Articles Posted in Game Platforms

Please join us at Game Developers Conference (GDC) Next 2013 (Los Angeles, November 5 – 7).  This conference is a brand new developer event focusing on creating the game experiences of the future, including how we will play games, on what we will play them, and how we will monetize, distribute, market, and share them. Whether you’re a designer, programmer, architect, producer, artist, marketer, businessperson or all of the above, GDC Next is vital to making great games and key to unlocking money-making opportunities in the most vibrant new areas of the game industry.

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Please join us on May 1-2 at the Neurogaming 2013 Conference and Expo :  where your mind and body meet game play.  

• Over 50 companies involved in neurogaming
• Coolest neurogaming technologies
• Over a dozen mind blowing panels
• Insight into how neurogame design work 

Neurogame developers are using the latest emotional, cognitive, sensory and behavioral technologies to create radically compelling experiences to engage and entertain gamers worldwide. You’ll experience everything from brain-controlled games to true augmented virtual reality experiences and even cognitive enhancing devices that send mild electrical pulses to your brain to improve concentration during game play, and so much more.

·         NeuroGaming 2013 Conference will bring together all the players from across the emerging neurogaming industry and beyond to share insights and visions.  Meet with the key people who are coming together for this first ever event including rock star CEOs, VPs of corporate development, venture partners, angel investors, VP Monetization, game designers, game producers, and more.

·         NeuroGaming 2013 Expo will let you get your hands and minds on all these amazing new neurogaming technologies.  We are bringing together all these cool technologies for you to play with in a floor expo that will blow your mind.

James Gatto will be moderating the first panel of the conference titled, “The Next Interface: Sensory Gaming Platforms” which is scheduled for 10:15am, Wednesday, May 1. The panelists are:

• Stanley Yang, CEO and Founder, Neurosky
• Anders Grunnet-Jepsen, Perceptual Computing Lead, Intel
• Amir Rubin, CEO and Founder, Sixense Entertainment
• Ali Israr, Immersive Gaming Lead, Disney Research

This panel will discuss how new sensory gaming technologies like gesture and voice control, brain-controlled feedback, haptic stimulation and other sensors, are transforming the gaming experience.

Kongregate, the game portal owned by GameStop, has announced a financial assistance program to the tune of $10 million for free-to-play mobile app developers. The assistance includes cash advances to help developers finish their gam, including final builds and integration, support to help with testing, QA and monetisation
and marketing through the GameStop iOS and Android apps.

Zynga and Facebook revised their two year-old agreement that provided special terms to Zynga as compared with other game companies publishing via the Facebook network. Going forward Facebook will treat Zynga with the same rules as it applies to all other game developers. These revisions prevent Zynga from driving gamers from Facebook to Zynga.com. This provision benefits Facebook as it allows Facebook to keep such gamers on the Facebook network. Facebook is also now free to develop its own games, but has said “We’re not in the business of building games and we have no plans to do so.”

Zynga benefits from the revision by having more latitude to expand Zynga.com, its own gaming network. Additionally, Zynga is no longer required to display Facebook ads or use Facebook credits.

Facebook and Zynga are both spinning this as a positive.

Facebook stated: “We have streamlined our terms with Zynga so that Zynga.com’s use of Facebook Platform is governed by the same policies as the rest of the ecosystem. We will continue to work with Zynga, just as we do with developers of all sizes, to build great experiences for people playing social games through Facebook.”

Zynga stated: “Zynga’s mission is to connect the world through games. In order to do this, Zynga is focused on building enduring relationships with consumers across all platforms from Facebook and Zynga.com on the web to tablets and mobile. Our amended agreement with Facebook continues our long and successful partnership while also allowing us the flexibility to ensure the universal availability of our products and services.”

For some time, many industry insiders have anticipated that someday Zynga would launch its own game platform. That day has come. In press release today, Zynga announced:

the Zynga Platform, a new platform designed to bring players what
they’ve asked for: new ways to play and more people to play with. As
part of the initial roll out, Zynga will debut the beta release of
Zynga.com, the company’s new destination for social games. In addition
to serving up popular Zynga games, Zynga.com will let players discover
and play social games created by third party game developers. These
Platform partners will be able to reach new audiences and make their
games even more social.

“We built Zynga.com to give our players more ways to connect with
each other and play great social games whether built by Zynga or other
talented developers,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO, Zynga.
“Together with our platform partners, we look forward to bringing more
play to the world on our platform.”

This is sure to be a hot topic at GDC next week.