All Sessions
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Lecturer: Brian Robbins, Fuel Industries
While most developers continue to think about what features to incorporate into the “next great MMO” a new focus on development is starting to appear. The Branded MMO has the same type of gameplay as other titles, but it is funded through corporate sponsorship and marketing budgets. This session will explore this growing space that is becoming a major force in the industry.
Intended Audience: Designers, Producers and development directors
Prerequisites: Ideal attendees should have experience in the business or design of either MMO or branded games.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: David Lakritz, Language Automation, Inc.
This session will discuss the localization pipeline from a business perspective. By thinking about localization as a business process and not as a black-box activity, attendees will gain new insights into ways to optimize their localization processes to better handle dynamic content amidst the demands of shorter schedules and faster turnaround times.
Intended Audience: Anyone involved in the production process who could benefit from greater efficiencies in the localization process, both management and non-management
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Simon Hayes, BigWorld
As the telecommunications industry deploys 3G and ubiquitous WiFi, more capable handsets and wireless mobile devices are gaining in popularity. Thoughts naturally turn to extending MMOGs into this new realm or even developing new titles that take advantage of this unique form factor. In this presentation I will discuss strategies for extending traditional MMOGs out to almost any WAP or web-capable mobile device.
Intended Audience: All Programmers
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Jess Lebow, Flying Lab Software
So, you're THE writer. You don't add features to the editor, or improve the performance of the game. You don't add animations, or the breathtaking landscapes. You're not really a designer, but sometimes it feels as if you are. You're an outcast, the least technical (probably most socially well-adjusted) person in a company run by programmers. But it's precisely that quality that makes you valuable. In this session we'll explore the role of the videogame writer, and talk about ways to maximize the value of your creativity in an industry dominated by the left brain.
Intended Audience: Writers, game designers, creative directors, producers, game company owners.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Senate
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Lecturer: Mike Goslin, Disney Online
Games have grown increasingly popular recently but many of them still fail to appeal to a broad audience. This talk explores some of the reasons why and offers some practical approaches that can give any game broader appeal.
Intended Audience: General
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: James Hursthouse, Online Game Services, Inc.
The IGDA's Online Games Special Interest Group recently initiated a project to develop an 'industry almanac' - and a core group of volunteers is now busy utilizing the IGDA Wiki to develop a framework for an evolving body of knowledge relating to the art and science of Persistent World game design, development and deployment. There are roles within the project suitable for varying levels of commitment, so even if you only think you might be interested in helping out, please do come along and meet some of our team, and find out more.
Intended Audience: Everyone
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Darius Kazemi, Orbus Gameworks
In many online games, especially massively multiplayer titles, game design decisions are often made based on commonly held assumptions or the intuition of designers. While intuition is invaluable, hard quantitative gameplay data can take the guesswork of designing virtual worlds. With the proper tools and appropriate methodology, data collection and analysis can provide a wealth of information about player behavior, economy, and social structures.
Intended Audience: Game developers who want to make decisions with quantitative backing.
Prerequisites: Attendees should have solid understanding of design for virtual worlds.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Charles Merrin, RealNetworks, Inc.
Casual Gaming has become the fastest growing segment of computer games after only a few years. It is filled with amazing success stories and a myriad of great content. But what comes next? How can evolving business models, innovative content, and new platforms fit into the complex and diversified global games market over the next five years?
Intended Audience: Development Directors, Project Managers, Business Development, Creative, Marketing
Prerequisites: No prerequisite required.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Senate
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Moderator: Jeff Pobst, Hidden Path Entertainment
Panelist: JJ Richards, Microsoft
Panelist: Michael Shorrock, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Panelist: Todd Northcutt, GameSpy / IGN Entertainment
The market for online console games is growing at a tremendous rate, and expected to be the principal segment of the market within the next five years. In this panel, you will hear leaders from Microsoft, Sony, and others describe their strategies for taking advantage of this new market, and what opportunities their platforms present for developers.
Intended Audience: Broad – business leaders, CTOs, programmers, designers, producers.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Panel
Date/Time: Thursday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Monty Sharma, Vivox
Vivox voice technology is being used by major MMOG developers including CCP Games, Icarus Studios, BigWorld, and K2 Network, and now supports over one million customers in 180 countries. Attendees will learn: the mechanics of incorporating in-game voice (integrated, not external); current and future features including voice recording, voice morphing, multi-channel modes, and ability to communicate from within the game to people outside the game); safety and security issues (player and game controls), possible additional revenue streams (advertising and content sales); and how these features keep online game titles competitive.
Intended Audience: Developers and Publishers of online games.
Prerequisites: Participants should have a basic knowledge of a game’s social structure and community communication tools. Business development knowledge is a plus.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Christian Force, +7 Systems
Lecturer (2nd): Nathaniel Bogan, +7 Systems
Poor gameplay balance can lead a playerbase to normalize to dominant strategies. There are also other factors that cause uniformity, and a lack of strategic diversity causes player attrition through boredom or frustration. This session explores the possible role of automation to help achieve the true goal of strategic diversity in a persistent game world. By moving away from a static balance mindset, a game designer creates a richer player experience. This experience is created while at the same time ensuring that the design team can focus on creative challenges, rather than number-crunching, resulting in a better end product.
Intended Audience: Anyone interested in the future of gameplay balance
Prerequisites: Familiarity with balance issues in MMOs and current methods of addressing gameplay balance.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Michael Goodman, Yankee Group
Big brands have been placing products and signage into games on a small scale for many years. However, with the emergence of video game ad serving technology ads can now be dynamically placed into video games. As a result video games are emerging as an attractive alternative to TV, print, radio and even online? This lecture will examine where video games fit in the advertising hierarchy, what factors are driving it forward, what barriers must be overcome, how in-game advertising is branching out onto new platforms and Yankee Group’s market forecast.
Intended Audience: This session is intended for publishers and developers who want to understand the opportunities and obstacles for in-game advertising on multiple platforms. This session will not be technical in nature.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Senate
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Keynote: Herb Sutter, Microsoft
Although driven by the industry-wide hardware shift to multicore hardware architectures, concurrency is primarily a software revolution. We are now seeing the initial stages of the next major change in software development, as over the next few years the software industry brings concurrency pervasively into mainstream software development, just as it has done in the past for objects, garbage collection, generics and other technologies. This talk summarizes the issues involved, gives an overview of the impact, and describes what to expect over the coming decade.
Intended Audience:
Prerequisites:
Format: Keynote
Date/Time: Thursday, 1:00 PM,
Room: Spanish Ballroom
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Lecturer: Won-il Suh, Neowiz
Developing a traditionally difficult online revenue generator genre such as FPSs into a hundred of millions of dollar genre, taking a traditional retail soccer game and making it online, where through this transformation, almost non existent revenues in Asia can be expected to be in the high tens of millions of dollar. Real world cases of taking an established IP, creating a suitable business model, and/or making it culturally relevant and financially viable will be talked about.
Intended Audience: Executives, Biz Dev Directors, Producers, Developers
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Kevin Bjorke, NVIDIA Corporation
What creates and sustains attraction? New advances in graphics technology can contribute more than simple ‘sweetening’ to MMO’s. The capabilities of new consoles and PC GPUs can expand the experience of game players; the quality and character of in-game objects, trade items, and advertising; can reduce network lag; can attract and keep new players while providing continued interest to long-time players. This talk will address new visual possibilities; strategies to keep content-creation budgets under control (and even reduce them); and how anticipated market changes can expand game audiences rather than be crushed – today and in the future.
Intended Audience: Game designers, artists, graphics programmers & game producers
Prerequisites: Familiarity with Game Art creation pipelines and the capabilities of DirectX.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Bill Fulton, Microsoft
Bad behavior online (i.e. cheating & griefing) is a serious problem for online games. Cheating is intentionally using technical means to give the cheater an advantage; Griefing is intentionally annoying other players. In this talk, Bill posits that a social psychological approach will be more effective and less costly at reducing the problem than traditional technical approaches.
Intended Audience: Designers & producers of online games who wish to decrease the negative effects of cheating & griefing in online games.
Prerequisites: Some familiarity with the cheating and griefing that arise in traditional (e.g., competitive, not MMO) online games.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Parliament
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Moderator: Rich Weil, Kaneva
Panelist: Victor Wachter, Cryptic Studios
Panelist: Troy Hewitt, Flying Lab Software
Panelist: Alan Crosby, Sony Online Entertainment
Panelist: Steven Wade, Aeria Games and Entertainment
Much has been written regarding the transitory nature of online communities. Whether it's because of a plethora of options or a short attention span, many online game communities are seeing higher numbers of "casual" participants in relation to "hardcore" devotees, especially in products with long lead times like MMO's.
Intended Audience:
Prerequisites:
Format: Panel
Date/Time: Thursday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Moderator: Zhan Ye, GameVision
Panelist: Allison Luong, Pearl Research
Panelist: Diana Li, Shanda
After years of explosive growth, where is the Chinese online game market headed? Has the MMO market stabilized? Will more growth come from the casual online game sector? What challenges major market players now face? What new business models have emerged? What impact will the new government regulations bring to the industry? Will outsourcing play a more important role in the local industry? This session will bring industry veterans, experts, and government officials from China to discuss those critical issues to give the audience a broad picture of the latest developments and trends in the Chinese game market.
Intended Audience: Business development people, Western game developers, publishers, and professionals who are interested in the Chinese game market.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Panel
Date/Time: Thursday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Gavin Longhurst, BigWorld
There are numerous design issues with the implementing of a PC MMO on a console from text readability, GUI use, control methods and game styles. Is it possible to have PC and console users meaningfully interact? Is the next gen console a viable and profitable business framework for the 'traditional' PC MMO?
Intended Audience: Programmers, Designers, Producers and Development Directors
Prerequisites: None
Format: Sponsored Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Brendan Vanous, Microsoft
LIVE presents unmatched online opportunities for game designers. Session invitations, ubiquitous voice, and achievements are just a few of the features that continue to revolutionize the industry. But what else lies within the LIVE toolbox? What opportunities for innovation await your creativity and passion? How can LIVE features help drive sales and increase player retention? How can LIVE features help you to create a more unique, engaging user experience? Whether you’re creating single-player or multi-player titles, whether you are new to LIVE or in the know, this talk will help you get the most out of LIVE.
Intended Audience: Game designers
Prerequisites: Attendees are expected to have a basic knowledge of the Xbox LIVE gaming service, online gaming as it currently exists, and a passionate interest in driving new and innovative experiences into their games.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Steven Davis, IT GlobalSecure Inc.
Lecturer (2nd): W. Joseph Price, Kelley Drye Collier Shannon
Security is a growing issue in the gaming industry and is of particular concern for games from Third Party developers. Game security incidents have grown into a costly problem. Whether it is the compromise of the game code during development or the customer support costs associated with game exploits, security failures can delay product launches or add unexpected millions to customer support costs. These problems are exacerbated by the nature of third party relationships in the game industry. This presentation will address the business, technical, and legal issues associated with third party game development and licensing.
Intended Audience: Publishers, developers, game licensors
Prerequisites: No specific experience required – general knowledge of the game industry helpful, but not necessary.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Lecturer: Nicole Lazzaro, XEODesign, Inc.
Great gameplay creates strong player emotions that focus groups and traditional marketing methods can't measure, other methods can and developers that access player emotions early in game development can innovate with much less risk. Beyond next-gen graphics, players demand next-gen Player Experiences (PX). Come find out how games such as Gears of War, Line Rider and Wii Sports go beyond Fiero to build their signature PX Profiles with gameplay. Starting with new XEODesign research of best selling games, together we dive deep into the world of player emotion to explore a more diagnostic method to sculpt emotional responses to match a genre or play style as early as the design document. Emotions are more than rewards for a job well done. Join us for the full story and add more emotion to your game.
Intended Audience: Designers, producers, programmers and marketers interested in maximizing emotions from gameplay and broadening their game's emotional response. Familiarity with XEODesign's research on emotion in games is helpful but not required. Free white papers: www.xeodesign.com/whyweplaygames.html
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Zsolt Mathe, Microsoft
Games for Windows – LIVE brings a new generation of online gaming to Windows. Join us to hear about how LIVE can provide you with the technology to fully enable your Windows-based games for multiplayer gaming and extensive community. The LIVE platform provides you with identity, achievements, automatic patching, extensive matchmaking, cross-platform connectivity, voice communications, anti-cheat technology, NAT traversal and more. This talk, intended for developers, will cover the features, requirements, best practices and differences from the Xbox version. Also included will be a sneak peak of new and upcoming LIVE features and some cool demos!
Intended Audience: Programmers and game designers
Prerequisites: Experience developing or playing Xbox LIVE
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Lecturer (2nd): David Simkins, University of Wisconsin-Madison
We present a theoretical framework for understanding the extent to which such virtual worlds are structurally similar to Oldenburg’s (1999) “third places” for informal sociability, their potential function in terms of social capital, and the role of collaborative problem solving within such spaces, which share important structural features with cross-functional teams, a form of collaborative problem-solving that characterizes many of today’s “new capitalist” corporate workplaces. In this presentation, we describe empirical analysis of such in-game collaborative activities, highlighting the ways in which, through participation in them, individuals build social and cultural capital within their social networks both, online and off.
Intended Audience: Designers interested in social dynamics, user cognition & learning
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Moderator: James Hursthouse, Online Game Services, Inc.
Panelist: James Gwertzman, PopCap Games
Panelist: Tom DuBois, Electronic Arts
The online game medium seems to offer a great deal of potential for success in international markets but many attempts to take games overseas fail. Using real-world examples, this session aims to provide insights into the criteria for success in international markets. The panel will assess design and development decisions that help games gain acceptance in multiple markets, as well as an analysis of appropriate business strategies for accessing new markets.
Intended Audience:
Prerequisites:
Format: Panel
Date/Time: Thursday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Lecturer: Erin Turner, Trion World Network
What if 75 percent of households in the world had broadband penetration? What if games were the biggest form of entertainment? What if networking and leisure time was conducted primarily though games? What if interactive entertainment felt as accessible and timely as TV programming? Visionaries in the game business don't believe you would be dreaming. Entertainment is evolving entirely and finding a new platform: online. This translates directly into business opportunities for developers, publishers, content makers, anyone who is in the business of making money by making lives richer through entertainment and social outlets. Panelists scratch the surface to inspire ideas.
Intended Audience: As a business track panel, CEOs, business development, sales and marketing professionals benefit from this panel.
Prerequisites: The games community needs to understand what fundamentally will drive the success of their businesses is the broadband era. From content, to revenue streams, this panel gives insight on how to plan for the future. Our expert discusses how developers can harness the tools and resources available to make the most of this move.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 5:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: James E. Dunstan, Garvey Schubert Barer
Well-written End User License Agreements (EULA)s provide the contractual backbone for computer games. As online games mature into online communities with their own economies, the EULA can become the "law of the land," and govern everything from the sale of virtual property to the ability of the developer to shut down accounts that use cheats, hacks, and exploits that upset the balance of a game. This session will focus on the essential elements of an enforceable EULA, as well as useful tips on getting subscriber buy-in to what looks like a horribly draconian document.
Intended Audience: Game designers and publishers.
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of licensing agreements.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 5:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Robert Mitchell, Sony Online Entertainment
Programming an online game consists working on the game and everything but the game. This talk will ignore the first half and explore some of the details about the second. The session will cover patching, chat, persistent messaging, localization, user authentication, billing, customer support tools, logging, monitoring, interactive web extensions, auctions, transfer services, and community tools. The objective is to reveal some of the issues and choices that have to be made when creating an online game. These often overlooked and forgotten features will differentiate your service from the rest of the games.
Intended Audience: Technical directors, server programmers, operations managers, and anyone else willing to look into the darkness.
Prerequisites: Some knowledge about online games to help place the systems discussed into context. The intent of the session is to be at the introductory level.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 5:00 PM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Steve Augustino, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
This session will focus on the role that broadband access networks have on online gaming and the legal and business trends affecting these networks. The debate over “net neutrality” and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) offerings will be discussed, as well as Broadband over Powerline, wireless broadband, and other technologies threatening the telephone and cable TV networks.
Intended Audience: This session is intended for game publishers and developers who want to understand the latest trends in broadband deployment and U.S. broadband policy. It will be particularly useful for designers and business people involved in the creation of MMOGs, but will be of interest to any attendee who wants to understand the types of broadband facilities being deployed and the potential impact of newer high speed Internet access options on gaming. The session will not be technical in nature.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday, 5:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Lecturer: John Hopson, Ph.D., Microsoft Games Studios/Games User Research
Lecturer (2nd): Lisa Galarneau, M.Sc., The University of Waikato, New Zealand
Lecturer (2nd): Ramon Romero, Microsoft Games Studios/Games User Research
User research is a critical component of the game development process that works best when initiated in pre-production. The intricacies of the online game experience make user research even more important, but also present unique challenges. In this presentation, researchers at Microsoft Game Studios present their work and explain how they are adapting their methods to online game research.
Intended Audience: Producers, designers, usability engineers, others.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Christof Wegmann, Exit Games
Mobile infrastructure affects ported online games – devices, bandwidth, latency, gatekeepers; Casual Gaming: PC-to-Mobile game development and deployment; Core Gaming: Mobile 3D MMOG games for BREW and Java; Case studies: Flash-to-Mobile US rollout, 3D mobile MMOG
Intended Audience: Game developers participating in or intending to enter the mobile games market
Prerequisites: Attendees should have work experience in game development – ideally in the realm of connected games.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Joe Ludwig, Flying Lab Software
Quite a bit of middleware has arrived on the scene in the past several years, and Flying Lab has used some of it. This session will cover our experience with Alchemy, PathEngine, Miles Sound System, Promethean FX, and the PHYSX SDK while developing our upcoming MMP Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Intended Audience: Programmers who are currently (or about to start) evaluating middleware for inclusion in their next game and producers who want to know some packages to recommend to their programmers.
Prerequisites: To gain the most from this talk, participants should have experience evaluating and integrating game middleware.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Sue Bohle, The Bohle Company
Participants will leave the session with: the ability to identify different types of game media outlets and learn what each requires, to maximize product coverage, achieve mentioned reviews in the gamer, consumer and business press, and to mobilize fan sites.
Intended Audience: CEOs and marketing reps at game developers and publishers
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 9:00 AM,
Room: Senate
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Moderator: Rich Weil, Kaneva
Panelist: Charles Manning, PLAYXPERT
Panelist: Alexander Macris, Themis Group, Inc.
Panelist: Craig T. Dalrymple, Sony Online Entertainment
Panelist: Geoffrey “GZ” Zatkin, EEDAR (Electronic Entertainment Design and Research)
In an effort to create and maintain user communities, the new generation of online gaming services has adapted many features from massively multiplayer games and social networking sites. Chat and matchmaking are no longer enough; modern users demand identities in place of anonymity, intelligent matchmaking, friendship development mechanisms and shared goals. Join us for an examination of virtual communities, retention mechanisms, viral advertising and the transformation of anonymous online users into vibrant social communities.
Intended Audience: Game designers, producers, marketing, community support and anyone else interested in helping their game or service to obtain and/or retain a larger community.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Panel
Date/Time: Friday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Congress
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Moderator: Gavin Longhurst, BigWorld
Panelist: John Romero, Slipgate Ironworks
Panelist: Dan Elggren, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment
Today’s gamers have been spoiled with some amazing visions of online worlds and global communities which have sprung up around games on a scale never before seen. This panel session focuses on issues facing game designers and developers for the next few years, from challenges in producing large volumes of art, keeping gamers and communities alike inspired, and the blurring of the line between games and social worlds.
Intended Audience:
Prerequisites:
Format: Sponsored Panel
Date/Time: Friday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Ramon Axelrod, AIseek
MMO designers are beginning to introduce dynamic changes into worlds that have previously been almost entirely static. This makes for a compelling playing experience, but can be a major headache for AI programmers. If the physical world can change at any moment, how can the AI of the NPCs keep up? This talk addresses this challenge with an innovative technique for updating the key AI data structure (the map, or game graph) in real-time. The technique starts with the game’s raw geometry (“polygon soup”) and processes this on the CPU (or even GPU!), generating or updating the game graph automatically.
Intended Audience: AI programmers
Prerequisites: Attendees should have experience with standard game AI programming techniques.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Joseph Ybarra, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment
What does it take to go from nothing to a world class studio in less than two years? Joe Ybarra, vice president of product development, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, will discuss the challenges of licensing a popular IP, hiring talent and building a studio from the ground up. Ybarra was one of the original game producers at Electronic Arts in 1982 and his experience with MMORPGs dates back to 1993 when he developed Shadow of Yserbius for Sierra Online. His background in game and business development gives him unique insight into the challenges of building a world-class MMO while building a company.
Intended Audience: General
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 10:00 AM,
Room: Senate
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Lecturer: Kirk A. Soderquist, Perkins Coie LLP
Lecturer (2nd): Don McGowan, Microsoft
This presentation will look at MMOGs such as World of Warcraft, Vanguard, and Second Life to examine virtual property and the intersection of real money in a virtual world. We'll look at several issues such as: What is virtual property and who owns it? What is the legal status of an in-game currency? What should game publishers do to protect themselves, to promote these economies, or both? What are the tax and income implications of buying and selling virtual property? What are some of the business issues in hosting MMOGs and real cash economies? How do real-world legal issues like gambling and illegal lotteries play out in an interactive world? We’ll also provide some information about different approaches to MMOGs outside the USA and some initial thoughts about recent MMOG regulations in China.
Intended Audience: All
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: George Dolbier, IBM Games and Interactive Entertainment
Lecturer: Brett Close, 38 Studios
Building an MMO product has notoriously involved magnitudes of complexity beyond that of other areas of software entertainment product. Capital commitment, strategic partnerships, choosing middleware, team scaling, IP attachment, massive content generation, managing data centers, billing and authentication, community management, tech support, and cross platform factors: These are some of the challenges which can only be conquered by the larger players (NOT!). Brett Close and George Dolbier will share their thoughts on how the barriers to entry for MMO development is changing rapidly. Building a studio, building an MMO product, technology choices, development methodologies, and the number 42, are just a few of the areas covered in this session.
Intended Audience: Anyone interested in developing online entertainment infrastructures.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Sponsored Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Simon Hayes, BigWorld
In this talk I will present a number of techniques that can be used to tackle the problems of internet latency, to deliver a smooth and responsive experience. Techniques we will discuss include client-side prediction, server-side predetermination, lag disguises, movement filtering and information prioritising. The end result is being able to deliver twitch style gameplay such as fast paced combat to the consumer with no visible lag.
Intended Audience: All Programmers
Prerequisites: Attendees should have understanding of networking issues.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Keith Halper, Kuma Reality Games
“Episodic Games” has become a much-used term of late, but based on the variety of games called “episodic” -- Sin, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Sam and Max, History Channel’s ShootOut!, the DinoHunters and, of course, Kuma\War – we don’t all mean the same thing by the term.
Intended Audience: This topic should speak to a large and diverse audience holding relevance to not only the programmers, but artists, marketers, producers, C-level. Just about anyone who wants to know what it takes to be truly episodic.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 11:00 AM,
Room: Senate
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Keynote: Erik Bethke, GoPets Ltd.
This visionary keynote will take a glimpse into games industry five years in the future. What happened to the consoles, and why did they die? What does the TV do now? What does my mobile do for me now? Erik will discuss the dramatic emergence of Player Created Activity, and the overlapping experiences between video, SNS, casual gaming, items,narrative and interactive.
Intended Audience:
Prerequisites:
Format: Keynote
Date/Time: Friday, 1:00 PM,
Room: Spanish Ballroom
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Moderator: Joshua Hong, K2 Network
Panelist: John Maffei, Affinity Media
Panelist: Peter Gollan, CCP Games
Panelist: Rich Wickham, Microsoft
Panelist: Steve Goldstein, Flagship Studios
Panelist: Tony Park, The9
The new micro-payment and Free2Play Model is replacing the subscription fees gaming model giving more options to gamers than ever before. Consumers can now play a game and decide if they like it enough to pay for a more enhanced experience. Multiple monthly game subscription fees can weigh a consumer down, but now they have control over exactly how much money they’re spending and what specific in-game enhancements they purchase. This method benefits both consumers and distributors, because unlike a one time retail fee or monthly set subscription fee, these games offer no limit to the amount of money an avid gamer can spend. The cost value benefits consumers and developers alike.
Intended Audience: Producers, Developers, Executives, etc.
Prerequisites: None
Format: Panel
Date/Time: Friday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Intended Audience:
Prerequisites:
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Isaac Barry, Sierra Online
One game designer's effort to understand his art and craft leads to an armchair view of the rapidly developing brain sciences. This talk will survey models of the brain, games and design and discuss how some of these models are more helpful than others.
Intended Audience: Game developers interested in learning more about human brains and how to benefit from this knowledge.
Prerequisites: A general interest
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Dave Weinstein, Microsoft
Lecturer (2nd): Bill Shihara, Microsoft
Lecturer (2nd): Jeff MacDermot, Microsoft
Historically, game developers have not been concerned with security issues outside of cheating. Moreover, outside of the MMO arena, even issues of cheating received relatively little attention. But as other vulnerabilities are closed, malicious software developers may be turning their sights on the increasingly large multiplayer game market. Additionally, many of the design and development patterns commonly used in computer game development are ideal for exploitation. This is a discussion of what happens when tools and techniques used to find security vulnerabilities are applied to game development, from the perspective of both the security auditors, and the game developers.
Intended Audience: The intended audience is made up of producers, software engineers, and test leads in the game development community. No understanding of security issues is necessary for understanding the session.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with the traditional product development cycle in the game industry is advised, but not necessary. No understanding of security issues is necessary.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 2:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Lecturer: Scott Brown, NetDevil
Lecturer (2nd): Hermann Peterscheck, NetDevil
Get an in-depth and intimate look at the bowels of Massively Multiplayer game development. This talk will use real life experience and specific examples to show how 3rd party MMO development happens. The speakers will focus on the original business deal, the relationship between publisher and developer and the effect it has on the development and design decisions. Attendees can expect to come away with a good understanding of what to watch out for, which mistakes to avoid and what to expect from the MMO development process. The plan is to have a reasonable amount of time for Q&A.
Intended Audience: People who are working on, or trying to work on a Massively Multiplayer Online game as a 3rd party developer.
Prerequisites: No specific knowledge is required.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Yoav Tzruya, Exent Technologies
In-game advertising has opened the door for developers to create cost-effective games. With innovation from new technologies that push the boundaries of in-game advertising by enabling insertion of in-game ads in old and existing game titles, developers can deliver an entertaining and mutually beneficial gaming experience to consumers. Developers will learn which types of games are most effective for advertising and new technologies that enable the insertion of ads into pre-existing game titles.
Intended Audience: This session is intended for both developers with no experience integrating ads in games, as well as developers who have already deployed games with ads. Independent developers can especially benefit from this session, as well as decision makers at major game studios.
Prerequisites: Attendees should be familiar with the growing field of in-game advertisement
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Bart House, Microsoft
The bulk of this talk will cover the approach taken by Shadowrun, a FASA first person shooter to be release in the Spring of 2007, to dynamically adjust server and client bandwidth usage during play to maintain low latencies between clients and the server while at the same time fully utilizing the bandwidth of the server’s home connection. Additional time will be spent covering related issues that arise from using a player’s home connection as the host of an online client server game.
Intended Audience: Server programmers.
Prerequisites: Attendees should have a general knowledge of TCP/IP and a general understanding client server game architectures.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Daniel Ostenso, Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago
Online Learning has become a major force in today’s educational landscape. There is a rapidly growing interest among teachers (at all levels) in using online, multiplayer game platforms to create much more compelling educational experiences than web pages and chat rooms will allow. This session will showcase examples of how educators are adapting online games today, how they will likely seek to use online games in the near future, and how game companies could benefit from supporting educational applications of their products.
Intended Audience: Executive Decision Makers, Game Designers, Programmers, Producers
Prerequisites: None
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 3:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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Moderator: James Hursthouse, Online Game Services, Inc.
Panelist: George Dolbier, IBM Games and Interactive Entertainment
Panelist: Anthony Brown, Seven Group Digital Media
At what stages of development should various technology decisions be made? Should technology choices drive game design decisions or vice versa? What are the mechanisms and processes through which deployment costs can be accurately estimated? What are the considerations when deciding to build or buy? Utilizing real-world, empirical data relating to the various costs involved in deploying an MMO, this session analyses how design decisions can directly impact the costs associated with a game's commercial infrastructure requirements, and how to avoid infrastructure pitfalls that lead to those 'Oh, Crap!' moments at launch time.
Intended Audience: Anyone interested in developing online entertainment infrastructures.
Prerequisites: A basic understanding of MMO infrastrucuture
Format: Sponsored Panel
Date/Time: Friday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Congress
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Lecturer: Walter Bright, Digital Mars
Description of advanced D programming language features foreach loops, lambdas, mixins, tuples, scope guards, lazy arguments, and static ifs.
Intended Audience: The intended audience consists of programmers who are interested in the state of the art in programming language design, and those who are interested in doing their next project in D.
Prerequisites: Assumes general knowledge of C++ programming, knowledge of D programming a plus but is not necessary.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Council
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Lecturer: Shayne Herrera, Cryptic Studios
Lecturer (2nd): Sean Burgoon, Cryptic Studios
Shayne Herrera, a 10 year veteran of the video game industry and Development Director of Art at Cryptic Studios (creators of the beloved “City of” games), demonstrates how Cryptic Studios is working with the game animation community to create their new technology. By maximizing efficiency and using character rig accessible to everyone, Cryptic Studios has answered the call to create a free “learning” rig that can be used by any 3D Studio Max user. Herrera and animator Sean Burgoon will demonstrate how the Cryptic Studios’ rig will change the game animation community.
Intended Audience: The intended audience is videogame game artists ranging from beginner to expert level.
Prerequisites: Attendees should have an understanding of 3d modelling as well as 3d animation.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Parliament
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Lecturer: Corey Bridges, Multiverse
The business of video games is changing radically. And as it changes, so too changes the art of designing games. Learn how the future will reward the bold and the nimble, and prepare now for how you can benefit from it.
Intended Audience: Anyone in the game industry, from designers, to programmers, to business people.
Prerequisites: The audience for this lecture should be familiar with the game industry, and want to know what their industry will look like in a few years.
Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Friday, 4:00 PM,
Room: Senate
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