GDC China Adds Angry Birds, Monaco Creators To Summits

Author: by Staff

This December's Game Developers Conference China is debuting a host of new Chinese and Western speakers for its December 5th-7th Shanghai event, with all talks simultaneously translated between English and Chinese languages, and multiple new Summit speakers now confirmed. These announcements, which include Angry Birds creators Rovio, Monaco's Andy Schatz, and Chinese indie Coconut Island Studio, are part of a GDC China Summits line-up which includes the Independent Games Summit, being held alongside the second annual IGF China, plus a Mobile Games Summit and a Social Games Summit. Some of the the initial highlights for the Summits, which run alongside or preceding the major Online Game Development/Business & Global Game Development tracks, include: - Independent Games Festival grand prize winner Andy Schatz will be presenting the cheekily named 'How to Win the IGF in 15 Weeks or Less' at the Independent Games Summit. He notes: "Monaco was entered into the IGF after 6 weeks of work by only one person. It became a finalist in the Grand Prize and Excellence in Design after 11 weeks of work. And it won both after 15 weeks." In the simultaneously translated talk, the Pocketwatch Games one-man team "will show how design-by-brownian-motion can not only lead to a better finished product, but a faster schedule as well. Monaco's fanciest tech tricks and failed experiments will be revealed." - The Mobile Game Summit talks include 'Angry Birds - An Entertainment Franchise in the Making' by Peter Vesterbacka of Finnish developer Rovio. He will examine the business and development steps that led to massive success for the iPhone, iPad, and now Android hit, which has over 6.5 million App Store downloads as of August. - In addition, Chinese-specific lectures in the Independent Games Summit include 'Surviving in the iPhone App Store - a Chinese Indie Story' by Wesley Bao, co-founder of Coconut Island Studio (iDragPaper, which has 7 million downloads), as well as a research-oriented lecture by Dongfeng Wang of 4399, examining indie opportunities in web browser-based games, including "the common bottlenecks of developing web games, what kind of gamers would like to spend money online while playing." Now in its 3rd year, Game Developers Conference China offers "valuable and timely insight into the world of game development in China for an audience of both local and international developers", according to its organizers. These lecture announcements immediately follow earlier confirmation of Blizzard, Flagship and Cryptic alumnus Bill Roper as one of the keynote speakers, plus major talks from Volition, Slant Six and BioWare staffers. Overall, the December 5th-7th event provides a forum for local and international developers to explore business opportunities, expand their reach to a unique market, and discover the on-going trends emerging in this region. There will be a robust Expo Floor also in place at GDC China, which is the only game development event supported by the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China (MoC). Its organizers say it's "bringing the key learnings, networking and inspiration that has been the hallmark of the GDC experience to China's important game development community. " GDC China -- part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website -- offers 25% savings on registrations before November 5th, with online registration ending on November 30th. For more information about the event, please visit the official GDC China website.