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Hit the Virtual Goods Summit 15% cheaper this year
The Virtual Goods Summit has been an annual event since 2007, and features speakers from organizations all over the world, all focused on virtual goods, and virtual economies. This year's summit in San Francisco features quite a lineup, including the delicious Steve Meretzky, Turbine's accomplished Fernando Paiz, the engaging John Smedley of SOE, and plenty more. Through the Virtual Goods Summit, developers and publishers share knowledge and get a deeper understanding of virtual goods and economies, how they function, their challenges and how to maximize the opportunities inherent in them. The Virtual Goods Summit runs on 30 October (with an optional half-day seminar on the 29th, covering the fundamentals and drivers of virtual economies, called Virtual Goods Summit University. Want to get to the summit with a 15% discount on general admission? Register for the summit and use the code MASSIVELY at the checkout, and save! There's also discounted early-bird registration until 29 September.
GDC's Design Challenge panel tackles sex in games
How does "My First Time" sound as this year's topic for GDC's time-honored Game Design Challenge panel? It may sound like something we cooked up ourselves, but it is, in fact, legit. This year's theme is all about the dilemma of designing games centered on "sex and autobiography." Obliviously, this won't be a discussion on how to peddle porno games; instead, it'll be about tackling the taboo and coming out with something both artistic and unique ... and probably about how to avoid a situation like this.Eric Zimmerman (chief design officer at Gamelab), Steve Meretzky (game design VP at YouPlus), Kim Swift (Valve level designer) and Sulka Haro (Sulake lead designer) will all be speakers at the panel on March 25. Those who are attending the industry-only event might want to stop by Room 135, North Hall at 2:30pm to see what's going down ... no innuendo intended there.[Via G4TV]
Interspecies gaming hits GDC
Sure, playing games against other people is fun, but three developers at this year's Game Developer's Conference were challenged to create games for humans and other species to play -- and the results were just as wild as you'd expect. Alexey Pajitnov, the inventor of Tetris, unveiled a concept called Dolphin Ride that features paintball-armed dolphins racing (and attacking) each other to hit as many targets as possible, while Wizardry developer Brenda Brathwaite showed off an actual game called OneHundredDogs.com, due to launch on February 29th. The social-network-based game pits 50 dogs and their owners against each other in various challenges to become the "alpha dog" of their communities -- who will then lead the quest to find 50 hidden virtual dogs by way of other challenges and dog-based activities. The winner, however, was Steve Meretzky, developer of Zoo Tycoon, whose concept game Bac Attack pits players armed with light and radiation against a bacterial colony in a petri dish -- when the player is inevitably overwhelmed by the bacteria, Steve suggests calling the government to arrange a sale. Cheery -- but we'll stick to the heavily-armed dolphins, thanks.
