GDC Europe 2010

2010 Game Developers Conference Europe organizers have announced a Rare-helmed lecture on Microsoft's Kinect, the BioWare co-founders on the Baldur's Gate franchise, plus an iPhone marketing lecture from Words With Friends' creator, withthe early registration deadline looming.

These in-depth talks are the latest to be announced for the 2010 Game Developers Conference Europe event, which will take place August 16th-18th, and is located in Cologne, Germany alongside GamesCom, the leading regional trade and consumer show.

The announcements come with less than two weeks to go before the July 21st early registration deadline for the show, which is now in its second year as the pre-eminent European game development event. The notable new speakers for this must-attend show for game developers throughout Europe consist of the following:

- In a lecture entitled 'Kinecting With A New Audience', Rare's Nick Burton and Blitz's Andrew Oliver -- respectively first and third-party developers for the Xbox 360's newly announced Kinect motion control system -- will talk about their recent experiences building Kinect launch titles and how this affected development in their respective studios.

Subjects will include "how Kinect fitted into their game engines.... how design was affected... how they built on top of changing technology", as well as many other notable areas that might be of interest to game creators considering how motion-controlled gameplay might work within their own titles.

- A special lecture called 'Baldur's Gate - A 10 Year-Retrospective' see BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk team up with Obsidian CEO and former Black Isle head Feargus Urquhart to present a retrospective lecture on the seminal PC role-playing game Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn - one of the highest-rated RPGs of all time. The Dungeons & Dragons-based title launched in 2000, and paved the way for successful BioWare RPGs like Dragon Age and the Mass Effect franchise - and three of the principals will discuss the game's creation in depth.

- In addition, 'Keys to Successful iPhone Game Marketing' sees Newtoy CEO Paul Bettner, creator of popular iPhone/iPad app Words With Friends, team up with Sidhe and PikPok's Jos Ruffell (Bird Strike, Flick Kick Football) to discuss how they created successful, best-selling iPhone titles. As the duo note, "from the effectiveness of advertising, to code giveaways and promotions, if you're creating a game for iPhone, this session will better prepare you for the task of marketing your game."

These latest announcements are part of a large GDC Europe line-up that includes a rare lecture from Another World creator Eric Chahi on his new title Project Dust, as well as a ESA/G.A.M.E. panel on government intervention in games and a Heavy Rain production talk. Also added are lectures and panels from Remedy art director Saku Lehtinen on Alan Wake, Ensemble co-founder Bruce Shelley on creating a design proposal, plus a keynote from Chinese online game powerhouse Tencent.

Other talks in the packed line-up include significant lectures from Quantic Dream's David Cage, InstantAction's Lou Castle, and the creators of Crysis 2, APB and Split/Second, plus other lectures and keynotes from Sony, Playdom, and German gaming powerhouse Bigpoint (Battlestar Galactica MMO).

The conference, taking place Monday through Wednesday August 16-18, 2010 at the Cologne Congress Center East in Cologne, Germany, aims to present the leading game industry event for developers, consumers, publishers and trade professionals. The event will run alongside the major GamesCom event, to which free access is available for non-student GDC Europe passholders.

For more information on GDC Europe, which is created by the UBM Techweb Game Network, as is this website, and for which reduced price registration is in place until July 21st -- visit the official Game Developers Conference Europe website: http://www.gdceurope.com