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GDC Online coming to LA, rebranded as App Developers Conference
For the past few years, the Game Developers Conference has held a satellite show in Austin, Texas called GDC Online (and I went there a few years back for TUAW to cover the mobile gaming track). But GDC has announced that this year is the last year it'll do GDC Online in Austin.
Starting next year, the conference (which has mostly been about online gaming) is moving to Los Angeles, and will be renamed the App Developers Conference. The event will be co-located with another show called GDC Next (which will apparently feature everything outside of standard mobile app gaming), and both will share an open expo floor. The two events will take place on November 5-7, 2013.
Essentially, this all means that GDC is changing its focus for this satellite show, from the originally very popular market of MMOs and online games to the currently very hot market of mobile apps and tablet/smartphone gaming. For the last few years, even the original GDC conference in San Francisco has had a growing focus on mobile gaming (first adding a mobile gaming track and then filling it out to be almost half of the show's content), but this is the biggest change to the conference's lineup yet. Since I am based in LA, we'll plan to have coverage straight from the show next year; no matter what direction this new show takes, you'll be sure to hear about it.
