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Star Citizen's Roberts on how to crowd-fund
If you're looking for a master class in crowd-funded game development, who better to teach it than the man responsible for the most successful crowdfunding project of all time? Star Citizen guru Chris Roberts took the stage at this week's GDC Next to share insights from year one of his space sim sandbox renaissance. "It's not just about raising money," Roberts explained. "This is the mistake I see a lot of other campaigns make. The best thing about crowdfunding is that you get to build your community early." He said that the keys for Cloud Imperium's runaway success were building and managing its own fundraising apparatus on its own website as well as involving players in as much of the development process as possible. "There's the game that people are going to be playing, and the one they'll have watching the game get built. The dream is the final game, but the journey is a lot of fun," he said.
Jack Emmert to speak on free-to-play vs. pay-to-win
Can free-to-play MMOs be developed without dipping into the pay-to-win well? Cryptic CEO Jack Emmert is firmly on the "yes" side of that argument and will be stating his case at GDC Next in November. Emmert will be delivering a talk during a session titled How to Avoid Pay-to-Win with F2P. The session description is as follows: "With an F2P business, developers must carefully weigh business needs against game balance. Typically, players immediately question whether a game is actually pay-to-win and not truly free-to-play. This session tracks how Cryptic Studios has tackled this very difficult question in each of their current MMOs, and provides a method to address both concerns." Cryptic is helming a number of free-to-play games, with its current F2P roster consisting of Champions Online, Neverwinter, and Star Trek Online.
App Developers' Conference dated, call for papers open now
GDC is the Game Developers' Conference that happens every year up in San Francisco, and the company also hosts a number of other GDC events all over the world. Usually, they do GDC Online in Austin, TX every fall, but that conference has recently been changed into two different conferences, both of which are set to take place later this year in Los Angeles. One half of the conference will be called GDC Next, and will focus on the future of gaming development, featuring things like the new Ouya console, cloud gaming, and next generation platforms. And the other half is now called the App Developers' Conference, and will focus on not just game development, but mobile app development as well. Both shows are being held in Los Angeles on November 5-7, 2013, and both shows are now open for submissions for panels and talks. ADC is obviously looking for app makers who can speak on the design, business, and actual programming of apps, so there will undoubtedly be some talented iOS developers there that week. If you have a great idea you'd like to present, you'll need to get your submission in by May 29. It's interesting to note this change. The official GDC itself has also been swinging more towards mobile game development, and away from major studio talks and presentations. This last year at GDC, there was an indie scene like I've never experienced before, and while some of that was driven by major publishers like Sony and Microsoft, much of it has to do with Apple's App Store and other mobile opportunities. As a result, more than ever of GDC is dedicated specifically to smaller mobile developers, and these two new conferences are part of that push.
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.
GDC Next coming to LA in 2013
Game Developers Conference organizers have announced that this October's GDC Online will soon be replaced by a new event: GDC Next. The conference will debut alongside the newly created App Developers Conference (ADC) to take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from November 5-7, 2013. GDC Next focuses on gaming development related to smartphones and tablets as well as social and cloud gaming. The new ADC is dedicated to app technology and development. Attendees will be able to sign up for the individual conferences or take advantage of a special price to attend both. More information can be found on the official sites.
GDC Next, App Developers Conference coming to LA in Nov. 2013
GDC Next was announced this morning, the successor to GDC Online, focusing on mobile, social, independent and "other major forms of games." The first GDC Next and App Developers Conference (also new) will be held as a combined event at the Los Angeles Convention Center November 5-7, 2013.GDC Online will hold its final iteration in Austin in October. GDC Next appears to be focusing its efforts on that elusive "what's next?" in the industry, covering a wide range of ideas from developers for products that don't fit the established parameters of GDC, GDC Europe, Gamescom or E3.
