Game Developers Conference 2008 - (Page 34) GDC Mobile TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 DeALs & Distribution, Lecture – ALL indie games Distribution that Works—What Mobile can Learn from casual Web portals Matthew bellows (Floodgate entertainment) 10:45-11:30am • room 134, north Hall One factor always mentioned when complaining about the mobile games industry is distribution—how it limits our growth, creativity and audience. It’s too constricted, too brand-focused, too static, with too few discovery mechanisms. Luckily, there’s a great example of an effective alternative right nearby—casual game web portals. In this talk, Bellows will present a range of contrasts between mobile game and casual game distribution models, make concrete, actionable suggestions for how the mobile industry in its current configuration, can move towards a more consumer-centric, developer friendly approach based on Floodgate’s experience with its first casual web-based game. progrAMMing, Lecture – interMeDiAte where games are buried behind layers and layers on the carrier deck. Is it viable to drive consumers to one place on a deck for games? How do the walled gardens play into this? What do game developers, carrier and handset manufacturers need to know to make mobile games a fun and compelling experience? If you build it, you then need to keep the consumers interested enough not only to stay, but to tell their friends. If they have a static experience, they most likely won’t return. Now is the time to change this. originAL innoVAtion, Lecture – ALL progrAMMing, Lecture – interMeDiAte Quick tips for tighter ArM Assembly code ed plowman (ArM Ltd.) 11:45am-12:30pm • room 121, north Hall Everyone is always looking for that edge in their game code and this session is designed to give a simple introduction to exploiting common features in the ARM architecture to improve the performance of assembly code (and C code for that matter). The session will start with a gentle introduction into trimming those last few cycles from your inner loop through to getting hot and heavy with the ARM vector floating point unit. proDuction, Lecture – ADVAnceD GDC Mobile Mobile social entertainment: next big thing from Japan David collier (pikkle KK) 11:45am-12:30pm • room 134, north Hall A new type of mobile entertainment is taking over in the advanced markets. With Japanese sites mixing mini-games, avatars, and virtual money, there’s a rebirth of the million-user game service. And most of it is off-deck, advertising supported. Casual gamers are brought in by their friends and easy-to-play flash-lite games. Then they stick around for the community. This presentation will cover some of the hit services in Japan that are creating this next wave that mixes mobile and social entertainment, and new business models. proDuction, sponsoreD session – ALL Why use Location in a Mobile game and How best should You use it John carpenter (KnowledgeWhere) 11:45am-12:30pm • room 120, north Hall This lecture addresses how location impacts a mobile application and how developers can leverage location technologies to improve the user experience. When our industry addresses location in a mobile context all too often we address the “HOW” of this technology rather than focusing on the impact of location in a mobile user’s experience. Technological advancements such as A-GPS (Assisted Global Position System) or WiFi-centric location are driving new application development, yet fail to address the larger concern of a user’s needs and desires when using an application. proDuction, Lecture – interMeDiAte Migrating from opengL es 1.x to opengL es 2.0 Dave Astle (AMD), Jonathan Feldstein (AMD) 10:45-11:30am • room 121, north Hall In order to be more streamlined and efficient, OpenGL ES 2.0 supports only a programmable pipeline, completely removing direct support for the fixed function pipeline. This presentation will explore the implications of this change for mobile developers targeting 3D handsets, whether you are porting existing OpenGL ES 1.x content, or developing new content. Mobile social gaming – breaking Down barriers to connectivity Sponsored by Exit Games christof Wegmann 11:45am-12:30pm • room 125, north Hall Arm yourselves with the knowledge needed to approach the mobile platform with confidence, as a social extension of the growing online gaming market. Harness the power of mobile combined with its social networking capabilities to develop a successful and lasting global social gaming community. in search of the Quest for games in the Mobile universe John puterbaugh (nellymoser) 11:45am-12:30pm • room 111, north Hall When you turn on mobile phone, you do not want an empty screen with a search box. Content like games is much more conducive to a navigation driven, browsing environment. Search will always be a feature for rapidly finding content, but consumers want to have a “directed navigation” environment that shows them what is popular, what is new, what else they would like. This means avoiding scenarios proDuction, rounDtAbLe – ALL 10 Ways to run a porting team like genghis Khan tom park (Digital chocolate) 2-2:45pm • room 120, north Hall Genghis Khan founded the largest continuous land empire in history. To achieve this, he ignored Mongol traditions to unite quarrelling nomadic tribes, established systems of law and communication, and invented military tactics that allowed the Mongols to travel thousands of miles from home and defeat armies that outnumbered them by 3-to-1. This session examines how Genghis Khan’s techniques can be used to run mobile porting. It is presented as a mashup of Kevin Hale’s talk 34 Visit www.gdconf.com for daily coverage of GDC 2008 http://www.gdconf.com/?cid=GDC08_showguide http://www.gdconf.com/?cid=GDC08_showguide
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