Game Developers Conference Next (GDC Next) Learning Tracks

The Game Developers Conference Next (GDC Next) educational and learning tracks have been announced for the 2014 event. These focus on five primary themes to help individuals and businesses create, differentiate and promote their games. Additionally, the App Developers Conference (ADC) addresses non-gaming apps.

Both GDC and ADC will be held at the Los Angeles Convention on November 3rd and 4th. Registration, free expo passes and all-access conference discounts are still available.

The five tracks, plus ADC, are summarized below. These include Design, Business & Marketing, Productions, Discoverability and Community.

Design Track 
Creating compelling and immersive games that also make money requires understanding, visualizing, demonstrating, and tuning the interactions of an ever-increasing number of game tools and systems. The Design Track will discuss how to master vital disciplines of game design, gameplay crafting, and stickiness. 

Business & Marketing Track 
The Business & Marketing Track seeks to educate and inform developers about the business of game development on both an introductory and expert level. It will discuss best practices in monetization, how to differentiate a good from bad business offer, how to manage growth, and a myriad of free to play game tips. The track will include postmortems of crowdfunding, internationalization on a budget, how to increase global appeal, and bootstrapping your studio to success.

Production Track
The goal of the Production Track is to provide developers with concrete tactics for managing game production, no matter what the size or scope of your game. Sessions in the Production Track will discuss how to best make cross platform development decisions, platform release timing, low-budget and efficient testing, plus test marketing and release strategies. It will also discuss the state of distribution platforms and how to choose the best technical underpinning for your game.

Discoverability Track 
It’s official – the video game market is saturated! The Discoverability Track will discuss ways to stand out and differentiate your game from the rest. Topics include the pros and cons of offering early access/alpha versions, leveraging large external online communities and working with YouTube/Twitch personalities, streaming your game’s footage, App Store discoverability, and leveraging the game media to your advantage.

Community Track 
It is more important than ever to engage, satisfy and grow your community. The Community Track will focus on how to make your game feel like an experience, game operation, managing and growing live communities, defining a connected community, how to use social media to boost your title, and E-Sports.

App Developers Conference 
ADC focuses on non-game and enterprise app development, UI/UX, security, marketing and business. Whether their apps embrace iOS, Android, the web, virtual reality, other emerging platforms, or whether they operate even further afield–we’re bringing together the very best app creators for this event to share best practices.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to start your new application development or accelerate growth in your existing business. We’ll look forward to seeing you next week at the GDC/ADC in Los Angeles!