Schlagwort: gdc

  • Xbox kehrt zur GDC zurück: Entdecke die nächste Ära mit Xbox Anywhere

    Xbox kehrt zur GDC zurück: Entdecke die nächste Ära mit Xbox Anywhere

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    As we gear up for the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025, we couldn’t be more excited to meet up with our friends and colleagues in the industry and explore the many incredible new opportunities that await. This year, GDC takes place from March 17-21 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. We’ll host partner meetings, participate in conference sessions, and sponsor events like the IGF Awards and the ESA Foundation’s Nite to Unite. Attendees that come by the Xbox Lounge in Moscone South will have a chance to see the latest Xbox experience on PC, join a Q&A with an Xbox development expert, and learn about the opportunities and benefits of building with Xbox across PC, Cloud and Console.

    Xbox is expanding to any screen on any device, making it easier for anyone to play with the friends they want – whether they choose to play with Xbox console, PC, Smart TV or mobile. At GDC, we’re inviting game developers to go behind the scenes to better understand what it means for Xbox to be playable on any screen. We’re committed to empowering game developers to tap into that opportunity by building cross-capable games that take advantage of Xbox across devices. Our presence will reveal the many ways game developers can reach more players with Xbox and showcase success stories of developers who are maximizing the opportunity.

    Whether you’re an indie developer or a seasoned professional, Xbox speakers will be presenting insights for every stage of your development journey. Check out the full schedule below. If you will be engaging remotely, you can learn more by visiting our Game Development Resource Hub here and to learn more about AI for Gaming, check out our Gaming AI Resource Hub here.

    For us, GDC 2025 is as much about showcasing the Xbox developer experience as it is about fostering collaboration with partners and driving our gaming future, together. See you there!

    Monday, March 17

    The Future of Gaming Supported by AI: How Xbox is Empowering Players and Creators (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Fatima Kardar (Microsoft), Sonali Yadav (Microsoft)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 3011, West Hall

    UX Summit: UX Writing: A New(ish) Craft in Mobile Games
    Speaker: Patricia Gomez (King)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 2010, West Hall

    AI Innovation for Game Experiences: From Research to Prototyping (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Haiyan Zhang (Xbox), Katja Hofmann (Microsoft)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 3011, West Hall

    Community Management Summit: Social Media Microtalks: Authenticity from You and the Business “We”
    Speaker: Cindy Tran (Obsidian Entertainment), Antonio Cara (DeNA Corp.), Harper Jay MacIntyre (Double Fine Productions Inc), Livvy Hall (Xbox Game Studios Publishing), Megan Spurr (Microsoft)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 2014, West Hall

    Live Service Games Summit: Reinventing ‘Candy Crush Soda’ for the Next 10 years
    Speaker: Abigail Rindo (King), Paul Hellier (King)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Animation Summit: ‚Diablo 4‘: Bringing to Life the Priestess of Hatred

    Speaker: Chad Waldschmidt (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 3:50 pm – 4:20 pm
    Location: Room 2018, West Hall

    Machine Learning Summit: Fitting Armor Assets in ‘World of Warcraft’ with Deep Learning
    Speaker: Zhen Zhai (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 5:30pm – 6:00pm
    Location: Room 3018, West Hall

    UX Summit: Making the World Playful: The Importance of Accessible Mobile Games
    Speaker:     Emilio Jeldrez (King)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 5:30pm – 6:00pm
    Location: Room 2010, West Hall

    Tuesday, March 18

    Live Service Games Summit: Mass Engagement Winning Strategies: The 15M Player Tournament of ‚Candy Crush Saga‘
    Speaker: Margaux Diaz (King), Roberto Kusabbi (King)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Thriving Players Summit: Prosocial Design Workshop
    Speaker:     Natasha Miller (Blizzard Entertainment), Weszt Hart (Riot Games)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 9:30am – 11;50am
    Location: Room 3005, West Hall

    The Climate Crisis Workshop
    Speaker: Grant Shonkwiler (Shonkventures LLC), Trevin York (Dire Lark), Paula Angela Escuadra (Microsoft / Xbox), Jennifer Estaris (ustwo games), Arnaud Fayolle (Ubisoft)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 10:00am – 6:00pm
    Location: Room 204, South Hall

    AI Executive Panel: Exploring What’s Next in AI for Gaming (Presented by EPAM)
    Speaker: Stef Corazza (Roblox) Vitalli Vashchuk (EPAM) Haiyan Zhang (Xbox), Craig Nowell, Databricks
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 10:30am – 11:30am
    Location: Room 2020, West Hall

    Gaming Reimagined: Mobile’s Impact on Play Today (Presented by King)
    Speaker: Todd Green (King), Paula Ingvar (King), Peiwen Yao (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 2000, West Hall

    Unpacking Anti-Toxicity Strategy in „Call of Duty“ (Presented by Community Clubhouse)
    Speaker: Mark Frumkin (Modulate), Grant Cahill (Activision)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 2:40pm – 3:40pm
    Location: Esplanade 158, South Hall

    Live Service Games Summit: Game Designer’s Notebook
    Speakers: Marta Cortiñas (King), Kenny Dinkin (King)
    Time: 2:40pm – 3:40pm
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Wednesday, March 19

    Opening a Billion Doors with Xbox (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Leo Olebe (Microsoft), Chris Charla (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
    Location: Room 3022, West Hall

    Accelerating Your Inner Loop with Visual Studio and GitHub Copilot AI (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: David Li (Microsoft), Michael Price (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    Grow Your Audience with the Updated Xbox Experience on PC (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker:     Tila Nguyen (Microsoft), Jose Rady (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    Make your Game Available ANYWHERE with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Harrison Hoffman (Microsoft), Jordan Cohen (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 2000, West Hall

    Masterworking Systems: Lessons Learned from the Engineering of Season of Loot Reborn in ‚Diablo IV‘

    Speaker: Patrick Ferland (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Ask Game Lawyers Anything Roundtable Day 1
    Speaker: Ryan Black (DLA Piper (Canada) LLP), Brandon Huffman (Odin Law and Media), Angelo Alcid (Microsoft Corp.), Yan Perng (Netflix)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
    Location: Room 308, South Hall

    Xbox Game Studios Panel: Scaling Cross-Platform Development Across Xbox and PC (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Kate Rayner (Microsoft), Soren Hannibal Nielsen (Microsoft, Chuck Rozhon (Obsidion Entertainment), Chad Dawson (Double Fine Productions) Phil Cousins (Microsoft), Magnus Auvinen (Machine Games)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
    Location: Room 2000, West Hall

    Thursday, March 20

    DirectX State of the Union: Raytracing and PIX Workflows (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Claire Andrews (Microsoft), Austin Kinross (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 2009, West Hall

    VFX Storytelling: How „Hearthstone“ Breathes Life Into Hundreds of Cards
    Speaker: Alex Cortes (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Inclusive Gaming AI: Red Teaming for Accessibility and Disability
    Speaker: Brannon Zahand (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
    Location: Room 3005, West Hall

    Strategies for Indie Devs: How to Succeed with Xbox (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: James Lewis (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 11:30am – 12:30pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    G.A.N.G. Demo Derby: Sound Design
    Speaker: Nick Hartman (Sound Lab), Scott Gershin (Sound Lab), Charles Deenen (Source Sound Inc), Gary Miranda (Injected Senses Audio), Brian Farr (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 12:15pm – 1:45pm
    Location: Room 3018, West Hall

    From Idea to Action: Lessons from a New Accessibility Initiative (Presented by The Entertainment Software Association)
    Speaker: Aubrey Quinn  (Entertainment Software Association), Paul Amadeus Lane  (Amadeus 4th Corp), Amy Lazarus  (Electronic Arts), Dara Monasch  (Google), Anna Waismeyer  (Microsoft/Xbox), Steven Evans  (Nintendo of America), David Tisserand  (Ubisoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 12:15pm – 1:15pm
    Location: GDC Main Stage, West Hall, Street Level

    Windows Productivity Tools for Game Developers (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Demitrius Nelon (Microsoft), Kayla Cinnamon (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 12:15pm – 1:15pm
    Location: Room 2024, West Hall

    Amplifying Player Voices with LLMs in Game Development
    Speaker: Joshua Koen (Blizzard Entertainment), Ian Livingston (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 1:30pm – 2:00pm
    Location: Room, 2010, West Hall 

    Securing the Joy of Gaming: Xbox’s Commitment to Gaming Security and Innovation (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Temi Adebambo (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    Xbox Play Anywhere Developer Roundtable (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Chris Charla (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 2004, West Hall

    King: Enhancing Mobile Audio with Accessibility and Inclusion
    Speaker: Eduardo Broseta (King)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 2:30pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 3024, West Hall

    Friday, March 21

    Game Career Seminar: STR, DEX and INT: A Genre-Spanning Way to Think About Gameplay
    Speaker: Joseph Shely  (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Friday, March 21
    Time: 11:50am – 12:20pm
    Location: Room 3005, West Hall

    Game Career Seminar: Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer Part 2: Portfolio Reviews
    Speakers:     Greg Foertsch  (Bit Reactor), Sarah LeBlanc  (Bit Reactor), Rembert Montald  (Lightspeed LA), David Yee  (Unannounced), Jeffrey Johnson  (inXile Entertainment), Jade Law  (Wardog Studios), Gaurav Mathur  (E-Line Media), Jessica Kutrakun  (Hypixel Studios), Inmar Salvatier  (Maxis), Jeff Parrott  (Blizzard), Daanish Syed  (Bit Reactor), David Johnson  (UndertoneFX), Jeff Skalski  (Yellow Brick Games)
    Date:     Friday, March 21
    Time:     2:00pm – 5:00pm
    Location:     Room 3000, West Hall

    Website: LINK

  • Xbox Returns to GDC: Discover the Next Era of Gaming Anywhere

    Xbox Returns to GDC: Discover the Next Era of Gaming Anywhere

    Reading Time: 9 minutes

    As we gear up for the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025, we couldn’t be more excited to meet up with our friends and colleagues in the industry and explore the many incredible new opportunities that await us, together. This year, GDC takes place from March 17-21 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. We will host partner meetings, participate in conference sessions, sponsor events like the IGF Awards and the ESA Foundation’s Nite to Unite.

    As Xbox expands to any screen on any device, we’re opening doors and making it easier for anyone to play with any friends they want – whether they choose to play with Xbox console, PC, Smart TV or mobile. At GDC, we’re inviting game developers to go behind the scenes to better understand the significance and impact of what it means for Xbox to be on every screen. We’re committed to empowering game developers to tap into that opportunity by building games that take advantage of Xbox across devices. Our presence at GDC 2025 will reveal the many ways game developers can reach more players with Xbox and showcase success stories of developers who are maximizing the opportunity.

    One of the highlights of this year’s GDC will be our sessions and demos of AI for Gaming. These sessions will provide valuable insight and inspiration for developers looking for ways to make their games more easily discoverable, more engaging and to help their teams do more real-time experimentation and visualization, more easily.

    Microsoft Gaming AI Sessions at GDC 2025

    The Future of Gaming Supported by AI: How Xbox is Empowering Players and Creators (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Fatima Kardar (Microsoft), Sonali Yadav (Microsoft)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 3011, West Hall

    Discover how Xbox is using AI to unlock new opportunities across the Xbox ecosystem for both players and game creators. This session provides an overview of Xbox’s AI vision and a sneak peek of cutting-edge AI technology across the platform that will enhance player experiences and support game development for creators. Learn about innovative features that will help players discover their new favorite games, deliver personalized support, and get an exclusive preview of upcoming AI-powered tools and services designed to enrich gaming experiences on Xbox. Whether you’re a player, developer, or industry enthusiast, this session offers a glimpse into the future of gaming supported by AI.

    AI Innovation for Game Experiences: From Research to Prototyping (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Haiyan Zhang (Xbox), Katja Hofmann (Microsoft)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 3011, West Hall

    How can AI drive the next wave of dynamic and immersive game experiences? In this panel, game developers and researchers come together to discuss the cutting-edge AI techniques being explored and prototyped to enhance player experiences and support developer creativity. From adaptive gameplay systems to new tools for game creators, this session dives into the intersection of research and product experimentation. Panelists will showcase prototypes and share insights into how AI can, with the guidance of game creators and players, push the boundaries of what’s possible in gaming. This exploratory conversation is for anyone curious about how AI is shaping the future of game development.

    Machine Learning Summit: Fitting Armor Assets in ‘World of Warcraft’ with Deep Learning
    Speaker: Zhen Zhai (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 5:30pm – 6:00pm
    Location: Room 3018, West Hall

    This talk will introduce Deepforge, a deep neural network designed to transform armor pieces for various races in World of Warcraft (WoW). This technology drastically reduces the time required for artists to fit 3D armors from days and weeks to mere minutes. By automating the fitting process, our tool empowers artists to focus more on fine-tuning the details and enhancing the quality of their work. We will explore the model design, training, and deployment, showcasing its unique features and practical applications on mesh fitting for WoW. The primary goal for this project is to ensure high-quality mesh generation suitable for production use, from preprocessing to postprocessing, combined with a robust infrastructure for efficient and reliable model performance. Attendees will gain insights into how Deepforge enhances game asset creation, making it a valuable tool for developers.

    AI Executive Panel: Exploring What’s Next in AI for Gaming (Presented by EPAM)
    Speaker: Stef Corazza (Roblox) Vitalli Vashchuk (EPAM) Haiyan Zhang (Xbox), Craig Nowell, Databricks
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 10:30am – 11:30am
    Location: Room 2020, West Hall

    At GDC 2024, EPAM brought together industry leaders to discuss the future of AI in gaming. Continuing the conversation, we will be exploring the role AI has played and what’s to come. In this executive panel we will discuss the practical use cases for developers, creators and players alike. Learn how AI can influence gameplay experience and developers‘ productivity along with the associated benefits and potential hurdles of utilizing this evolving technology. Hear from gaming experts as they share exclusive insights and actionable takeaways from their hands-on experiences with generative AI. This session offers a glimpse into the future of game development and the real-world impact it will have in 2025.

    Inclusive Gaming AI: Red Teaming for Accessibility and Disability
    Speaker: Brannon Zahand (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
    Location: Room 3005, West Hall

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve gaming for everyone. This is especially true for those of us in the gaming and disability community. However, without proper design, development, and testing of AI gaming experiences, it can create new barriers for gamers with disabilities. Unfortunately, applying traditional techniques for developing and testing accessible content is not sufficient in these cases. As such, this talk will discuss how designers, testers, and accessibility subject matter experts can utilize red teaming to create inclusive AI experiences in games and gaming services. It will discuss what red teaming is, why it is extra important when it comes to creating accessible and enjoyable experiences for gamers with disabilities, numerous strategies to prevent and catch a myriad of issues that could impact them, and how to engage the gaming and disability community to help you validate such experiences.

    Amplifying Player Voices with LLMs in Game Development
    Speaker: Joshua Koen (Blizzard Entertainment), Ian Livingston (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 1:30pm – 2:00pm
    Location: Room, 2010, West Hall 

    Our players dedicate tens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours to the experiences that we craft for them. Players have valuable feedback about how we can improve those experiences, but it can be challenging for developers to quickly parse vast amounts of feedback and identify ways to improve experiences. The presenters will explore the benefits and risks of using Large Language Models (LLMs) for analyzing player feedback. LLMs offer a way to efficiently analyze feedback at depth and scale that has not been previously possible. However, there are dangers of producing incorrect outcomes that are easy to overlook without a careful approach. Prompt structure, game terminology, and data complexity can easily trip up LLMs. The session will present ways that Blizzard has been validating the use of LLMs for this type of analysis. We will illustrate workflows for using LLMs to enhance processes for analyzing feedback from players.

    How to Engage with Us at GDC 2025

    For us, GDC 2025 is as much about showcasing the Xbox developer experience as it is about fostering collaboration with partners and driving our shared gaming future. We’re excited to connect, demystify our vision, and explore new possibilities together. If you are attending GDC in person, whether you’re an indie developer, a seasoned professional, or someone passionate about the gaming industry, we’ve got a line-up of sessions for everyone. If you will be engaging remotely, you can learn more about development and publishing decisions that maximize the full Xbox opportunity by visiting our Game Development Resource Hub here and to learn more about AI for Gaming, check out our Gaming AI Resource Hub here. If you have immediate questions or want to connect with other developers building for Xbox, join our Discord here.

    Here’s a selection of additional conference talks featuring speakers from across Xbox:

    Monday, March 17

    UX Summit: UX Writing: A New(ish) Craft in Mobile Games
    Speaker: Patricia Gomez (King)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 2010, West Hall

    Community Management Summit: Social Media Microtalks: Authenticity from You and the Business “We”
    Speaker: Cindy Tran (Obsidian Entertainment), Antonio Cara (DeNA Corp.), Harper Jay MacIntyre (Double Fine Productions Inc), Livvy Hall (Xbox Game Studios Publishing), Megan Spurr (Microsoft)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 2014, West Hall

    Live Service Games Summit: Reinventing ‘Candy Crush Soda’ for the Next 10 years
    Speaker: Abigail Rindo (King), Paul Hellier (King)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Animation Summit: ‚Diablo 4‘: Bringing to Life the Priestess of Hatred
    Speaker: Chad Waldschmidt (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 3:50 pm – 4:20 pm
    Location: Room 2018, West Hall

    UX Summit: Making the World Playful: The Importance of Accessible Mobile Games
    Speaker:     Emilio Jeldrez (King)
    Date: Monday, March 17
    Time: 5:30pm – 6:00pm
    Location: Room 2010, West Hall

    Tuesday, March 18

    Live Service Games Summit: Mass Engagement Winning Strategies: The 15M Player Tournament of ‚Candy Crush Saga‘
    Speaker: Margaux Diaz (King), Roberto Kusabbi (King)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Thriving Players Summit: Prosocial Design Workshop
    Speaker:     Natasha Miller (Blizzard Entertainment), Weszt Hart (Riot Games)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 9:30am – 11;50am
    Location: Room 3005, West Hall

    The Climate Crisis Workshop
    Speaker: Grant Shonkwiler (Shonkventures LLC), Trevin York (Dire Lark), Paula Angela Escuadra (Microsoft / Xbox), Jennifer Estaris (ustwo games), Arnaud Fayolle (Ubisoft)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 10:00am – 6:00pm
    Location: Room 204, South Hall

    Gaming Reimagined: Mobile’s Impact on Play Today (Presented by King)
    Speaker: Todd Green (King), Paula Ingvar (King), Peiwen Yao (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 10:50am – 11:50am
    Location: Room 2000, West Hall

    Unpacking Anti-Toxicity Strategy in „Call of Duty“ (Presented by Community Clubhouse)
    Speaker: Mark Frumkin (Modulate), Grant Cahill (Activision)
    Date: Tuesday, March 18
    Time: 2:40pm – 3:40pm
    Location: Esplanade 158, South Hall

    Live Service Games Summit: Game Designer’s Notebook
    Speakers: Marta Cortiñas (King), Kenny Dinkin (King)
    Time: 2:40pm – 3:40pm
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Wednesday, March 19

    Opening a Billion Doors with Xbox (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Leo Olebe (Microsoft), Chris Charla (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
    Location: Room 3022, West Hall

    Accelerating Your Inner Loop with Visual Studio and GitHub Copilot AI (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: David Li (Microsoft), Michael Price (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    Grow Your Audience with the Updated Xbox Experience on PC (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker:     Tila Nguyen (Microsoft), Jose Rady (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    Make your Game Available ANYWHERE with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Harrison Hoffman (Microsoft), Jordan Cohen (Microsoft)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 2000, West Hall

    Masterworking Systems: Lessons Learned from the Engineering of Season of Loot Reborn in ‚Diablo IV‘
    Speaker: Patrick Ferland (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Ask Game Lawyers Anything Roundtable Day 1
    Speaker: Ryan Black (DLA Piper (Canada) LLP), Brandon Huffman (Odin Law and Media), Angelo Alcid (Microsoft Corp.), Yan Perng (Netflix)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
    Location: Room 308, South Hall

    Xbox Game Studios Panel: Scaling Cross-Platform Development Across Xbox and PC (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Kate Rayner (Microsoft), Soren Hannibal Nielsen (Microsoft, Chuck Rozhon (Obsidion Entertainment), Chad Dawson (Double Fine Productions) Phil Cousins (Microsoft), Magnus Auvinen (Machine Games)
    Date: Wednesday, March 19
    Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
    Location: Room 2000, West Hall

    Thursday, March 20

    DirectX State of the Union: Raytracing and PIX Workflows (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Claire Andrews (Microsoft), Austin Kinross (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
    Location: Room 2009, West Hall

    VFX Storytelling: How „Hearthstone“ Breathes Life Into Hundreds of Cards
    Speaker: Alex Cortes (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
    Location: Room 2006, West Hall

    Strategies for Indie Devs: How to Succeed with Xbox (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: James Lewis (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 11:30am – 12:30pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    G.A.N.G. Demo Derby: Sound Design
    Speaker: Nick Hartman (Sound Lab), Scott Gershin (Sound Lab), Charles Deenen (Source Sound Inc), Gary Miranda (Injected Senses Audio), Brian Farr (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 12:15pm – 1:45pm
    Location: Room 3018, West Hall

    From Idea to Action: Lessons from a New Accessibility Initiative (Presented by The Entertainment Software Association)
    Speaker: Aubrey Quinn  (Entertainment Software Association), Paul Amadeus Lane  (Amadeus 4th Corp), Amy Lazarus  (Electronic Arts), Dara Monasch  (Google), Anna Waismeyer  (Microsoft/Xbox), Steven Evans  (Nintendo of America), David Tisserand  (Ubisoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 12:15pm – 1:15pm
    Location: GDC Main Stage, West Hall, Street Level

    Windows Productivity Tools for Game Developers (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Demitrius Nelon (Microsoft), Kayla Cinnamon (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 12:15pm – 1:15pm
    Location: Room 2024, West Hall

    Securing the Joy of Gaming: Xbox’s Commitment to Gaming Security and Innovation (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Temi Adebambo (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: GDC Industry Stage, Expo Floor, South Hall

    Xbox Play Anywhere Developer Roundtable (Presented by Microsoft)
    Speaker: Chris Charla (Microsoft)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 2004, West Hall

    King: Enhancing Mobile Audio with Accessibility and Inclusion
    Speaker: Eduardo Broseta  (King)
    Date: Thursday, March 20
    Time: 2:30pm – 3:00pm
    Location: Room 3024, West Hall

    Friday, March 21

    Game Career Seminar: STR, DEX and INT: A Genre-Spanning Way to Think About Gameplay
    Speaker: Joseph Shely  (Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Friday, March 21
    Time: 11:50am – 12:20pm
    Location: Room 3005, West Hall

    Game Career Seminar: Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer Part 2: Portfolio Reviews
    Speakers:     Greg Foertsch  (Bit Reactor), Sarah LeBlanc  (Bit Reactor), Rembert Montald  (Lightspeed LA), David Yee  (Unannounced), Jeffrey Johnson  (inXile Entertainment), Jade Law  (Wardog Studios), Gaurav Mathur  (E-Line Media), Jessica Kutrakun  (Hypixel Studios), Inmar Salvatier  (Maxis), Jeff Parrott  (Blizzard), Daanish Syed  (Bit Reactor), David Johnson  (UndertoneFX), Jeff Skalski  (Yellow Brick Games)
    Date:     Friday, March 21
    Time:     2:00pm – 5:00pm
    Location:     Room 3000, West Hall

    Website: LINK

  • GDC 2024: Indies from Around the World to Your Xbox

    GDC 2024: Indies from Around the World to Your Xbox

    Reading Time: 9 minutes

    GDC is an exciting time on gamers’ calendars, when the collective knowledge of the game industry comes together to share ideas, reveal upcoming projects, and engage with players and creators. It’s also a great time to see what some of the world’s most talented indie game developers are working on.

    The ID@Xbox Showcase returned to GDC this week and hosted 10 game creators and their upcoming projects from seven different countries — all of which are in development for Xbox players to enjoy.

    Xbox Wire had a chance to talk with game creators behind the upcoming Sopa (Colombia), The Sinking City 2 (Ukraine), Sonzai (India), and Go-Go Town (Australia) to learn more about these games and the people who make them, far from the more established indie game development scenes like Japan and the United States.

    What’s the Indie Game Development Scene Like in Your Country?

    Studio Bando Creative Director & CEO Juan Castañeda: Colombia is booming and there’s a lot of great and super talented studios. There’s also a Colombian Video Game Association. The studios have some of the most established, talented, and super experienced people that I think people should hear more about because a lot of them have experience of working on a lot of projects.

    SOPA SCREENSHOT
    SOPA

    All that accumulative knowledge [is starting] to really crystallize to the point where they can really deliver these awesome projects.

    Now in terms of our experience, I think it’s been a little bit different because most of my experience, even though I’m from Colombia, I’ve been working in the US. I moved back to Colombia, and we started connecting with the folks there. And as things started working out, that’s how the team started growing. We started involving more Colombians, so it was all very organic.

    Prideful Sloth Creative Director Cheryl Vance: Coming from Australia, it’s amazing. I think we’ve managed to, as a country, build up quite a reputation internationally for being really good with indie development. So, it’s great, it’s flourishing and there’s so many fantastic games coming out of the country.

    SONZAI SCREENSHOT
    SONZAI

    Sonzai Executive Producer Andy Andi Han: The best way to describe the indie gaming scene [in India] is “isolated.” This creates a situation where a lot of young and upcoming aspiring developers have second thoughts, never have the opportunity, or are simply driven away from the indie scene in the first place… There are more factors in play here, such as the infamous social pressure to go for more standard jobs or simply the fact that we have multiple spoken languages all over India, so finding a group of passionate indie developers is fairly hard.

    All that said, I have seen a handful of indie games pop up from India in the last decade. This should pave the way for future projects, indie or otherwise. I do believe India has extremely talented artists whose creative visions are worth investing in. Hopefully, very soon, we will see some of that potential being realized.

    Frogwares PR Manager Paul Milewski: The indie gaming scene in Ukraine is maybe not in its infancy, but it’s still taking those first steps. The country is getting to a point now where they are starting to get recognition from around the world. Unfortunately, the situation with the war happened. But one of the, you could say silver linings, is that there’s a lot [more] attention on the country than previously. And so more people are starting to look at what has been going on there.

    Go-Go Town Screenshot
    GO-GO TOWN

    They have had a flourishing tech scene for decades now. But it was very, very isolated. They were looking to the West to get ideas and now they’re starting to come up with their own stuff. Now the West is looking at them, seeing what they’re starting to create. So, I think right now, there’s this moment of hope that this attention will amount into something… The more games that break out in Ukraine, the more it inspires the next generations to follow to get into it.

    How is This Game a Unique Journey (From Other Projects)?

    Juan Castañeda: Sopa is the most passionate project ever in my entire career, probably in my entire life, and I feel that the whole team behind the project feels the same way. And so, we are approaching it differently. Being able to transmit and convey what we set out to do to represent the things that we set out to do. And making sure that that it’s accessible and that we’re able to find that audience to have a fun experience — but also an emotional one. But also, it is just how much we’ve had to fight to get this far. How committed we must be and the sacrifices that we’ve had to make. And that comes back again to just believing in the project.

    Cheryl Vance: As a studio, we worked on titles like Batman: Arkham and Devil May Cry, and here we are now making cozy games. So, I’d say that’s pretty much a complete opposite change of what we used to do. We just wanted to focus on something different. All of us were kind of like, “We’ve done combat for a while now; let’s not do combat.” And now here we are, and this is our third game.

    The Sinking City 2 Screenshot
    THE SINKING CITY 2

    It was more just wanting to take games from the farming genre, and I wanted an experience where it was open world and could do more things, and that kind of morphed — with some feedback — into this Zelda-meets-farming thing and it’s constantly about what experiences do we want to make.

    Sonzai Project Coder Ritam Ray: I have been into game development since I was 12. It started with modding my favorite games to then tinkering with game engines and making smaller games/demos. So, I have been on the indie game development journey for as long as I can remember. The biggest difference between this, and other tech jobs I had, is creative freedom. Not a very interesting answer but it’s an important distinction regardless.

    Sonzai Project Artist Swapnil Karmakar: As for me, I’ve drawn for most of my conscious existence. But both my game development and animation journey started in college with a game we were developing right before Sonzai. It never saw anything near completion but taught me the challenges game development brings. I learned animation entirely through developing Sonzai. So, the biggest difference from other jobs I’ve taken on is that in a long-form project both the quality and style of my work changed, which makes it difficult to keep the entire thing cohesive. In short-form projects, this has never been an issue. But I think we’re working on something that we can be proud of here.

    SOPA SCREENSHOT
    SOPA

    Paul Milewski: It was only up until recently that Frogwares decided they were able to go independent, and one of the first games that they released was Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening. The thing is though, that project came out of necessity. That project wasn’t really meant to happen, but then the war broke out and they needed to essentially stop what they were doing and do something that was a lot smaller; they needed to figure out if they could even produce a game under these (war) conditions, right?

    Team members would drop in and out in terms of availability. Power cuts happen all the time. Air raids happen. This is essentially the team’s big test to see if everything that they have learned in the previous game can still be applied to this when you’re working on something on a bigger scale. But they’re also going a step further to make [Sinking City 2] more survival horror and keep the investigation feature as optional. So, this is also a very big step to see if they can pull this off and be able to broaden their horizons a bit.

    How Does Your Game Represent Your Region?

    Juan Castañeda: We tried to represent even the mundane of it as a backdrop. There are so many colorful and new and fresh things that exist in in Latin American culture that I think most people have never seen, even in projects that are set in these places. You see it in a more traditional game and then they’ll take some of the aesthetic. And that’s beautiful and wonderful. And I’m happy to see it when it happened.

    GO-GO TOWN SCREENSHOT
    GO-GO TOWN

    In our case, we wanted to take that a step further and really try and communicate the sensation of being there, including the mundane right? So just hanging out in your grandmother’s house and walking around and looking at the objects that she has in her house and that back and forth. Another thing that that we wanted to bring that we think is pretty refreshing is the concept of magical realism. And that’s something that’s like part of our identity in Colombia specifically.

    Andy Andi Han: Sonzai is simply a game that we wanted to make. It takes a few of Ritam’s favorite things in gaming like JRPGs like the Persona series, Final Fantasy 6, and combines them with my Swapnil’s love for stylish character action games like Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising and fuses them together.

    It is truthfully hard to say how much it represents our local game development scene. However, it represents something far more fundamental, in my opinion. As long as you want to create a game and know your limits you can actually jump into indie game development.

    SONZAI SCREENSHOT
    SONZAI

    More and more players are giving the indie gaming scene the attention it deserves. Hopefully, with Sonzai, we can generate more interest in game development in our local scene. So that in the future, people will be less intimidated to do what we did. Everything starts in the grassroots, and Top Hat Studios took the time to go down to the weeds and believe great things were being done there. With support like that, it’s possible for creative projects like ours to exist, and hopefully many more in the future.

    Cheryl Vance: It’s the culmination of both our experiences in the industry as well as the vibrant dev community with our peers providing feedback on our games. It’s also the government funding that’s helped us stay here and continue… Because now we have real tax incentives in our country as well too, which is fantastic. And that’s also allows us to change and do different things than we otherwise would with our money knowing that we have a bit of safety net, to try things differently than we would and that’s been fantastic for us.

    Specifically with this title, what we’ve done is run play tests that we started about a year into development. We’re on our fourth one now and that’s pushed out our development timeline. But again, we have that safety net of funding to help with that. That’s a part of what’s been good about having government backing to help with those sorts of things to do that.

    THE SINKING CITY 2 SCREENTSHOT
    THE SINKING CITY 2

    Paul Milewski: I don’t know if it’s an Eastern European thing or just if it’s more question of like upbringing, but you can also look at it, sort of how it was in Poland and how it is in Ukraine. There’s something about the way that these companies write their stories. It’s not very black and white, right? Maybe you could argue that Western audience always wants the good guy, always the bad guy. You know, it’s very clean cut.

    With stories that are coming out of Ukraine, there’s always this moral gray, middle road. They want to kind of do this thing where not everything is clean. You are not playing this hero that’s basically untouched in terms of infallibility and all that stuff. That’s always something that they have that they’ve done well, and this is something they’re going to apply here.

    These games are just a small look into the world of indie game development from across the world, and all are being developed for Xbox. In fact, we can confirm that Sopa will be available with Game Pass once it launches, and that it and Sonzai are both part of our Developer Acceleration Program which works to empower game creators from underrepresented groups– you can learn more about DAP here.

    Website: LINK

  • Join Xbox and Microsoft at GDC 2024

    Join Xbox and Microsoft at GDC 2024

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    As GDC, the world’s largest game developer conference, returns to San Francisco, Microsoft and Xbox will be there to engage and empower developers, publishers, and technology partners across the industry. We are committed to supporting game developers on any platform, anywhere in the world, at every stage of development. Our message is simple: Microsoft and Xbox are here to help power your games and empower your teams.

    From March 18 – 22, the Xbox Lobby Lounge in the Moscone Center South can’t be missed – an easy meeting point, and a first step toward learning more about the ID@Xbox publishing program, the Developer Acceleration Program (DAP) for underrepresented creators, Azure cloud gaming services, and anything else developers might need.

    GDC features dozens of speakers from across Xbox, Activision, Blizzard, King and Zenimax who will demonstrate groundbreaking in-game innovations and share community-building strategies. Microsoft technology teams, with support from partners, will also host talks that spotlight new tools, software and services that help increase developer velocity, grow player engagement and help creators grow. See below for the Conference programming details.

    Xbox is also sponsoring the Independent Games Festival (IGF) and our Xbox Gaming for Everyone employee communities are coming together to host a networking event for underrepresented developers and their allies. We hope you can join us at the G4E event on Thursday March 21st from 11am to 4pm at Minna Gallery (111 Minna St. in San Francisco), located minutes from the Moscone center. To learn more and to register for the event, please read our full GDC 2024 Gaming for Everyone Community Networking Lounge & Scholarship Program announcement.

    Monday, March 18

    Skyscraper Zombies: Advancing ‚Call of Duty’s‘ Systems for Giant AI
    Speaker: Andrew Hoyt (Gameplay Engineer, Treyarch)
    Date: Monday, March 18
    Time: 3:50 pm – 4:20 pm

    Tuesday, March 19

    H2O in H3LL: The Various Forms of Water in Diablo IV
    Speaker:     Aaron Aikman (Lead Technical Artist, Graphics, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Tuesday, March 19
    Time:     10:50 am – 11:50 am

    The Synergy of Architecture and Structural Engineering in Game Art and Design
    Speaker:     Joshua Haun (Expert Environment Artist, Activision)
    Date: Tuesday, March 19
    Time:     10:50 am – 11:50 am

    Harvesting 10 Years Of Success: How Farm Heroes Saga Has Super-Served It’s Players For A Decade
    Speaker:     Sabrina Carmona (VP Head of Farm Heroes Saga, King)
    Date:     Tuesday, March 19
    Time:     2:40 pm – 3:40 pm

    Audio Summit: How do you make casual games players turn their audio on?
    Speaker:     Dominique Devoucoux (Head of Audio, King)
    Date: Tuesday, March 19
    Time:     4:40 pm – 5:10 pm

    Wednesday, March 20

    Developing Hi-Fi RUSH „Backwards“ and Finding Our Positive Gameplay Loop
    Speaker:     John Johanas (Game Director, Tango Gameworks)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     9:00 am – 10:00 am

    The First 30 Years of ‚Warcraft‘: The Making of a Game Universe
    Speaker:     John Hight (Franchise General Manager, Warcraft Franchise, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     9:00 am – 10:00 am

    The Pillars of Hell: Achieving the Artistic Vision of Diablo IV
    Speaker:     John Mueller (Art Director, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     9:00 am – 10:00 am

    Sugary Statistics: What we have learned about Candy Crush content after 10 years and over 15,000 levels
    Speakers:     Jan Wedekind (Head of Central Insights, King) and Xavier Guardiola (Data Science Director, King)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     9:00 am – 10:00 am

    Xbox’s Product Inclusion Framework & Inclusive Growth Doorways
    Speaker:     Katy Jo Wright (Senior Director, Gaming for Everyone, Microsoft)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     12:30 pm – 1:30 pm

    Automated Testing of Shader Code
    Speaker:     Keith Stockdale (Senior Software Engineer, Rare Ltd)
    Date: Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

    Diablo IV – Audio Systems Deep Dive “Living Audio”
    Speakers:     Kris Giampa (Audio Director, Blizzard Entertainment) and Michael Bartnett  (Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

    Optimizing Game Development Workflows with Visual Studio and AI
    Speakers:     David Li (Game Developer Product Manager, Microsoft) and Greg Denton (Principal Product Manager, Microsoft)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

    All things Azure & OpenAI for Game Development
    Speakers:     Jon Kefaloukos (Strategic Account Director Gaming at Azure , Microsoft) and Uthappa Kattera Chengappa (Lead Cloud Solution Architect Gaming at Azure , Microsoft)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

    10 Years in Tamriel: Success of The Elder Scrolls
    Speaker:     Matt Firor (Studio Director / President, ZeniMax Online Studios)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

    3D Toon Rendering in Hi-Fi RUSH
    Speakers:     Kosuke Tanaka (Lead Graphics Programmer, Tango Gameworks) and Takashi Komada (Graphics/Physics Programmer, Tango Gameworks)
    Date:     Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

    The View From Above: Designing Compelling Quests for ‚Diablo IV‘
    Speaker:     Harrison Pink (Senior Quest Designer II, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Wednesday, March 20
    Time:     5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

    Thursday, March 21

    ‚Diablo IV‘: The Art of Open World Sanctuary
    Speakers:     Mahreen Fatima (Senior Environment Artist, Blizzard Entertainment), Sam Gao (Environment Artist, Blizzard Entertainment), and Justin Whitehead (Associate Material Artist, Environments, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     10:00 am – 11:00 am

    Levelling Up: How AI’s Transformative Role in Level Automation Production Adds Business Value in ‚Candy Crush Saga‘
    Speaker:     Anna Hernandelius (Product Director Content, King) and Sahar Asadi (Director of AI Labs, King)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     10:00 am – 11:00 am

    Keeping Online Communities Healthy
    Speakers:     Jennifer Mills-Perov (Principal Product Manager Gaming Trust and Safety, Microsoft) and Ivory Harvey (Senior Technical Program Manager Gaming Trust and Safety, Microsoft)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     11:30 am – 12:30 pm

    DirectX State of the Union Featuring Work Graphs and Introducing DirectSR
    Speakers:     Shawn Hargreaves (Dev Manager, Direct3D, Microsoft), Austin Kinross (PIX Developer Lead, Microsoft), Wessam Bahnassi (Principal Engineer, Developer Technology, Nvidia), and Rob Martin (Fellow Software Engineer, AMD)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     12:45 am – 1:45 pm

    Minecraft Players at the Center of the Universe of Big Data
    Speaker:     Francisco Rius (Head of Data at Mojang Studios)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     12:45 pm – 1:45 pm

    MergeBot: Activision’s Merge and Resolve Infrastructure
    Speaker:     Damianos Gkouzkouris (Senior Tools Engineer, Activision)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     3:00 pm – 3:30 pm

    How PlayFab Helped Texas Chainsaw Massacre Succeed
    Speakers:     CJ Williams (Director of Product Management Microsoft Game Creator Services, Microsoft) and Rob Fox (Designer and Producer Gun Interactive, Gun Interactive)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

    Operation Innovation: How Xbox Employs Military Talents in Gaming
    Speakers:     Fiona Cherbak (Lead Talent Program Manager, Xbox Game Studios), iAsia Brown (Senior Producer, Xbox Game Studios Publishing), Lisa Elswick (Vice President, USO Transition Programs , USO), Jenn Panattoni (Head of Xbox Social Impact, Xbox/Microsoft), and Jason Coon (Director of Xbox Safety Operations, Xbox/Microsoft)
    Date:     Thursday, March 21
    Time:     4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

    Friday, March 22

    Game Career Seminar: Who Are You? Building Your Profile Outside the Job
    Speaker:     Ashley Poprik (Writer, High Moon Studios)
    Date:     Friday, March 22
    Time:     10:10 am – 10:40 am

    Shipping Diablo IV
    Speakers:     Michael Bybee (Production Director, Blizzard Entertainment) and Tiffany Wat  (Production Director, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date:     Friday, March 22
    Time:     1:30 pm – 2:30 pm

    Building the ‚Minecraft‘ Creator Platform Block-by-Block
    Speaker:     Kayla Kinnunen (Executive Producer, Mojang Studios)
    Date:     Friday, March 22
    Time:     3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

    Embracing Art Performance on ‚Diablo IV‘
    Speaker:     Evan Edwards (Senior Technical Artist I, Graphics, Blizzard Entertainment)
    Date: Friday, March 22
    Time:     3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

    Visual Effects Roundtable Day 3
    Speaker:     Gabriel Boileau (VFX Artist, Activision Blizzard)
    Date:     Friday, March 22
    Time:     3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

    Website: LINK

  • HTC VIVE’s GDC Sessions To Go Live

    HTC VIVE’s GDC Sessions To Go Live

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is one of our favorite moments of the year. Connecting with the developer community, sharing our technical insights and learning what is next for the industry is always a highlight for our team.

    We were disappointed when we realized GDC had to be canceled this year, yet completely agree with and support the organizer’s decision to postpone during these unprecedented times. While we can’t connect with you in person, we’ve got a full slate of live webinars coming in the next few weeks based on our GDC Developer Day Summit sessions.

    Starting March 31 – May 12, we will host a live webinar followed by a Q&A period every Tuesday at 10am PT. A schedule for these sessions can be found below in addition to further information on each talk:

    • Tuesday, March 31 @ 10am PT – A Step Ahead of the Curve: Using Data Trends to Build a Successful VR Experience
    • Tuesday, April 7 @ 10am PT – Build for Tomorrow: VIVE Hand Tracking SDK
    • Tuesday, April 14 @ 10am PT – Working Remotely in VR using Vive Sync
    • Tuesday, April 21 @ 10am PT – Lessons Learned from Marketing 100+VR Games
    • Tuesday, April 28 @ 10am PT – Viveport Developer Console: What’s Coming in 2020
    • Tuesday, May 5 @ 10am PT – XR Continuum: Merging VR & AR Development
    • Tuesday, May 12 @ 10am PT – What’s the Opportunity in Enterprise?

    Tuesday, March 31 – A Step Ahead of the Curve: Using Data Trends to Build a Successful VR Experience 

    By Bjorn Book-Larsson, President, Viveport

    Dive deep into Viveport’s proprietary data to get an insider’s look into what makes a VR title successful. In this session, we’ll look at what drives certain consumer behaviors and how to develop content that keeps players coming back for more.

    Tuesday, April 7 - Build for Tomorrow: VIVE Hand Tracking SDK 

    By Dario Laverde, Sr. Developer Evangelist  

    Learn how to add hand tracking support to the VIVE, VIVE Pro, VIVE Cosmos and VIVE Focus with a hands-on coding session using Unity. Sr Developer Evangelist Dario Laverde will walk you through the VIVE Hand Tracking SDK and use cases. Topics covered include gesture recognition, remote and local interactions and custom hand models.

    Tuesday, April 14 - Working Remotely in VR using Vive Sync 

    By David Sapienza, AVP Content Production 

    Working remotely?  On April 14th at 10am PST learn how VR can benefit you and your team.  What are the benefits?  What are the drawbacks?  Is it right for your team?  This session will be given by David Sapienza and will take you through Vive Sync, a powerful collaboration tool that harnesses the power of VR to bring together distributed teams. 

    Tuesday, April 21  – Lessons Learned from Marketing 100+VR Games 

    By Thomas Gratz, Sr. Manager, Developer Marketing

    Curious about how to stand out on a VR app store? Whether you’re marketing your first VR title or a seasoned developer with multiple titles under your belt, this session will expand on the time-tested “do’s and don’ts” for marketing your VR experience in a way that will improve your app’s conversion rate.  

    Tuesday, April 28 –  Viveport Developer Console: What’s Coming in 2020 

    By  Adhar Walia, Director of Product, Viveport & Stanley Chung, Sr. Manager

    Viveport Developer Console, the entry point where you showcase your VR experiences and bridge to the world of VR businesses.  Find out how to leverage various VR business models available to you, learn about new console features to better integrate with your organization, and explore what’s coming ahead in 2020.

    Tuesday, May 5  –  XR Continuum: Merging VR & AR Development 

    By Jad Boniface, Sr. Director of Developer Relations and Partnership

    Learn how VIVE is pushing the future of XR development with the SRWorks SDK and VIVE Cosmos XR. Developers now have access to mix the see-through stereo camera view and their virtual worlds to create experiences that are more interactive and highly immersive, all made possible by the high-resolution dual cameras of the VIVE Cosmos XR faceplate. We will walk through supported features and demonstrate use cases for your own development. 

    Tuesday, May 12 –  What’s the Opportunity in Enterprise?

    By Chris Chin, VP & GM, Vive Studios & Amy Peck, Sr. Director Enterprise Content, Vive Studios

    What are the latest trends in Enterprise VR and how can you best position yourself to be successful?  Learn how Vive Studios is partnering with developers to grow the Enterprise space together. 

    To sign up to attend our first session on March 31, please head to the registration page here. Registration links to all sessions will go live next week so make sure to check back and sign up!

    Not able to make a talk? No problem! All sessions will be uploaded on the HTC VIVE YouTube channel following the live session.

    Website: LINK

  • VIVE Paves the Way for Developer Success

    VIVE Paves the Way for Developer Success

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    At the annual Game Developer Conference today, VIVE hosted a Developer Day to connect with the community and show why there has never been a better time to develop for VR and VIVE. VIVE executives and engineers spent the day sharing information on our newest developer toolsets, our platform strategy and answering questions from the community.

    Today, we shared how VIVE is building a comprehensive ecosystem of content, hardware, platforms and toolsets that are paving the way for innovative VR development. During the sessions, we outlined our complete set of tools and services from SDKs to interesting toolsets that will push the VR industry forward (or maybe just help us all experiment a little bit more).

    To start, VIVE announced a new partnership with Photon, the global cross-platform multiplayer backends as a service (SaaS) and on-premise solution for real-time multiplayer games and applications. With the new Photon toolset, Vive is looking to grow the VR ecosystem to enhance multiplayer gaming and allow Viveport users to match with both Steam and Oculus players.

    In addition, executives from Viveport shared that the platform has grown 3x since last year in content, revenue and users. This year, we’re doubling down on our subscription model with Viveport Infinity launching April 2nd. Members will gain unlimited access to Viveport’s subscription library of over 600 titles for $12.99/month or $99/year. To further support the developer community, Viveport is increasing developer net revenue share to 80/20 through 2019 for all titles in Infinity.

    Vive also showcased some future concepts that the team is exploring from CloudVR to new methods to track facial expressions. For more information on our toolsets and SDKs talked about today, head to our developer forums and blog.

    If you’re attending GDC this year, make sure to check out the VR Play Area, in the Center Hall Wednesday through Friday to get hands on demos with Vive’s newest hardware and partner experiences, including:

    • Vive Sync from HTC VIVE/2 Bears
    • Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl from Vertigo Games and Vive Studios
    • Audica from Harmonix
    • I Expect You To Die from Shell Games
    • Hotel Transylvania Popstic from Specular Theory
    • Project Ghost for Project Ghost Studios
    • TribeXR DJ School from Tribe X
    • Ovation from Ovation VR
    • Mercenary from KukrGame
    • Budget Cuts from Neat Corporation
    • Ancients from Immersion

    Website: LINK

  • All Things Twitch at GDC

    All Things Twitch at GDC

    Reading Time: 3 minutes
    Go to the profile of Katie Penn

    Next week is the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco! That special time of year when we get to show some extra love to our game developer community by highlighting what Twitch does best, celebrating video games and those that create them.

    As we buckle in for this exciting week, here’s how you can connect with our team.

    Monday, March 18

    Amazon Developer Day sessions

    1:20pm — Making Decisions with Big Data: Game development is all about making choices. But without the right data, how do you know what’s worth the development effort and cost? Learn how analytics solutions from Amazon can help you build (and refine) content that players truly enjoy.

    4:00pm — Grow your Game with Twitch: Using Twitch to reach customers is a given, but now you can break through in all new ways. In this session, learn how to empower your streamers to win you customers through tournament creation tools, in-Twitch game invites, and much more.

    Tuesday, March 19

    Amazon Developer Day sessions

    10:00am — Twitch for Games Playbook: This session dives in to explore best practices and easy ways to integrate Twitch into your game regardless of where you are at in your development lifecycle.

    11:20am — Creating Player Engagement Through Content, Competition, and Conversation: By using smarter AI, intelligent conversations, and dynamic content, you can help create engagement. Learn new ways to leverage this technology to drive in-game real world prizing, easy to set up tournaments, influence marketing, and even Alexa — all available today from Amazon Game Tech.

    Andddd .. we’ve got a sweet Booth to hang all day with you on the show floor! Stop by, say hello 👋🏼 , grab some sweet Twitch merch 💜, and come chat about growing your game with Twitch!

    Wednesday, March 20

    All Day — Stop by Booth #S741 on the GDC show floor

    3:30pm — 5:30pm — Twitch and Amazon Game Studio recruiting happy hour: Join Twitch and Amazon Games for food, drinks, and information about career opportunities!

    Thursday, March 21

    All Day — Stop by Booth #S741 on the GDC show floor

    6:30–9:00pm — Twitch and Amazon Game Tech Happy hour: Join us in our booth (#S741) as well as Amazon’s booth for a happy hour where you can enjoy food, drinks, and networking.

    Friday, March 22

    All Day — Stop by Booth #S741 on the GDC show floor

    Not going to be in San Francisco for GDC? Don’t worry! We have an array of live streamed shows we will be streaming this week.

    Thursday, March 21

    TwitchDev Weekly: Join Jon and Matt, Twitch’s developer advocates, as they present from the Twitch booth at GDC.

    Friday, March 22

    Extension Challenge Announcement: We will be announcing the winner of the Extension Challenge powered by AWS; don’t miss a chance to see all the great ideas as well as who won!

    We are looking forward to connecting with you at GDC!

    __________________________

    Note that we will not be hosting our monthly Developer Update stream at its normal time; it’s moving it to the following week, Tuesday, March 26 at 10am PT. We’ll be recapping all the action from GDC along with new product updates and announcements.

    Website: LINK

  • Announcing VDA3 Nominees

    Announcing VDA3 Nominees

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    It’s that time of year again! We’re excited to share the nominees for the third annual Viveport Developer Awards. In total, there are 8 nominees across 4 categories for PC titles and 3 winners for Mobile titles. This year, we wanted to recognize the developers who are delivering exceptional experiences to our Viveport Subscribers and Viveport Arcade Operators. These 11 titles highlight some of the best titles in VR today. If you haven’t tried these nominees and winners, we highly recommend giving them a play and exploring them yourself.

    If you need a refresher on the prizing, check out our announcement blog of the awards. Final winners will be announced at our private developer mixer on Monday, March 18, the first day of GDC 2019. Good luck to the nominees and congratulations!

    Here are the nominees and winners in no particular order:

    Entertainment – PC

    Education – PC

    Arts & Culture – PC

    Arcade – PC

    Entertainment – Mobile

    • Bait! | Resolution Games

    Education – Mobile

    • Star Chart | Escapist Games Ltd.

    Arts & Culture – Mobile

    • PAINT VR | COSKAMI LLC

    Website: LINK

  • HTC VIVE at GDC 2019

    HTC VIVE at GDC 2019

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    GDC’s annual State of the Games Industry survey revealed HTC VIVE as the most popular platform among developers for the third year in a row. We’re proud of our standing in the developer community and strive to be the number one advocate for VR developers. To that end, we’ve got an exciting lineup of activities planned for developers attending GDC 2019:

    Developer Day – March 18th @ Moscone West Hall, Room #2024

    VIVE will be holding a developer day on Monday, March 18th. Filled with visionary and technical sessions directly from the VIVE team and partners, we’ll delve into the topics most meaningful to VR developers.

    To start, we’ll walk developers through our platform roadmap for 2019 to share the new opportunities ahead and how they can take advantage of them. Next, our engineers will provide in-depth demonstrations on our SDKs to provide the tools and knowledge necessary to accelerate VR development.

    Check out our full schedule below:

    10:00AM – 11:00AM: Developer Day Keynote: Platform Strategy for 2019

    11:20AM – 12:20PM: Developer Success in the Era of New Competing Digital Platforms

    1:20PM – 2:20PM: Getting Started, Publishing and Beyond: Viveport SDKs + VIVE Input Utility

    2:40PM – 3:40PM: Building for the Standalone Ecosystem: Wave Platform SDKs

    4:00PM – 5:00PM: Creating More Immersive Experiences: 3DSP Audio SDK + Hand Tracking SDK

    5:30PM – 6:30PM: The Future of XR Development: SRWorks SDK + SRANIPAL SDK

    VR Play – March 20th-22nd @ Moscone Center Hall

    This year, the VR Play area is sponsored by VIVEPORT. GDC attendees can see the new technologies from our technical talks in action on the latest VIVE hardware. VIVE will be showcasing innovative content that demonstrates the power of our developer tools such as eye and hand tracking, 6DoF input for the WAVE platform and more. Stop by the Moscone Center Hall from March 20th – 22nd try out some of our favorite VR experiences.

    Viveport Developer Awards Mixer – March 18th

    On March 18th, we’ll announce the winners of the 3rd annual Viveport Developer Awards at a private mixer for developers. The Viveport Developer Awards is an opportunity to celebrate and reward the exceptional studios and content that have contributed to Viveport Subscription’s success. This year’s batch will have one winner and one finalist from four PC-VR categories and one winner from three VIVE Wave categories. Winners in each category can walk away with up to $50,000 in cash and prizes to support their current and future development objectives.

    We hope to see you at GDC and be sure to add our developer day sessions to your schedules!

    Website: LINK

  • VIVE AT GDC 2018: VIVE FOCUS Coming To International Markets Later This Year; VDA Winners Announced

    VIVE AT GDC 2018: VIVE FOCUS Coming To International Markets Later This Year; VDA Winners Announced

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    Today at GDC 2018, HTC Vive announced that we are bringing Vive Focus to the global markets later this year.  Vive Focus is the first 6DOF stand-alone VR headset to be commercially available.  We also are making Vive Focus developer kits available to registered developers in most countries through our developer portal, starting today.   

    Built upon Vive Wave, our open VR platform and toolset that is unifying the development experience for standalone and mobile VR devices, along with Viveport as its content platform, Vive Focus is designed to appeal to a wider range of mass market audiences as well as commercial/enterprise users who want broad deployment and stunning VR experiences in a convenient and portable form factor. 

    In addition, developers who bring content to Viveport in China for either Vive Focus or PC-based Vive, will receive 100% rev-share from title sales and Viveport subscription in China between April and September 2018. Viveport continues to be the best platform for VR developers, and this rev-share opportunity is just another way in which we are empowering developers to create the best VR content, not matter what hardware device. 

    Viveport Developer Awards trophy mock-up

    Also, at GDC 2018, we hosted our 2nd annual Viveport Developer Awards (VDAs), where five first place winners were each awarded $50,000, and five second place winners were awarded $20,000. The categories and winners are listed below, all of which are currently available on Viveport. Come meet the VDA winners on Thursday during our panel at GDC: 

    Entertainment

     Education

     Arts & Culture

     Enterprise

     Arcade

    The winners for the VDAs in China are:

    Website: LINK

  • Announcing VDA2 Nominees

    Announcing VDA2 Nominees

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    We’re pleased to announce the nominees for the second annual Viveport Developer Awards! These 10 nominations represent some of the best and most innovative VR experiences. With a record number of entries from developers, it was incredibly difficult to shorten the list.

    In no particular order, here’s the 10 nominees, 2 for each category. All are available now on Viveport.

    Entertainment

    Education

    Arts & Culture

    Enterprise

    Arcade

    Congratulations to all our nominees and good luck! Winners will be announced at a special event on March 19 coinciding with the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

    Website: LINK

  • Where to learn more about Twitch during GDC 2018

    Where to learn more about Twitch during GDC 2018

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    We are getting closer to our favorite week in San Francisco, when the city transforms into a game developer mecca thanks to GDC! Our Twitch Developer team couldn’t be more excited to join many of you and geek out at the world’s largest developer game industry event.

    We’ve had an exciting year launching Extensions, and bringing new APIs and features to the developer community. If you plan to attend, come find us at one of the many activities listed below and let’s work together to make your development with Twitch awesome.

    Below is our rundown for the week.

    Twitch HQ Workshop

    Come join us at Twitch HQ on Monday, March 19 for an evening hands-on workshop. You’ll hear from our new VP of Developer Experience Amir Shevat and VP of Developer Relations Kathy Astromoff about what we’re working on and our future roadmap. Then you get to do what you do best–build! Developer Advocate Emily Rose will lead the workshop and additional members of the TwitchDev team will be present to help build an Extension. Space is limited–register here.

    Developer Day Sessions (presented by Amazon)

    Making Twitch interactive with Twitch Extensions
    Monday, March 19th 4:00PM to 5:00PM, JT Gleason — Room 2011/2024, Moscone West

    Join JT Gleason, Director of Integrations at Twitch, as he takes you on a journey through the design space opened up by Twitch Extensions. Learn about ways you can create a “lean in” experience for viewers of your game on Twitch and gain a deeper understanding of the developer technologies that can help propel your game to the forefront of the industry.

    Increase Your Game’s Reach and Retention with Twitch Integrations
    Monday, March 19th 5:30PM to 6:30PM, Daniel Hebb — Room 2011/2024, Moscone West

    Making your game great for streaming can increase sales and retention by blurring the boundaries between viewing and playing. Learn the best ways to boost acquisition, retention and monetization using Twitch engagement solutions.

    GDC Expo

    Where to Find Us

    Find us alongside our Amazon sister teams in South Hall at booth #1001. When you visit our booth(s), be sure to take part in the “Amazon Quest”–there will be cool ways to learn more about Twitch and earn swag. Check out our booth schedule below.

    In-Booth Classroom Sessions

    Wednesday, March 21 (PST)
    10:00AM: Twitch Insights — Leveraging analytics to engage your viewers, Kristin Chen, Senior Product Manager, Insights

    10:30AM: Engaging Your Community with Twitch, Braxton Lancial, Integration Success Engineer

    1:30PM: Accelerating development of Twitch Extensions for your game, Greg Smith, Senior Product Manager, Extensions Developer Services

    Thursday, March 22 (PST)
    11:00AM: Empowering Extensions with game APIs, Travis Brown, Lead Integration Success Engineer

    11:30AM:Empowering content creators and streamers to promote your game, Tim Aldridge, Director, Game Mods

    Watch Us on Twitch

    If you can’t join in person, we are streaming live at 5PM PST Monday, March 19 at our developer workshop via the Twitch Developer Channel Page. We’ll see you there!

    Website: LINK

  • PlayStation VR Worlds – Coming exclusively to PlayStation VR!!

    PlayStation VR Worlds – Coming exclusively to PlayStation VR!!

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    Journey through 5 different virtual reality experiences developed exclusively for PlayStation VR. From the depths of the ocean with “Into the Deep” (working title) through to adventures across London with the gritty gangster thriller “The London Heist.” VR Worlds will take you on some truly unique adventures as you experience all that PlayStation VR has to offer.

     

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