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GDC China 2007 Sessions
- Tutorials (Monday)
- Online Game Developement and Business Track (Tuesday & Wednesday)
- Outsourcing and Next Generation Games Track (Tuesday & Wednesday)
- Mobile Track (Monday)
- Career and Recruitment Track (Tuesday & Wednesday)
- Sponsored Sessions (Tuesday & Wednesday)
To see the GDC China 2007 schedule, click here.
To see GDC China 2007 speakers, click here.
Tutorials
Half-day Tutorial
3ds max 9: Advanced Techniques for Next-gen Production Pipeline
Speaker: Laurent M. Abecassis, Founder, Di-O-Matic
This tutorial session will present many advanced pipeline techniques that can be used to develop next-gen gaming content using the latest version of 3ds Max: version 9. Many production aspects of will be covered including the evolution of 3ds max over the years, non-linear character animation, facial rigging and surfacing, as well as art-directed cloth dynamics and intuitive hair creation inside the 3ds Max 9 interface.
Attendees will take away an understanding of several unique advanced techniques used in leading production studios to create next-gen assets using many features of 3ds max and some plug-ins.
Intended Audience
3ds max users looking to learn production pipeline techniques used to develop next-gen games.
Full-day Tutorial
Applying Agile Methodologies to Game Development: An Open Discussion of Best Practices
Speakers: Benoît Houle, Principal Project Manager Director, BioWare
Rich Vogel, Co-Studio Director, BioWare
Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Director, BioWare Austin
MMOs require huge teams and a many years to develope. What agile methodologies can be employed to deliver high quality games in a timely manner? How can teams get to a playable prototype as fast as possible? How can large teams improve communication across disciplines? How can teams get a finished quality game done without extreme periods of crunch? How can teams get to a predictable schedule? This tutorial covers an overview of agile development with particular focus on a modified version of Scrum, what works in agile development, what doesn't, and how to develop an agile mythology that fits a particular project needs.
- Introduction
- Distinguish between tradition waterfall development and Agile development mythologies
- SCRUM practices
- SCRUM benefits
- SCRUM challenges
- How to introduce SCRUM into an organization
- How to scale using SCRUM
- SCRUM Best Practices - How BioWare is using SCRUM in their product development
NOTE: Each section will have a short Q& A session.
Takeaway
Attendees take away a deeper understanding of best practices and processes used in agile development.
Intended Audience
Ideal for those who want to find a different project management approach to game development that helps teams become more efficient, more predictable, and more agile.
Half-day Tutorial
Creating Character Assets for Next-gen Consoles
Speaker: David Coleman, CG Supervisor, Electronic Arts Canada
Next-gen consoles demand greater quantities of character art assets, but also require a higher level of fidelity, greatly increasing the technical complexity and dependencies of the past generation. Learn about the variety of character art assets used in today’s next-gen console games, the challenges they present, and methods for building them efficiently in Maya. This class will increase your knowledge of star likeness quality, generic characters, crowds, hair, accessories and rigging. This class will benefit artists, technical artists, art directors as well as development directors. Attendees will benefit from having general Maya knowledge, but it's not required.
Takeaway
After attending this session, you will be able to:
- Have an increased understanding of what it takes to create character assets for Next-gen console games.
- Identify and evaluate key areas of character asset and likeness quality.
- Identify methods for building efficient art authoring workflows to reduce costs, while increasing quality.
Intended Audience
Artists, Technical Artists, Art Directors, Development Directors.
Online Game Development and Business Track
Lecture
Anti-hacking and Anti-Cheating: Programming for Online Games
Speaker: Xiang Wang, Senior Programmer in Netease
This session discusses how to construct an anti-hack and anti-cheating system for online games under the present circumstances in China, and how we can ensure our game world continutes to develop in an equitable and healthy way. We discuss how to prevent and combat the game hack, how to improve the ID security level and self-protection for game client in details.
Takeaway
Methods and experience about anti-hacking and anti-cheating for online games, including a summary about strategies used specifically in China.
Intended Attendee
Persons who are designing or working on operation maintenance with online games, including the game designers who are interested in anti-hack.
Lecture
Chinese Player Behavior and Demographic Surveys
Speaker: Bryan Yuan , Senior Analyst - Consumer and Gaming Research, IDC China
Brief Introduction
- Gamers' behaviors when they log on the internet
- Gamers' demographic across different games (cross analysis from game type/age/occupation etc.)
- Gamers' behaviors in game type and their spending
- Gamers’ potential needs
Takeaway
Attendees will learn about different gamers’ features in every segmented market, have a better understanding of the factors influencing the loyalty and the spending of gamers, and be better prepared to take it into effect to their market promotion..
Intended Audience
Developers and operators of MMORPGs and casual games, and anyone interested in China gamers’ behavior and potential needs.
Lecture
Creating Online Games: Success Stories and Common Pitfalls
Speaker: Gwanwoo Lee, Director of Business Division, Actozsoft
There are more than 1000 Korean-made online games. Of these games, approximately 3% will be successful in the online game market. This session discusses which factors go into the success of these games. It addresses the characteristics on online games; Key success factors; Verification methods for the online game in pre-launching stage; the obvious pitfalls that prevents success. There are few differences between failure and success; however, even though developers are aware of inevitable problems, the same mistakes keep being made.
Takeaway
Online game marketers (business managers); presidents of mid-small companies and development studios.
Intended Audience
Through this lecture, we will find out what the key successful factors of online games are and how to keep from falling into the same pitfalls.
Lecture
Dragged Kicking and Screaming: Source Multicore
Speaker: Tom Leonard, Senior Engineer, Valve Software
When HALF-LIFE 2 was released, the Source Engine was a single-platform eight years in development based on a single-threaded code base several years older than that. Today it is a multi-platform, multi-threaded system designed to capitalize on any number of cores. Getting there required rearchitecting or rewriting broad swaths of code to accommodate multiple threads of execution efficiently, from low-level allocators, to rendering pipelines, to AI systems. This session examines the process the speaker went through upgrading Valve's Source Engine to take advantage of multiple cores and approaches used to keep all available processors actively executing. The speaker analyzes the experiments, infrastructure, and tools involved in moving a mature code base onto contemporary PC and console hardware. The talk explores successes and failures along the way to creating an efficient and easy to use multithreaded engine from an established single threaded base.
Takeaway
The session presents both high-level architectural concepts when considering multithreaded programming, and concrete tools and refactoring processes used to realize those concepts.
Intended Audience
Intermediate and advanced programmers interested in multithreaded engine design, especially those with legacy code to consider.
Lecture
Effectively Use Characters to Create a Quality Casual Game
Speaker: Joey Lin, Project Leader, International Games System
Using Star 31 Mahjong as an example, this session discusses how the role of the artist can be vital in creating a successful online casual game. To create a vivid experience for players competing in a virtual reality, artists use many techniques. Star 31 Mahjong utilized celebrity and recognizable characters, as well as animating rival characters presented through cartoon graphics, to make the game joyfully eye-catching and extremely popular.
Takeaway
Attendees learn what kind of characters will be most popular. They learn how to achieve equilibrium between characters and gameplay and they hear feedback from players themselves.
Intended Audience
Artist experienced with character development and game platforms and game designers and managers engaged in on-line casual games.
Lecture
Emerging Behavior in MMOs and How to Handle Them
Speaker: Kjartan Pierre Emilsson, Managing Director, CCP China
In massively multiplayer games, especially those where players are given much freedom in their character advancement, game designers are faced with a lot of unexpected behavior from players. This is especially true in games where social structures can easily prosper and the economy is global. In such cases, the game company and its designers need to take a much more active role in the operation of the game, in order to monitor behavior and make sure that the game is adapted regularly to cater to these emergent patterns. If you are successful in doing this, players will have an even stronger bond to the game, as they feel that they participate in its making. The result is a world far more complex and rich than any single designer could ever design.
Takeaway
Attendees will get an insight on how emergent social and economical behavior can take away control from game designers and at the same time understand how this can become a real strength if catered for from the start.
Intended Audience
Developers and operators of MMO games and online communities.
Lecture
Game Development Best Practices - Lessons Learned from Enterprise Software Development
Speaker: Dejun Ning, IBM Rational PRC Solution Manager & PLM, IBM China Company
Across a number of dimensions, the game community is experiencing issues that other software-intensive domains have passed through, so there is value in drawing from the best practices in defense, embedded, and enterprise systems. For instance, the best way to manage complexity is not to write any software at all (thus forming the economic basis for the reuse of code and subsystems); or to produce games from a product line based on the transparent collaborative platform just like we produce cars; or to move to higher levels of abstraction (thus leading to design patterns, architectural patterns, modeling, and domain-specific languages).
These and other best practices from different industries will be examined to show how they may apply to game development.
Takeaway
After attending this session you will be able to:
- Understand what best practices make a game producer special
- Know how to build up the game development team core capability
Intended Audience
Intended audience includes program managers, project managers, and developers with hands on experience in software development projects.
Lecture
Globalization of MMOs: How East and West can Succeed in Each Other’s Markets
Speaker: Mark Kern, Red 5 Studios
Crossing the ocean to achieve success in a foreign market is daunting for any business, but it has been particularly vexing for makers of Online Games. Top Western titles such as Everquest and Ultima Online have failed to achieve any measure of success in Asia, while popular high-profile Asian games such as Lineage have failed to achieve critical mass in North America.
While there are no easy answers, Mark Kern, former Team Leader of World of Warcraft, discusses some of his insights in helping create the world’s first cross cultural online gaming success in World of Warcraft and discusses how his new company, Red 5 Studios, is approaching the problem of creating MMOs that can succeed globally.
Takeaway
Attendees have a chance to learn design, user experience differences as well as the business climate and government regulation issues.
Intended Audience
Anyone interested in understanding the massively multiplayer gaming foreign market.
Lecture - Keynote
Greg Short Presents “Embracing Disruption” at GDC China 2007
Speaker: Greg Short, Director of Platform Product Management, Sony Online Entertainment
The videogame industry is surrounded by disruptive innovations; new consoles, new business models, new markets – it all amounts to the largest growth opportunity to date for electronic entertainment.
Greg Short, Director of Platform Product Management for Sony Online Entertainment, will highlight some key areas where disruption is being embraced in the videogame industry.
Discover how eastern business models and western game philosophies are intermingling to create new revenue opportunities and expand the concept of the "entertainment experience."
Lecture
Real-Money Trade of Virtual Property: Risk or Revenue Opportunity
Speaker: Vili Lehdonvirta, Researcher, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
The buying and selling of virtual items, characters and currencies for real money is a phenomenon that affects practically every MMO title today. According to government statistics, the total volume of this "real-money trade of virtual property" (RMT) was approximately 7 billion RMB (USD 900 million) in China last year. Asian developers in particular are jumping on the bandwagon and applying virtual item sales as a revenue model for online games and communities. Virtual assets are typically bought because of the gameplay advantages they confer, but many services also manage to sell items that have no functional purpose at all.
In this talk, the speaker will use real-world examples to introduce different approaches to dealing with real-money trade, explore the various reasons why players value virtual property, and discuss how RMT affects game experience. The focus is on helping MMO and online community operators develop sustainable revenue streams based on virtual property, but operators wishing to limit the impact of RMT on their services will also benefit from this session.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn about different strategies for dealing with real-money trade, have a better understanding of the factors underlying the economic value of virtual property, and be better positioned to take the phenomenon into account when developing their next product.
Intended Audience
Developers and operators of MMO games and online communities, and anyone interested in real-money trade of virtual property.
Lecture
Retaining Paying Users
Speaker: Binyu Ye, Director of New Product Management Center, Nineyou Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
How do you encourage paying users to continue to pay? How do you convince paying users to pay more? It is easy to attract paying users but hard to keep them. This lecture focuses on the basic modes of online game consumption and discusses the psychological state and attention points of paying users during play. The lecture teaches us how to introduce traditional promotion modes into online games and how to keep the paying users paying. This session also aims to help game developers better understand the ideas and requirements of operators and markets and plays a positive role in the communication between developers and operators.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn the general requirements of paying users and basic principles when operators deal with key problems. The knowledge will help developers consider more at the early stage of game designing and provide a solution plan and operation guarantee for the games.
Intended Audience
The lecture targets game developers, esp. game producers and game planners.
Lecture
Starting a Studio in Taiwan and Making an MMO Based on Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle
Speaker: John Laurence, General Manager and Studio Head, Taiwan, SOGA Interactive
This is a presentation for anyone interested in game creation in greater China, including multinationals looking to set up shop here. Through real life examples starting Sony Online Entertainment's Taiwan Studio and producing our first original title, we'll share our lessons and vital information for creators in this region. You'll learn the Pocari Sweat litmus test for recruiting talent and the "two rules" for success in China. Through our work on EverQuest 2 East we'll show some differences between Asian and Western CG creation including character texturing techniques. We'll discuss the best practices we brought with us from Sony Online and what we learned here that we were able to apply to our game production back in the US. With screenshots and concepts we'll show you how we worked with Stephen Chow and his team to bring the essence of the movie Kung Fu Hustle to our soon-to-be-released MMO beat 'em up to online gamers in China.
Takeaway
The Pocari Sweat litmus test for recruiting talent and the "two rules" for success in China.
Intended Audience
This is a presentation for anyone interested in game creation in greater China, including multinationals looking to set up shop here.
Lecture
Strong Customer Service Support System — an Important Guarantee for Online Games Operation
Speaker: Yue Wang, Customer Service Director, Shanda Networking Co., Ltd.
The online games industry has unique characteristics while its customers have platform specific needs and requests. As a result, SNDA's strong customer support team and well managed customer support center has become one of the company's core competitive edges. This session will explain how SNDA operates and manages its customer service center through industry assessment and customer analysis, and also demonstrate how SNDA's backstage security system supports the customer service center's daily operations.
Takeaway
Audiences will learn the differences between online games customer service centers and that of other industries; how to approach the online games industry and its customers; and how to ensure service quality in a rapidly changing industry based on customer and market feedback.
Intended Audience
Managers involved in the marketing, support, and planning of online games. Senior managers of customer service centers.
Lecture - Sponsored by International Games System
Taiwan? IGS? Game!
Speaker: Andy Huang, Director of Operation - Online Department, International Games System
Do you really know what’s happening in the development and operations of Taiwan's game industry? As the biggest game developer and most profitable publisher in Taiwan, IGS will elaborate on the current status and future prospects of Taiwan's game Industry. The speaker will also discuss how games can be developed and operated from the viewpoint of M-shaped societies and M-shaped product orientations.
Takeaway
- Understand the current state of Taiwan's online game industry including: development companies, publishers/operators, and gamers’ behaviors
- Know how IGS, performing dual roles, integrates R&D and operation demands when producing games
- How, based on its positioning, IGS can become the best strategic partner for those within China or from Taiwan
Intended Audience
Marketing and R&D directors, game operators, and game designers.
Lecture
Virtual World Construction
Speaker: Xiaojun Hui, Product Manager & Game Producer, Netease
This session explains how to construct a virtual world that includes traditional Chinese culture and atmosphere. It outlines methods to ensure development in a sustainable, healthy and orderly way from the beginning and details construction of the worldview.
Takeaway
This session shares the experiences, methods and lessons learned from constructing a virtual world, including the worldview construction, system construction, numerical construction and economic system.
Intended Audience
Those who hold a strong interest in creating a virtual world, are not limited to working in creating the worldview, system and numerical construction, and who hold some interest in constructing the virtual world which is suited to the Chinese community.
Lecture
Why You should be Making Casual Games for the Western Market! A Brief Primer
Speaker: James Gwertzman, Vice President, Asia/Pacific, PopCap Games, Inc.
Despite the popularity of casual games in China, it’s tough for an independent developer to profit by building them for the Chinese market. Portals generally build simple casual games themselves, and the complexity of an advanced casual game puts them out of the reach of small developers. Turn to the west, however, and the situation is very different. It is possible for a small developer to become very successful building small, downloadable casual games, and this talk will show you how.
Takeaway
After this session, attendees will have a thorough understanding of the casual game industry in the west and how it differs from the casual game industry in China. Developers will have learned what opportunities are open to them in the west, and how to capture them. Game designers will have learned several of the techniques that PopCap itself uses to develop its own hit casual games, and will be able to apply these techniques to their own games.
Intended Audience
Any game developer or game portal interested in learning more about the casual game market in the west, as well as any game designer interested in learning techniques for the rapid prototyping of new game ideas or suggestions on how to improve existing games.
Outsourcing and Next Generation Games Track:
Lecture
10 Steps to Success in International Outsourcing Contracts
Speaker: Vincent Scheurer, Founder, Sarassin LLP
Outsourcing is playing an increasingly important role in game development. From outsourcing the creation of modular art assets through to outsourcing entire game projects, it is now very unusual to see a game project which does not rely in part on outsourcing.
However, many outsourcing agreements are vague, or written on terms which favor one party over the other. In other cases, outsourcing arrangements are agreed without a formal written contract at all.
Using relevant examples taken from the games industry, the lecture identifies the ten principal issues to be considered in international outsourcing contracts. It considers each issue in detail, focusing on how the deal can be structured to benefit both the client and the outsourcing company.
Takeaway
Attendees learn about the ten most important aspects of an outsourcing contract, and how to ensure that these are negotiated properly in order to protect their position. This will help enable them to maximise the value of their outsourcing relationships, and to minimise the risk of these relationships failing.
Intended Audience
The intended audience comprises all individuals involved in negotiating or managing the relationship between an outsourcing company and its clients including outsourcing company managers, producers, project managers, art, programming and design leads, business affairs executives, lawyers and finance directors. Knowledge of the essential terms of an outsourcing relationship is helpful but not necessary.
Lecture
Bringing Game R&D and Outsourcing in Line with International Standards to Improve Competitive Edge
Speaker: Sheree Tsao, CEO, InterServ International Inc.
This session describes how to help your customers focus on their core strengths and increase their value based on international production standards and the use of milestones, pipeline, quality control measures and international team structures. Further delving into international standards, we will discuss improving proprietary technology development, such as 3D engine; Advanced control management systems; Ensuring non-disclosure of customers' proprietary and confidential information; Excellent information infrastructure. Iron Phoenix (winner of the Most Innovative Game of E3 Award in 2004) and Mage Knight (a game offering a unique system of leveling up) will be used as examples.
Takeaway
Inspiration regarding the future of the industry and the division of labor
Intended Audience
Attendees looking for game development cooperation, those who develop games, or those who are going to develop games
Lecture
Building Lasting Outsourcing Partnerships
Speaker: Aaron Pulkka, Senior Director – Outsourcing, Vivendi Games
Developers want outsourcing to increase efficiency, improve quality and reduce costs – so their teams can focus on design and innovation. This requires a solid partnership between developer and outsourcer, which needs care and attention to grow over time.
This talk will cover different outsourcing types, with an emphasis on overseas art production for next-gen games. We will address what Western developers are looking for in outsourcing partners and how to form and maintain good relationships. Based on Aaron's decade worth of outsourcing experience, from both the client and vendor perspectives, he will also discuss common production pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn methods for building and maintaining outsourcing partnerships across the globe.
Intended Audience
Primarily suggested for outsourcing service providers based in China, this session will be of interest to anyone involved in game development outsourcing.
Lecture
Building Successful Outsourcing Relationships
Speaker: Christine Thaarup, Worldwide Studio Outsourcing Manager, Eidos
How do we mature game development, production and workflow towards a more efficient use of outsourcing and Asian partnerships? This session is flavoured with history from similar creative industries, each with 30 years of tradition in outsourcing to the Far East. It also discusses the influence of cultural differences in the work process and the aim of building long lasting partnerships in Asia.
Lecture
Cinematic Game Design II: Storytelling
Speaker: Richard Rouse III, Director of Game Design, Midway Games
There are a million ways to tell a story. The clarity and power of cinematic storytelling techniques made films the dominant narrative medium of the last century, enabling them to tell stories as only movies could. As the newest of storytelling art forms, games are still developing their own language for communicating characters and narrative through gameplay. Instead of doing our storytelling through miniature movies (cut-scenes) grafted onto our games, we should be analyzing cinematic storytelling techniques and adapting them to work interactively, thus developing our own language of game storytelling. In this sequel to last year's popular GDC lecture, "Cinematic Game Design," a series of film clips will be shown that demonstrate different complex cinematic storytelling techniques, with each deconstructed to see what makes it tick. Then each technique will be assessed to see how it can be applied to interactive media, allowing game designers and writers to tell stories as only games can.
Takeaway
Attendees leave the session with a better understanding of advanced cinematic storytelling techniques and specific examples for how they can be applied to game designs. Techniques covered include visual storytelling, picture-in-picture, visualized thoughts, image juxtaposition and misdirection.
Intended Audience
This session is suggested for creative directors, game designers, writers and anyone interested in telling better stories in their games. It assumes a basic understand of film techniques and game design principles.
Lecture
Concept Design in Games and Films
Speaker: Feng Zhu, Co-Founder, Possibility Space
Concept design is a core part of any game or film production. It brings life and vision to the project and allows everyone on the team to visualize its development. The digital medium has brought out many new techniques and presentation styles, but the fundamental skills required to create fresh ideas remain the same. It is important for any art or creative director to understand these steps in order to bring their projects into the real world.
In this talk, Feng will discuss the skills and mindset required to enter this field. He will also cover management and how best to work efficiently with your art team. Feng will showcase some of his past work, including designs from recent movies and games. In addition, a live demo will be given to illustrate the common techniques Feng uses to create these visions.
Takeaway
Attendees will have a better understanding of the concept design field. They can apply these skills to their current project, or perhaps think about starting a career as a concept designer. For art and creative directors, they will gain important knowledge to better work with their team.
Intended Audience
This session is best suited for art directors and creative directors. However, anyone interested in game or film design should attend.
Lecture
Cultivating Design Talent in China
Speaker: Erick Wujcik, Senior Game Designer/Writer, Totally Games
This session details the essentials of recruiting, training, and cultivating the careers of Chinese game design professionals. This includes: Recruiting game design professionals in China and how to evaluate and select the best candidates, whether newly graduated from university, or experienced professionals from other game companies; Training for creativity. Developing self-instruction programs, group exercises, and best practices for stimulating imagination and novel problem solving in game design; Proto-typing and play-testing and how an understanding of non-electronic games is essential to the process of building electronic games; Game industry team building. To maximize coordination between designers, artists and engineers, it's essential to understand how the team works, and how the critical role of game designers in cross-disciplinary communication.
Takeaway
Westerners will learn the differences between Chinese and Western game design staff. Chinese managers and trainers will learn about career development pathways necessary to create a creative, imaginative and productive game design team, including tips for integrating senior Western game designers with young Chinese game designers.
Intended Audience
Include senior game design staff, producers, as well as those executives who are responsible for managing game designers, level designers, and other creative game design staff. If you are responsible for hiring, training, or career development of game design professionals, or if you wish to contribute as a mentor to a game design professional, this session is for you.
Lecture
Dealing with Destruction: AI from the Trenches of COMPANY OF HEROES
Speakers: Chris Jurney, Senior Programmer, Kaos Studios
Shelby Hubick, Supervising Programmer, Relic Entertainment
Many next generation games include environmental destruction, but few games do it on the scale of COMPANY OF HEROES. Having an environment where every object is destroyable presents difficult challenges for AI characters. COMPANY OF HEROES achieves very complex unit and squad behavior despite having to deal with a constantly changing environment. This talk will give a look under the hood at the design and implementation of all the systems we used to achieve those goals. Soldiers in COMPANY OF HEROES look and act smart - they move in squads, use environmental objects for cover, move out of the way of oncoming vehicles, and react to major game events like explosions and suppressing fire. They do all this while maintaining smooth animation. At this talk we'll cover in detail the low-level techniques used to achieve these results.
Specific topics include: pathfinding in a changing environment, dealing with widely different movement capabilities, advanced turning behavior (3-pt turns, turn smoothing, turn optimizing search), and right of way. Also covered will be squad level topics such as creating and searching for cover and data driven battle planning. Demos will show how we debugged all this complex behavior in a continuously changing environment.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn how an award winning RTS evolved their AI and have enough detail to carry the implementation back to their own games. The techniques were originally developed in an RTS, but apply to any game with similar character requirements.
Intended Audience
Anyone looking to get an inside view of a complete AI implementation from a AAA title. Understanding of basic AI techniques such as A* is recommended.
Lecture
Design and Production Pipelines in Next-Gen Game Environment
Speaker: Jun Hao Liao, Art Manager, Epic Games China
What is the difference between current Gen and next Gen?
- New configuration of the art team
- New tools and skills
- More communications between teams
- How to use all kinds of existing art resources effectively
- Complexity of art pipelines to make a visual abundant environment.
The key of making next gen game environment is to effectively share the system resources from the different type of art assets, including model, advanced shader, lighting, special effects. To create dynamic environment also requires good combined usage of shader and lighting. We would like to search further into details about how these resources are well used and tuned concerning the hardware performance also.
Takeaway
Attendees will understand the difference between current Gen and next Gen on the art side and learn how to use all kinds of existing art resources effectively to save the human resources and cost in the projects. Analyzing the complexity of art pipelines to make abundant visual environments and know about the great impact on the whole graphic arts which is brought by the new techniques, tools and the games engine.
Intended Audience
This session is suggested for 3D Artists, Level Artists, Art Directors, Art Manager and anyone interested in making better environmental arts in their games.
Lecture
From the Frontline of Outsourcing: The Lessons Never End
Speaker: Kristine Coco, Producer, Midway Studios
Building on last year’s GDC lecture "We Learned the Hard Way So You Don't Have To: How to Outsource Art Successfully," the speaker will impart a new set of lessons from the frontline of art outsourcing.
This talk will focus on demonstrating new processes, workflows and tools that Midway has employed since GDC 2006, and critiquing what worked and what didn't. Attendees of this talk should walk away with specific dos and don'ts that will help them plan for and manage outsourcing appropriately.
Takeaway
Attendees should leave this lecture with solid ideas on how to set up successful working relationships with external contractors, based on specific examples of what worked and what didn't for Midway.
Intended Audience
This talk is intended for producers and art leads and managers charged with managing outsourcing. Previous experience managing game development pipelines is a pre-requisite.
Lecture
Growing and Retaining Talent in China
Speaker: Gilles Langourieux, Co-Founder, Virtuos
Is it possible to build strong teams for the long term in China? Talent in China has the reputation of being unstable and many companies have complained about the difficulty to retain qualified staff in China. Yet at the same time, there is no shortage of successful game companies growing from zero to hundreds of employees in a shorter time than anywhere else in the world. This presentation aims at reconciling these two conflicting facts, by looking at the realities of the talent pool in China, how it is evolving, and what to expect from it in the context of international game creation.
Three themes will be explored:
1.) Differences and similarities between talent in China vs. the rest of the world. What skills do they really have or lack, what motivates them, what is the influence of outside markets on the job situation in China? How do the job market and its legal and cultural environment in China differ from “older” talent markets?
2.) Factors behind retention, talent pool growth and turnover. There are mostly rational factors and also some irrational factors behind how a talent pool adheres to a company’s project. We will argue that measuring the evolution of the pool in quantity and quality is also an objective measure of the company’s health and values.
3.) Proposals and ideas for best practices in growing a stable talent pool. Chinese, Japanese and Western companies have tested different concepts with more or less success. We will highlight some of the dos and don’ts which are more specific to China.
Takeaway
The session will help develop realistic expectations from talent and operations in this fast-evolving market. How fast can a studio really grow in China and is the growth sustainable in the long run? They will also walk away with a set of best practices tested in China.
Intended Audience
The session is best suited for managers from developers and publishers who have presence in China or interact with partners in China or are planning to.
Lecture
How to Win Big Projects from Big Companies
Speaker: Shigeru Chigusa, President, Tose Software (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
Winning bigger deals from big game companies can be challenging in many cases. It may be a challenge to win, and it may be a challenge after winning. So how do you go about in doing so? This session will touch on the dos and don’ts of implementation of business when going after big game projects from major companies. This session will also touch on the differences in approach when the target customers are in different regions such as US, Japan, and Korea. What do big companies need and want? What can an outsourcing studio prepare? The answers could be rather surprising. The world’s largest outsourcing game developer, and the first foreign game development studio established in Shanghai (13 years ago) will disclose its long kept trade secrets? Let’s see.
- What are the 3 most important issues when dealing with big companies?
- What are the 3 biggest pitfalls in trying for big projects?
- How to get started in getting attention from big companies?
- Do you need to be big to get a big project?
Takeaway:
This session develops fundamental and realistic expectations in planning and building infrastructures of outsourcing game development business.
Intended Audience:
This session is suggested for CEOs, business development and development managers, or investors of game development and services outsourcing companies.
Lecture
Outsourced Development of Games in China: Research and Analysis by Niko Partners
Speaker: Fang Zhou, Partner, Niko Partners
In this session, Ms. Zhou discusses the growth prospects, strengths, weaknesses and improvements of Chinese studios in recent years, and how outsourced development fits into China's burgeoning videogames industry.
Takeaway:
Findings and assumptions from Niko Partners' 2007 market research studies on China's videogame industry.
Intended Audience:
Anyone interested in learning the most recent trends in China's outsourcing and game development landscape, and how it all fits into China's videogame industry.
KEYNOTE
The Possibilities and Perils of Production Outsourcing: How It's Changing the Way Games Are Made
Speaker: Paul Meegan, CEO, Epic Games China
Production outsourcing is moving beyond cutting cost and delivering by Christmas. In this session, Paul Meegan explores how AAA quality and fresh creativity are empowering publishers and independent developers to make more money making better games for less. Paul shares his thoughts on successful outsourcing practices, building a studio in China, and the challenges that lie ahead.
Lecture
Weather System and Advanced Lighting System in Videogames
Speaker: Jing Li, Project Technology Director, Ubisoft Shanghai
Weather systems and advanced lighting systems are complex and include many parts: lighting, dynamic shaders, fog systems, post processing, color adjustment, etc... These systems need a professional working pipeline and a powerful game engine to address the constraints and price as well as the effect of each part. Lighting, post-processing, environment and weather effect should be dynamic to follow the core game play and evolution direction at future. This session will discuss presentation for current hardware and technology as well as performance analysis for current useful effects.
Takeaway:
The major technical direction of current videogames.
Intended Audience:
Technical art directors; render engineers and SFX programmers; game designers.
Lecture
What Makes Your Game Look Great – Analysis of UE3 Rendering
Speaker: Jian Zhang, Technical Training and Support Manager, Epic Games China
To achieve more convincing visual results in modern 3D games requires a highly optimized and versatile rendering engine and highly efficient artistic asset creation. To a large extent the efficiency of artistic asset creation is dependent on the tools that artists use. The graphics engine and art creation tools also shape the production pipeline, where a production team can gain further efficiency. Unreal Engine 3, as one of the leading commercial game engines in the world, has made significant improvements in rendering engine and the content creation tools, with an optimized production pipeline in mind. In this talk we will look at the latest Unreal Engine rendering technology from a high level point of view, discuss its architecture, versatility, integrated tools and production pipeline incurred.
Takeaway:
The audience members will learn how Unreal Engine 3 rendering engine works, how art creation tools are designed to both improve art creation efficiency and general art creation pipeline using Unreal Engine 3.
Intended Audience:
This lecture is intended for graphic programmers and technical artists who have basic understanding of game render engine. Prior knowledge about Unreal Engine 3 will be helpful, but is not necessary.
Lecture
Why Cultural Training is Crucial to Outsourcing
Speaker: Paul Steed, Co-Founder/Chief Creative Office, Exigent
Learn how training artists to feel and understand the culture of making Western games is just as important as training them to understand and make great art. Star Trek or Star Wars? BioShock or BioWare? The games industry has a rich history and a rich tradition of being mavericks and the avant-garde. As American and European pop culture, movies, comic books and games keep blurring together, it’s even more important to explain what it all means to a non-Westerner. For a foreign artist to deliver the best art for a client and a project in America it sometimes means sometimes shedding some cultural baggage and focusing on what works best. Attendees to this talk will get ideas on how to help make sure the work delivered by an art outsource studio will improve if the workers delivering the art understand the cultural environment in which it will be received. This isn’t rocket science and it’s not technique – it’s culture!
Takeaway:
Attendees will understand why training employees in the Western ‘culture’ of making games and interactive entertainment is a vital part of a successful art outsource studio.
Intended Audience:
Anyone in or dealing with an art outsource studio will benefit from this talk.
Mobile Track:
Lecture - Sponsored by Nokia
Developing for the N-Gage™ Platform
Speaker: Peter Lykke Nielsen, SDK Product Manager, Nokia
This session describes the technical aspects of the new N-Gage platform from a game developer's point of view. The topics covered are the N-Gage SDK philosophy and roadmap, N-Gage Arena multiplayer and community platform, and the possibilities they offer for innovative connected gaming on a leading mobile platform. The session also covers the technical support structure and channels.
Lecture
The Future of Mobile Gaming
Speaker: Kim Daniel Arthur, CTO, Asia-Pacific, Glu Mobile
The mobile games market has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years and is continuing to grow quarter by quarter. The industry is moving out of it's infant stages and is on the way to becoming a more mature market. Together with this maturity comes a new generation of technology and distribution methods, creating great opportunities for both large and small companies alike.
What new technologies are in the pipeline and how will they affect the state of mobile games? How much of an influence will alternative distribution methods have on the product we make? How can we learn from the current trends in console and pc gaming? What lies ahead for social and connected gaming on mobile?
Let's take a look at some of the changes the mobile industry is going through today and together explore what the future of mobile gaming might hold for all of us.
Takeaway
A chance for the audience to look at some of the emerging trends and technologies in mobile gaming and what new opportunities they might bring to the marketplace.
Looking at the future of mobile gaming from a variety of angles will inspire the audience to find new direction for their products and business.
Intended Audience
Publishers and developers with an interest in mobile gaming.
Lecture
Developing Mobile Games for the Global Market: Current Status and Future
Speaker: Norbert Chang, Vice President and General Manager, Mobile - China, Walt Disney Internet Group
This session will look at mobile games on a global scale, weighing current trends and challenges with future developments to better understand the direction of the industry over the next few years.
Takeaway
Participants will come away with a comprehensive understanding of:
- Who and what kinds of companies are involved in making mobile games around the world
- What kinds of products are being developed
- How are these games being produced around the world
Intended Audience
- Anyone interested in developing mobile games for global markets
- Companies positioning themselves for worldwide 3rd party development
- People interested in better understanding where the global mobile industry is headed from a product perspective
Lecture
Mobile 3D Graphics in 3G World and Beyond
Speaker: Petri Talala, Vice President, Mobile Business, Futuremark Corp.
3D graphics, games and multimedia drive mobile device features and performance requirements. To help manufacturers and content developers deliver better performing products and to help mobile carriers define adequate performance requirements of mobile devices, applications and games Futuremark provides a suite of industry-standard performance analysis applications and services. Futuremark Vice President Mobile, Petri Talala will be showing the future direction of 3D graphics related mobile applications and gaming and explore what every wireless operator, handset manufacturer and content developer needs to understand and be prepared for:
1. Today’s Mobile 3D Gaming: Java 3D (JSR184) and SW based OpenGL ES 1.X rendering
2. Performance comparison between SW and HW based mobile 3D technologies and between Java 3D and native APIs (OpenGL ES)
3. Tomorrow’s Mobile 3D Gaming based on HW accelerated OpenGL ES 1,1
4. And Beyond: Fully programmable shaders with OpenGL ES 2.0
5. Real World Case: OpenGL ES 2.0 Game Content Demo
Takeaway
Attendees learn how mobile 3D hardware is designed and will be designed in the future and what is the best performing mobile 3D hardware architecture today, tomorrow and beyond. All this will lead into the knowledge of selecting the best ways to develop high-performance games and 3D applications to mobile devices.
Intended Audience
Anyone interested in high performance 3D hardware and especially mobile game and mobile 3D chip developers. For handset manufactures presentation gives the idea of selecting right 3D architecture in their mobile devices.
Career & Recruitment Track
Lecture
Do Basic Things Right: Setting up New Business Units and Growing HR Departments in China
Speaker: Bob Zhu, HR Director- Asia, Electronic Arts
The common challenge most of the foreign companies have in China is how to establish an effective HR function and to leverage HR people as a strong business partners instead of routine office administrator. Also there are many vague terms in existing regulations in China which let business leaders feel very frustrated.
Mr. Zhu will share with you his experience on how they handle these types of issues and how to correctly read Chinese regulations.
Takeaway
Attendees will learn how to effectively organize its people function and how to avoid, approach and handle troubled people issues.
- How you should organize your HR team
- Where you should pay attention on when you run your HR engine like Staffing, Total Rewards, Leaning & Development and Employee Relationships
- What you should balance when you receive vague advice from consulting firms on HR issues
Intended Audience
1) Foreign Corporation who is looking to set up operation in China.
2) Anyone who has interests to know how Foreign Company operates on people issues in China.
Lecture
The Dream of the Game Developer
Speaker: Bruce Mei, Recruitment Manager, GZ Netease Interactive Entertainment Ltd.
Bertrand Russell said "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life—the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind." That's what motivates NIE (Guangzhou NetEase Interactive Entertainment Ltd.). Do we continue to pursue the in-house development track?
This session discusses the real NIE including the true stories of product R&D and operations, as well as its attitude on talents and creativities, by leading you through the NIE in-house development history and sharing personal NIE experiences.
Lecture
Finding a Job and Carving your Niche in a Quickly Globalizing Video Game Industry
Speaker: Susan Gold, Chairperson, IGDA Education SIG/Academic Coordinator, GarageGames
This talk will focus on preparing you for working in a global game industry marketplace. What type of education do you need to land that job? What type of portfolio should you put together? How do you make contacts and network from China and Asia? What are standard hiring practices? We will also explore how to balance quality of life and how to avoid industry burnout.
Takeaway
The goal of this talk is to prepare you for the extremely competitive game industry work place.
Intended Audience
This session is for anyone working or looking to break into the global game industry.
Lecture - Sponsored by Electronic Arts
Great People are the Core of Game Development
Speaker: Jason Chein, Director of Asia Studio Development, Electronic Arts
Toss out your great ideas, business plans, and proprietary technology for a moment. Those are just means to success. The core to building great games lies within the people that will drive the means. Join us and explore how the number one game developer and publisher of the world see people as our number one asset. And how we build a brand new studio organization around the great people we've discovered and nurtured in China.
Takeaway
Understand game development is not a software business but a people business. See how great people are identified and trained to become the core of your business.
Intended Audience
Studio managers, development leaders and future developers.
Lecture
How Does an International Game Company Train its Staff?
Speaker: Peisheng Yuan, Career Development Director, Ubisoft Shanghai
We pay particular attention to building the skills and competencies of each of our employees to ensure that personal growth goes hand in hand with collective success. Seeking to empower our people at all times, Ubisoft Shanghai is striving to build a high expertise local game development team with full functionalities. Our training program is closely linked with the career development of employees. We provide training to employees on technique, management and soft skills. Depending on the employee's expertise, we set different levels of trainings to help them keep developing.
Takeaway
The global vision of training strategy in an international game company. Organization and execution experiences in department/studio level training.
Intended Audience
Studio managers, HR and training managers, producers, and senior developers.
Lecture
Shanda's 20 and 18 Plans
Speaker: Diana Li, Corporate Vice President, Shanda Networking Co., Ltd.
As the largest online game provider in China, Shanda Interactive Entertainment manages large quantity of studios developing and operating online MMORPG and advanced casual games. Attracting various talents from around the world, Shanda has created mission-18, the first corporate venture fund valuated at hundreds of millions USD dedicated to online gaming development and/or operation studios; and mission-20, the first employee profit-sharing-plan amongst China online gaming companies.
Takeaway
Audience will learn details and practices about shanda’s plans and methods to attract and motivate individual talents, as well as Shanda’s strategy on investing in online game development and /or operation studios.
Intended Audience
Managers who manage and design cooperate incentive program; employees who are looking for better company incentive and reward program; Studios or working teams from around the world that need not only fund but resource investments.
Lecture
A Submarine Crossing the Pacific Ocean
Speaker: Yu Zeng, Assistant Manager, Interactive Entertainment Division, Tencent
At Tencent, we believe in the phrase: “User is #1, Employee is #2 and Shareholder is #3.” For a company with a strong technical background like Tencent, this phrase is through out all product development processes and is embedded in the making of Tencent games. In an industry full of fickleness, Tencent scrupulously follow its beliefs, like a submarine crossing the Pacific Ocean, to quietly make its way to success under the sea.
Lecture
Toward a World Class Casual MMO R&D Center and a Lifestyle Interactive Entertainment Community
Speaker: Binyu Ye, Director of New Product Management Center, Nineyou Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
The maturing of self-developed, national online games pushes the Chinese online game industry forward. 9you has achieved a commanding strength by being a leader in the use of essential techniques and its status in the market. 9you has established headquarters in Shanghai, studios in Xiamen, Beijing etc, and is committed to be one of the leading casual game R&D centers in the world. 9you is committed to developing G-Town, an open lifestyle interactive entertainment community. We provide favorable working conditions and opportunities including cooperative development/operation and the addition of more outstanding online titles to 9you’s open lifestyle interactive entertainment community. We welcome excellent developers to 9you and hope to continue to build the top casual online games R&D centers in the world.
Sponsored Sessions
Sponsored by XPEC
7 years, 7 Number Ones: XPEC Strides for Global Excellence as an Independent Developer
Speaker: Aaron Hsu, Chairman & CEO, XPEC
How long is 7 years? Long enough to complete 13 products, each carrying the XPEC logo, on 7 gaming platforms. Fifteen million US dollars was spent, but in return we achieved 7 number-one's in Greater China, from Ex-Chaser to Bounty Hounds, Hello Kitty to Blue Cat and Spider-Man to Shrek; XPEC is making console games overseas, PC games in China, and online games worldwide. Are we a Brand or Work for Hire? Solo or Collaborate?
Sponsored by Winking Entertainment
The Advantages of Chinese Development Teams in China’s Online Gaming Market
Speaker: Johnny Jan, Founder of Winking Entertainment
With a population of 1.3 Billion, China is not only the largest “factory” of the world, but also has the potential to become its largest market. With online games such as World of Worldcraft, Shanda’s Mir and Zheng Tu each earning up to and over $12 million a month, China will also eventually become the world’s largest online gaming market. Currently, not only the South Koreans, but more and more world-class gaming companies are investing in developing large sized online games with the key focus on the Chinese market. Several large companies are opening their own studios in China or seeking cooperative partnerships with local companies in order to face the upcoming challenges and carve a slice of the pie for themselves.
Why are so many companies using Chinese development teams as the vanguard to conquer this market? Is it just to bridge the cross-cultural differences? What are the differences between Chinese, South Korean, Japanese, European and American development teams? In this track, we analyze and break-down the advantages of Chinese development teams by taking a detailed look at factors such as: the team’s talent structure, project management process, Chinese sense of style, social factors, cost management and other important elements.
Sponsored by AMD
DX10 and HD 2000 Series Optimizations
Speaker: Owen Wu, Senior ISV Engineer, AMD
This talk will present about the latest DX 10 technologies which can be used to develop next-gen gaming content. The agenda is as follows:
- Overview of DX10
- Dealing with Deprecated features
- Optional DX10 Features
- SM 4.0
- New Pixel Coordinate System
- HD2000 Programming Overview
Sponsored by ZPmax
How to Utilize the Cooperation of Industry Chain to Provide Solutions in Identity Assurance and Stabilizing the Economic Situation of the Virtual World
Speaker: Yue Li, CTO, ZPmax
The economic value of virtual items is tied to the success of new item-charging operation models in China. At the same time, identity theft and illegal plug-in software (cheating tools) has grown due to the lack of law, development of hacker’s skill and internet virus techniques, all damaging the online game industry. “Account Protection Green Alliance” was founded by the government in order to negate the high costs these enterprises face. By utilizing the cooperation of an industry association, we will create a new public technical serving platform which will integrate a series of advanced techniques and application resources, such as game developing technique, identity security technique, anti cheating-tools’ technique, exchange monitor technique, exchange management system , online payment management system and credit collection system. We will build a new invisible “Great Wall” against identity theft, cheating tools and illegal exchange.
Sponsored by Nokia
The Next Generation of Mobile Gaming?
Speaker: Edward Hsu, Nokia
Nokia is an innovator in mobile, interactive entertainment and is re-defining the mobile gaming experience using community and social networking to create a new mobile gaming culture. The N-Gage platform makes it easy to find, try, buy, play, and manage high quality mobile games as well as connect to N-Gage™ Arena, Nokia's mobile, global gaming community. Learn how Nokia will revolutionize the way consumers discover, purchase, and share gaming experiences.
Sponsored by NVIDIA
NVIDIA DAY:
The GeForce 8 Series GPU Architecture
Speaker: Ashutosh Rege, Director of Developer Technology, NVIDIA
Appropriate for anyone and everyone involved in real-time graphics, this session will cover the key features of GeForce 8 Series GPU’s, the first brand-new architecture since the GeForce 6 Series. Includes general tips on how to maximize the performance and features of the GeForce 8.
Make Your Game Stand Out With D3D 10
Speaker: Lin Nan, Developer Technology Engineer, NVIDIA
Microsoft's Direct3D 10 opens the door to a wide range of new graphics possibilities. This talk will discuss how D3D 10 can benefit your latest games, and how developers can use D3D 10 to unleash their creative mind.
Advanced Effects on GeForce 8
Speaker: Lin Nan, Developer Technology Engineer, NVIDIA
By harnessing the computing power of the latest NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series GPU’s together with cutting edge D3D 10 techniques, many advanced 3D effects only previously seen in film can now be done in real-time. Realistic and eye-catching effects like complex lighting & shadows, massive characters, fluid dynamics-based smoke, water & fire will be covered in this session.
Using NVIDIA’s Tools to Enhance Your Game Development
Speaker: Chris Kim, Developer Technology Engineer, NVIDIA
Debugging and optimization are two of the most critical aspects for developing a high-quality title. To help core technology programmers to track bugs and identify performance bottlenecks, NVIDIA provides a full set of tools that make the task easy and fast. In addition, tools geared toward artists also help to increase the productivity of content creation.
Sponsored by Ubisoft Shanghai
Opportunity and Challenge of Next-Gen Video Game Scene Creation
Speaker: Jun Cheng Liao, Project Art Director, Ubisoft Shanghai
Lately, we see a lot of outstanding next-gen video games appearing, along with a greater maturity of next-gen developed environments and technique. This session talks about the opportunities and challenges of next-gen video game scene creation. It will also go into what is different between the last generation of graphic art and today. This session discusses the pressure of project planning and large team management under the status of graphic workload under crunch and the pressure of new technique mastery and training.
Sponsored by AMD
Performance Profiling with AMD GPU Tools
Speaker: Owen Wu, Senior ISV Engineer, AMD
This talk will present how to use AMD GPU tools. The Agenda is as follows:
- CubeMapGen – Tool for importing, filtering, visualizing, and exporting cubemaps Tootle – Triangle Order Optimization Tool
- Render Monkey – Extensible shader development tools
- 3DCaptan - 3D Capture and analysis tool
- GPU PerfStudio – Real-time performance analysis tool
- GPU Shader Analyzer – Shader performance analysis tool
Sponsored by International Games System
Taiwan? IGS? Game!
Speaker: Andy Huang, Director of Operation - Online Department, International Games System
Do you really know what’s happening in the development and operations of Taiwan's game industry? As the biggest game developer and most profitable publisher in Taiwan, IGS will elaborate on the current status and future prospects of Taiwan's game Industry. The speaker will also discuss how games can be developed and operated from the viewpoint of M-shaped societies and M-shaped product orientations.
Sponsored by Epic Games China
The Unreal Engine: Today and the Future. Locally and Globally
Speaker: Lu ZhiGang, President, Epic Games China
The award winning Unreal Engine is a powerful, proven technology that helps developers efficiently create cutting edge MMOGs, PC, PS3 and Xbox360 games for the Asian and global markets. A mature development pipeline and robust feature set allow developers to focus on creating high quality gaming experiences and valuable intellectual property, while reducing development time, team size, and risk, and lowering overall production cost. Proven multi-platform capability means your team’s expertise plays everywhere.
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