Game Developer - August 2011

GDC ONliNE

frank CifalDi

it's an interestinG tiMe for ConneCteD GaMes. Ti TlES RANGiNG FROM Ci T Y OF HEROES TO TEAM FORTRESS 2 ARE SUDDENl Y EMBRACiNG THE FREE-TO-PlAY MODEl, "TRADiTiONAl" PUBliSHERS likE CAPCOM ARE FORECASTiNG DRAMATiC wORlDwiDE GROw TH FOR ONliNE GAMES B Y 2015 OR SO, AND w E'v E COME TO FiND OU T THAT Z YNGA iS APPAREN Tl Y wOR TH ONE BilliON DOll ARS. EvEN iF YOU'RE NOT CURRENTlY EMBRACiNG CONNECTED GAMES, THERE'S OBviOUSlY A lOT TO lEARN FROM THOSE wHO ARE.

The Game Developers Conference Online may be a smaller event than GDC proper, but it is by no means "GDC Jr." This annual spin-off conference is focused much more on online games, be they casual, MMOs, virtual worlds, or games on social networks.

The event, which is held in "weird" Austin, attracts more than 3,000 attendees to its over 120 sessions, with tracks catered to professionals specializing in business and marketing, game design, customer experience, production, and programming.

Among the many panels scheduled, this year's show will see former World of Warcraft designer Tom Caldwell discussing the causes of poor game design, CCP's Valerie Massey sharing how she prepares for and deals with audience crises, Zynga's Rober Zubek giving an engineering postmortem on the immensely popular cityVille, and PopCap's Giordano Bruno Contestabile helping to make the difficult iOS vs. Android decision just a little bit easier.

the Game Developers Choice online awards at GDC online.

And no, this isn't a "social only" club, either. Other speakers this year include folks from Eidos Montreal (deus ex: Human reVolution), Bio Ware Austin (tHe old republic), Volition (saints ro W), and more.

Due to demand, this year's show adds a new Customer Experience Track, which finally provides a dedicated series of panels for what is quickly becoming one of the most important sectors of the online games business. Topics will include building and managing online communities, policing user-generated content, anti-fraud tactics, and more.

As always, the show will host dedicated summits in addition to the main conference. The Game Narrative Summit will focus on best practices for interactive storytelling, the Virtual Items Summit will explore design and monetization techniques for virtual goods, and the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit will discuss the future of gaming on both established and emerging portable platforms.

To prepare you for the show, which takes place October 10–13, we've highlighted a handful of staff picks from the sessions that have been announced so far. As always, head over to GDCOnline.com for the most up-to-date information on what's happening at the show.

Building the Story-driven Experience of Deus ex: Human Revolution

Mary De Marle eiDos Montreal

Like the legendary original game in the series, deus ex: Human reVolution manages to tell a pointed, compelling story while giving its players the creative freedom to shape their own destinies. In this hour-long lecture at the Game Narrative Summit, lead writer and narrative designer Mary De Marle will share her team’s approach to story-based game development, revealing how they managed to keep a tight grasp on the game’s various branching paths.

Designers are Human Too— Causes of Poor Design Decisions

toM CaDwell riot GaMes

The road to bad games is paved in good intentions. In this design lecture, former World of Warcraft designer Tom Cadwell (now at Riot Games) will explore the single most common flaw amongst game designers: natural human tendencies. Cadwell will share some of the methods he’s developed for identifying bad decisions before they become costly, and how to combat what he calls “these all-too-common forces of evil.”

DEFCON: A Basic Guide to Crisis Management

Valerie Massey CCP GaMes

It’s hard to imagine a better test case for online community crises than eVe online. The game is designed at its core to be about as open to freedom and emergent gameplay as is feasible for a major MMO,

and as a result players are gambling with their real-world dollars. CCP’s PR and community director Val Massey will share her experiences, and offer tips and tools to stay calm and get things back to normal when inevitable community crises happen.

Engineering Cityville

robert Zubek ZynGa

In this talk aimed at social game programmers, Zynga’s principal software engineer Dr. Robert Zubek will discuss the server-side engineering techniques that allowed his team to rapidly iterate and grow cityVille into the most popular game on Facebook. The talk will also cater to those who have little experience in the social space, and will expose some of the challenges that await the green Facebook game programmer.