The new site for the Game Developers Conference is up. My third post in this blog when I started it last year was about the same thing. California is calling me. It’s really been getting to me lately, I was daydreaming about LA yesterday (that won’t be until May). I’m glad the conference is going back to San Jose this year. Anyhow, on to the real news of it.


I’m perusing the sessions on the Game Design track. There seem to be a few eye-catchers in there. The Casual Games Summit could be good. It seems too general in the audience requirements, but with a whole day to spend on it you have to learn something. The Web-Based Games Roundtable might be more up my alley. They’re doing 3 one-hour sessions with specific topics. I’d rather that than commit a whole day to the casual games thing and risk getting nothing new out of it.

To be honest this will be my first time with more than an expo pass. I get a whole lot out of the expo, but I feel like it’s time to raise my game, so to speak. The sessions I’ve been to have been very informative. You can get an idea from my previous GDC posts. The ones in March cover the actual conference and sessions, the rest are probably just me waiting for it.

The Button Masher: Examining The Dynamics of Button Mashing Gameplay. There’s a guy that knows how to reel you in. It’s a poster session I’m going to have to check out. Do-It-Yourself Usability: How to Use User Research to Improve your Game Sounds like something I’d be really into while I’m there, but might not be practical for me. The speaker is Marcos Nunes-Ueno from Games User Research at Microsoft Game Studios. It looks like they’ve done some work in the area, so I’m going to have a look around their site and see if I can get a feel for what that all day session would cover.

I’m going to keep on skimming and I’ll probably have another update later on today.