Category Archives: Paris GDC

Speaking at Paris GDC yesterday, 2K programmer Chris Kline told the crowd that in hindsight BioShock should never have been the success it proved to be, Gama reports.

“BioShock should’ve failed, said Kline. “In fact, it did fail a lot, over the course of time. A series of big mistakes and corrections and slipped ship dates, but all of these helped make it a good game.”

Kline explained that the team’s first mistake was to try to ape System Shock 2. There’s lots more of this through the link. Too many words for this early in the morning. We just wanted the headline.

Kicking off Paris GDC this morning, Media Molecule boss Mark Healey has said that massive teams aren’t necessary to make big games, GI reports.

“One of the interesting things about the titles shown here is that the team sizes vary quite a lot,” he said, showing a list of game concepts in his keynote. “I think there’s a misconception in the games industry at the moment that you need 200 people to make a game now because technology is so amazing.

“But actually, some of the recent very successful games had teams of about four or five people – for example, Brain Training.”

Alex Evans, also of the LittleBigPlanet developer, added: “I believe that was a very small, focused team. And when you go through the breadth of our industry, it’s really staggering that you have casual games, role-playing games, you have MMOs, you have educational games, puzzle games, social games – the breadth is completely insane, and that’s just a huge inspiration for us.”

More through the link.

GameSetWatch has announced the latest slug of speakers to take the stage at the upcoming Paris GDC, including confirmation of a talk from Quantic Dream’s Guillaume de Fondaumiere.

Other definites are Allan Murphy (Microsoft); Lionel Lemarié (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe); Ian Baverstock (Kuju); Chris Mottes (Deadline Games); and Franc Hauselmann (Ubisoft).

Previously announced are Blizzard’s Rob Pardo as keynote speaker and Valve’s Kim Swift, resident Portal expert.

The event’s taking place on June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris (obviously). You need to register to get involved.

Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s SVP of game design, will give the opening keynote at Paris GDC this year, the event confirmed today.

The keynote – titled “In the Eye of the Blizzard” – GDC boss Jamil Moledina will interview Pardo on stage “on his inspirations, challenges, and on the next steps at Blizzard Entertainment. Pardo will address Blizzard’s lessons learned, the resources unlocked by its success, and the raw talent in evidence in its development team.”

The event takes place on June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris.

Press release after the link.

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According to this PS3F report, Mark Healey and Alex Evans – co-founders of LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule – will keynote Paris GDC this year.

“Their talk will touch upon the ways in which game developers can incorporate creativity into their designs, and the future of user-generated content as illustrated by their upcoming title, LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3,” said the developer in a statement.

Paris GDC is the second French edition of the Game Developers Conference, and is scheduled for June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris .

GI’s reporting that Harmonix, Acclaim, Nvidia and Bioware will all be speaking at Paris GDC.

The event takes place on June 23-24, at the Coeur Defense.

Senior designer at Harmonix Chris Foster will feature in the design track along with BioWare’s managing editor Mac Walters and game designer David Freeman of The Freeman Group.

It’s seriously slow today, so you get stories about registration for French trade shows. Registration for Paris GDC is now open here. If you sign up before May 14 you get a discount. Only “103 days left”, says the site. We have no idea if this is going to be any good, but even if it isn’t you should blag a trip to France from your boss. Paris is pretty in the summer.

The event runs from June 23-24.

CMP has confirmed that Paris GDC, moved from Lyon for its 2008 event, will take place on June 23-24.

“We were delighted with the success of the first French GDC held in 2007 and are confident that Paris GDC will bring together even more talented developers from around the world, now in a more central location and the home of the biggest development studios in the country,” said executive director Pierre Carde.

The event is a European extension of the San Francisco GDC, to be held this year on February 18-22.