutorials, summits like the Serious Games Summit, and even the standalone GDC Mobile conference. The Main Conference pass gives attendees access to the GDC’s lectures, panels, roundtables, and keynotes. The Summits and Tutorials pass allows entrance into the entire summit lineup listed above, as well as the GDC’s popular technical one- and two-day tutorials. There are also Expo Passes for those who want to peruse the expo floor only without attending any of the GDC’s editorial content, and a GDC Mobile pass for entry into that conference exclusively. Details, prices and registration for all passes are available now at www.gdconf.com.