The GDC Austin, held from September 15th – 18th at the Austin Convention Center in Texas, recently announced its initial set of speakers and conferences, at it appears as though free-to-play is going to be a dominant theme this year. Sony Online with Free Realms, Gaia Online, and Neowiz with Crossfire are all on tap for the coming conference.
This year’s conference includes six online-centric ‘tracks’ for the Main Conference. Tracks are focused on business and marketing, design, social networking and community, services, production, and programming, and include a number of free-to-play, microtransactions powered talks, including one from fatfoogoo client, Rebel Monkey’s CTO Jeffery Kesselman.
Initial highlights from the GDC Austin include:
- Erik Bethke, VP Product Development, Neowiz Games is expected to present “Metrics and Monetization – Case Study of a Million Concurrent Players” whereby publishers and operators can tighten up their understanding of metrics used to derive decisions made for online games. Likewise, these metrics play a crucial role in determining how best to monetize publiser’s online assests.
- Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online will be presenting “Next Phase of Casual Games: How to Make the Free-To-Play Model Work for You”. Sherman will present the benefits of an online gaming model, how the model is working around the world, specifically comparing free-to-play in the U.S. vs. Asian market, why the model is a big hit with game devs, and perhaps most importantly, how to remain profitable with a f2p title and the future of the gaming landscape.
- Rebel Monkey’s Chief Technology Officer, Jeffery Kesselman will be presenting “The Monkey Wrench: Design and Architecture of an Online Environment”. Kesselman will lay out how Rebel Monkey successfully combined open source technologies, to formulate Monkey Wrench, the platform currently powering CampFu. He’ll focus on design and architecture elements, but will also share lessons learned during the implementation process.
- Massive social games company Zynga will be represented by Brandon Barber, VP of Marketing when he delivers his talk, “What Are The Stickiest Design Models and How Are They Monetized?” He plans to illustrate to attendees just how that can navigate the rapidly changing state of play, retain and audience, and make some coin while they’re at it. Barber will also highlight how “Microtransactions within the game itself, such as the purchase of virtual goods are the most viable form of revenue.”
Again, this is just the first round of announcements that will undoubtedly be released over the coming weeks. However, it is particularly interesting to note that the GDC Austin did not choose any other topic to entice potential attendees in.
If these six tracks weren’t enough to wet your appetite, don’t forget that the GDC Austin also features the Game Audio and Game Writer Summits, as well as the Independent Games Summit, AND the brand spankin’ new iPhone Game Summit.
Everything’s bigger in Texas.
Tags: casual games, free realms, free to play, gaming landscape, microtransactions, monkey wrench, open source technologies
