GAMER CONFERENCE KICKS OFF

Confab scoring with the industry

by Ben Fritz - Variety

February 18, 2008 - Once a quiet confab for techies and artists, the Game Developers Conference kicks off this week as a growing home for the business side of vidgames as well, with Hollywood showing increased interest.

Driven in large part by the downsizing and delay until summer of E3, the 16th edition of the San Francisco-based GDC will play host to a broad array of business and press meetings alongside its traditional slate of panels and workshops for developers. Overall attendance is expected to surge past last year's 16,000.

Growth of the event also means more Hollywood execs, agents, producers and creatives will be flying up to try to get involved in some vidgame projects and land rights to others. Pre-show registrations indicate that about 10% of attendees will come from the traditional media business.

Some from the Hollywood contingent will be using the GDC to show off new projects. An example: animation house Blockade, which recently sold the first scripted toon made with a videogame engine to cable network GamePlay HD.

"Since E3 became constricted in size, the interest in such an event didn't evaporate, but a lot of those people are now coming to GDC," said conference exec director Jamil Moledina. "For us, that means we have to stay true to our core value for developers while also expanding opportunities for dealmaking."

Interest is coming not only from big publishers with business to do before summer but also from independent publishers and developers, many of whom are no longer invited to the slimmer E3.

Confab will feature everything from panels on storytelling and audio design to a keynote from Microsoft's exec in charge of Xbox Live, from private receptions and parties to the Game Developers Choice Awards, which competes with the Interactive Achievement Awards to be the vidgame industry's equivalent of the Oscars. GDC Awards will be televised for the first time this year, courtesy of G4.

Numerous publishers are also renting hotel space around the GDC's Moscone Center digs to demo big titles coming in the spring and summer for the press. Games that will be shown off include Disney's "Prince Caspian" adaptation and driving game "Pure," Warner Bros.' "Lego Batman" and "Speed Racer," Nintendo's "Wii Fit," EA's "Spore," Microsoft's "Fable 2" and Vivendi's "Prototype."

Though publishers aren't holding press conferences like they typically do at E3, several companies will be hoping to make news this week, including Microsoft with its keynote.

Blockade and GamePlay HD are using the event to spotlight their new show "Sacred Road." It's the first scripted series for GamePlay, one of Cablevision's high-def Voom networks.

Blockade, which is headed by Brad Foxhoven, former head of John Woo's vidgame company, and partially owned by f/x house Rhythm & Hues and vidgame developer Gearbox Software, is using videogame technology to produce CG animation at low cost.

"Sacred Road" utilizes the engine from Gearbox's WWII action game "Brothers in Arms" to produce many of its settings and movements, along with some motion capture and original animation.

"By reusing game engines and assets, we think we can substantially lower production time while keeping the quality high," said Foxhoven.

Series is about a group of Allied soldiers during WWII who face zombies created by the Nazis from WWI corpses. GamePlay HD has ordered six episodes, which are expected to air in the fall. "Sacred Road" is created by Rhythm & Hues vet Bill Kroyer.

"Since we started (in 2006), I've been trying to find a way to make a dramatic series with the same technology in games," said Mark DeAngelis, VP of programming and development for Gameplay HD. "There's no way we could have afforded an animated series of this quality with traditional methods."

Both Gameplay and Blockade are hoping "Sacred Road" will be the first of several series they'll produce using vidgame technology.