GDC Europe 2010 Call for Submissions

The Call for Submissions has closed.

Overview & Guidelines | Submission Criteria

Introduction

The GDC Europe 2010 is the premier professional conference for the creators of games within the European community. If you share our passion and commitment for videogames, we want to hear from you. The GDC Europe is now soliciting session proposals from potential speakers with deep industry expertise and a fresh and unique perspective on the state of the industry.

Suggested topics for each track are now available. Submit your proposals (including your own topics) via the Submission Form.

Tracks

Click on the desired track to review the list of topics:

Business and Management
Game Design
Production
Technology
Visual Arts

Criteria

Successful submissions will answer the following questions:

What expertise and insight do you bring to this topic?
How many shipped titles (products) you have produced, project-managed or directed? Over how many years?
What is the largest team you've personally managed/directed?
What is the largest development budget you have personally controlled?
Are you sharing a current best practice or proposing a future solution?
What professional training or experience have you received in project management?
How many units did your best-selling game sell to consumers?
Who would benefit most from your talk?
What was the best-rated game you produced or directed?
Do you personally manage content creators?
What sort of visuals and examples will back up the ideas?

Business and Management

To succeed, game developers need both broad-ranging business knowledge about the industry and in-depth financial and management experience to apply to their current project.

Game Design

The goal of the game design track is to inspire, demystify, educate and reveal the most interesting and important aspects a leading designer will be faced with today and in the coming years.

Suggested Topics

A nuts and bolts breakdown of the compulsion and viral mechanics of a popular social networking game such as Farmville, Mobsters 2, or Mafia Wars.

Rationale: People who never considered themselves gamers are flocking to social media games, and game designers are scrambling to understand the underlying mechanics that drive a game such as Farmville to have over 60 Million users.
The ideal talk would use specific examples from one or two games to provide a taxonomy of the compulsion and viral mechanics that it takes for one of these games to be successful from a gameplay point of view. (We are not interested in the business model except as it affects the actual game design, nor are we interested in a "general overview" of these game mechanics).

The state of console Achievements. An examination of the achievements systems of Xbox360 and PS3 and STEAM, how they affect game design.

Rationale: Designers need to incorporate achievements into their console games. Which are successful, and which fail?
The ideal talk would cover in detail the landscape of the achievement systems of both consoles, how they are similar and how they differ. What do game designers need to do in order to successfully incorporate achievements into their games? What are some concrete examples of strategies and ideas that either did or did not affect player loyalty or commitment?

XBLA and PSN: Designing Console Games for Downloadable Distribution

Rationale: Designing for XBLA and PSN is not like designing for the 360 and PS3. The audiences are looking for something different, the games are smaller, the prices are lower and the schedules are shorter. How does a designer adapt to this specialized corner of the console business?
The ideal talk will present hands-on examples of how a designer used different approaches, strategies etc. to produce a successful game for these downloadable console systems.

Designing for Gestural Interfaces: Unique Opportunities on Wii, Natal and The Sony Motion Sensing Hardware -- Designing for What the Wii can really do

Rationale: Designing games where players use their whole bodies to play is different than designing games where people use a hand controller. What can we learn from the best current games that will help us design great new games with these exciting interfaces?
The ideal talk will present will present concrete examples of game mechanics and design aesthetics that work well with gestural interfaces.
Rationale: Most consumers imagine that the Wii detects far more about their position and movement than the Wiimote actually captures. How does a designer take advantage of this new kind of "willing suspension of disbelief" to make the most immersive possible games?
The ideal talk will present concrete examples of a designer's work, and what did and did not work when trying to create unique new games for the Wii.

Design for the Bus Stop

Rationale: The PSP, the DS and the iPhone have given us the ability to play games any time we have even a tiny window of free time. Flash and social media games bring the same short game sessions into the home or office. What kinds of game experiences are satisfying in 5 minutes of play?
The ideal talk will demonstrate several short-gameplay-session games and explain the design principles that make them compelling.

Story construction in non-traditional games

Rationale: Games are branching out in many different directions. Some categories like RPG's and action-adventure have always been based on story, but now we see more story development in less obvious categories.
The ideal talk will present examples of story or narrative elements included in several categories new games, and will answer the question, "Is the story window-dressing or a core part of the game design? How does the story make this game even more fun to play?"

New gameplay mechanics from the indie scene

Rationale: The return of small teams has caused an explosion of new gameplay mechanics on the indie front. What are the most interesting examples?
The ideal talk will present four or five games in succession, playing each of them live, sufficiently to demonstrate an innovative gameplay mechanic

Open-ended game design

Rationale: Traditional games come to an end. Social games and MMOs are designed to go on forever. How do you design an apparently-infinite succession of challenges?
The ideal talk will examine how designers implement game features to retain players at the "high end" so they keep playing indefinitely.

Breaking into the Browser: Designing for Browser Based Games

Rationale: The growth of browser-based games has been driven by instant gratification: with no waiting for a download players can have fun without delay and without the worries of installing something new on their machines. What challenges and opportunities do browser-based games offer?
The ideal talk will present hands-on experiences from a designer who has shipped multiple products in this space, and will share personal lessons on what kinds of approaches work and what design strategies lead to dead ends.

Game prototyping tools and the Power of Iteration

Rationale: Successful games go through several rapid cycles of prototyping and incremental design during pre-production. What tools can designers use to do this?
The ideal talk will present several prototyping tools and demonstrate portions of them live to show off their benefits.
Rationale: Ask the prominent designers in the history of games how they took a game from good to great, and one word will almost always appear in their answers: iteration. But with budget pressures, large teams and tight schedules how can designers get those iterative cycles to tune the gameplay of their titles?
The ideal talk will present hands-on designer experiences with recent titles where their teams were successfully able to iterate on a design to produce a successful game.

Game Design as a Team Sport

Rationale: Large console games have many designers, each working on a separate area of the game. Much smaller online games might have one designer in Singapore and another in London. How do the best teams make this kind of cooperation work to produce commendable designs instead of design by committee?
The ideal talk will present concrete examples of multiple designer successfully creating and implementing innovative game designs in successful titles.

Standing Out from the Crowd: Designing iPhone Games that Stand Out

Rationale: There are over 20,000 iPhone games in the App Store, but only a few make significant money. What kinds of designs make a game stand out in this crowded world?
The ideal talk will present concrete examples of a designer's successful and unsuccessful approaches to iPhone game design.

Metrics in Serious Game design

Rationale: One of the largest obstacles to the use of games for training is the lack of hard proof that they are more effective than traditional training methods.
The ideal talk will present examples of serious games that have incorporated measurements of effectiveness (assessment) into the design of the game itself.

Educational Game Design

Rationale: We know that games came be powerful tools in education, but the educational market actually generates less revenue than it did a generation ago. What do we need to do to bring back commercially successful large-scale educational games?
The ideal talk will cite examples of educational games that are having commercial success in schools or at retail. If there are rules for the design of such games, what are they?

Game Design Basics – From Game Design Student to Professional Game Designer: What They Never Taught You in College or Grad School

Rationale: More and more schools around the world, public, non-profit and for-profit, continue to teach game design, but employers continue to say, "When we hire them we still have lots of training to really make them professionals." Students need help just to get that first professional job, and knowing what else they need to learn "to turn pro" can help them get the best positions.
The ideal talk will be presented by a hiring manager and/or an industry designer who majored in some aspect of game development and then entered the profession. The talk will cover the things that students typically have to learn in their first jobs in order to be valuable members of a game development team.
Rationale: New people are coming into the field every year seeking careers in game design. They're game players, but have never designed a title. What do they need to know?
The ideal talk will cover the basic rules of game design, including the fun/difficulty curve, balancing, feedback, handling the moment-to-moment experience, etc.

Game Design Basics – Making the Jump from AP for Testing to Design

Rationale: Testers and AP's know a great deal about games, but sometimes don't have a clear vision of all the issues a designer has to think about when constructing levels or game mechanics.
The ideal talk will be presented by someone who made this transition himself or herself. Rather than a personal story of how the speaker did it, we're looking for the perspectives on design issues that AP's and Testers may miss, but that Designers must master in order to successfully practice their craft.

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Production

Technology

The current-generation consoles and sky high expectations are putting the focus on ever more accurate simulations of physical reality. The programming track addresses the challenges facing developers.

Visual Arts

The Visual Arts track addresses the latest technologies, techniques, and tools used to develop quality artwork in a streamlined, efficient, and productive manner.