BERLIN – August 11, 2014 – The 2014 Game Developers Conference™ Europe (GDC Europe) kicks off today at the Congress-Centrum Ost of the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany. Produced by UBM Tech Game Network, organizers of the distinguished Game Developers Conference® series, GDC Europe is the continent’s leading game development event. GDC Europe will run from August 11-13. For additional information on GDC Europe, please visit www.gdceurope.com.
Returning for the sixth year to Cologne, GDC Europe continues to be the pinnacle event in educating and inspiring developers across the continent. The conference will feature more than 80 sessions on game development across five Main Conference tracks (Business, Marketing & Management, Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts) and the Independent Games Summit, with each one providing well-rounded content about the business and art of making video games.
GDC Europe opens Cologne’s Games Week, which also features gamescom, the leading European interactive entertainment consumer trade show, taking place from August 13-17, also at the Koelnmesse. GDC Europe welcomes nearly 130 national and international speakers, over 225 members of the press and industry leading exhibitors and sponsors from across the globe to the 2014 conference.
The robust roster of speakers at the 2014 conference will address topics that showcase the significance of business logic, forward thinking, and technical knowledge when creating and marketing successful video games. The Main Conference tracks will feature talks from leading industry voices, including Jed Ashforth, Senior Game Designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and one of the developers who is charting the frontiers of VR for Sony’s Project Morpheus; Oculus VR’s Software Architect, Tom Forsyth; and Quentin De Beukelaer, Game and Economic Designer at Ubisoft and one of minds behind Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Unity.
The popular and well-received “#1ReasonToBe” panel will debut at GDC Europe on Tuesday. The panel, which was originally introduced at GDC 2013 and returned to GDC 2014, features women from a variety of disciplines across the industry who will share their experiences, both high and low, exploring a vision for a positive future. Hosted by Brenda Romero and Leigh Alexander, panelists include Auriea Harvey (Tale of Tales), Zuraida Buter (zo-ii), Henrike “Riker” Lode (Machineers), Siobhan Reddy (Media Molecule) and Annakaisa Kultima (University of Tampere).
In addition to a day of lectures for the indie developer in the Independent Games Summit, the Summit will also host the first-ever European Innovative Games Showcase. The showcase used a panel of judges to pick the most intriguing and different independent games from nearly 150 submitted for the inaugural event. Each selected game will present what’s unique and special about their in-development or already released game in a series of fascinating mini-talks. In this showcase, the speakers will explore the future of games through their innovative concepts, prototypes or nearly finished games. The session is meant to give a voice to possibly unknown developers who are working on innovative games, big and small.
GDC Europe is also bringing back the Classic Game Postmortem this year, the popular series across many of the GDC events that aims to deconstruct and note the lessons learned during the development process of some of the industry’s most iconic titles. This year, the conference welcomes Charles Cecil, the influential game designer best known for his work creating seminal adventure games like the Broken Sword franchise and Beneath A Steel Sky. Cecil will be delivering a Classic Game Postmortem about the groundbreaking Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, the award-winning 1996 adventure game that developers at studios like Telltale Games and the now-defunct LucasArts cite as a meaningful influence on their work.
“Once again, we hope that GDC Europe will provide new inspirations and insights to the continent’s development community and give attendees the edge on advancing the European business of making games,” said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of the Game Developers Conference events. “We’re especially excited to debut the popular #1ReasonToBe panel and introduce the Innovative Game Showcase as a launch pad for indie developers.”
This year, GDC Europe partnered with Aruba Events to offer Respawn ( www.respawngathering.com) attendees free access to the GDC Europe Expo Floor and a discount on the full conference pass, which grants access to lectures and panels with significant, applicable takeaways for today’s development community. On August 12, GDC Europe and the organizers of Respawn, Aruba Events, will team up for the ‘GDC Europe and Respawn Developer Night’ party, which will be the first jointly hosted evening event.
In addition, GDC Europe provides several opportunities for networking, creative exchange and business development, with venues including the GDC Europe Expo Floor, VIP Lounge, and the GDC Europe Business Lounge at gamescom, plus a host of industry parties and events.
For up to the moment details on GDC Europe, including a schedule of all conference events and parties, plus a complete exhibitor list, please visit http://www.gdceurope.com/.
