eSports Summit and Community Management Summit Join Six Returning Summits Focused on Emerging and Evolving Sectors of the Game Industry

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 8, 2014 — (PRNewswire) —  The call for submissions to present lectures and panels for the specialized Summits at the 2015 Game Developers Conference® (GDC) is now open through Friday, October 3 at 11:59pm PT. The GDC Summits take place on the first two days of GDC, signaling the start of the five-day conference.

Covering a variety of topics from business models and platforms to industry trends and specific design elements within game development, the summits aspire to foster community building, expand the scope of games to incorporate new players, define market innovations and provide valuable insight into the future of gaming. Organized by the UBM Tech Game Network, GDC 2015 takes place March 2-6 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

New to the GDC Summit lineup this year are the eSports and Community Management Summits.

Taking place on Monday, the Community Management Summit will cover every corner of this quickly evolving, crucial facet of video games. Summit content will focus on how to inspire, build, and maintain player loyalty and enthusiasm through the ups and downs of community opinion and adoption. It will discuss how to manage your community's needs and interests to align with your company's goals. The goal of the summit is to arm attendees with best practices and learnings from industry experts who will share case studies and postmortems on cutting edge community management strategies.

Taking place on Tuesday, the eSports Summit will be a one day summit focused on all things eSports. The Summit will strive to bring together the most influential people in eSports to share their knowledge and expertise; from players to game developers, event organizers, casters, journalists, and streamers. Session content will share best practices for how to design, grow, develop, sustain and communicate within the competitive games industry.

The Summits also welcome several new members to their advisory boards:  In the eSports Summit, advisors include Rod Breslau (LiveOnThree), Frank Lantz (Area/Code, NYU), Lil Chen (TED/The New Meta), and Patrick Miller (Riot Games). New Community Management Summit advisors include Saralyn Smith (Blizzard Entertainment), Donna Prior (Independent), and Troy Hewitt (Motiga). In addition, advisors added to pre-existing GDC Summits include Akira Thompson of RainBros, joining the Independent Games Summit board, and Katherine Isbister of NYU Game Center's Game Innovation Lab, joining the GDC Education Summit.

The 2015 GDC Summits are:

• AI Summit
• Community Management Summit
• eSports Summit
• Free to Play Summit
• Game Narrative Summit
• GDC Education Summit
• Independent Games Summit
• Smartphones & Tablet Games Summit

For more information regarding the submission process and guidelines for the GDC summits, please visit www.gdconf.com/conference/c4p/summits.html.

"The GDC Summits play an integral role for the Games Developers Conference, they set the stage for the types of indispensable knowledge developers and the video game community expect." said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of all Game Developers Conference events. "We strive to bring compelling content each year. It's deeply rewarding to help ignite these engaging and thought-provoking discussions within the community that broaden our understanding of the space and open up the industry to more audiences."  

For more information about the Summits at GDC 2015 and advisory board members, please visit www.gdconf.com.

About the UBM Tech Game Network
A core provider of essential information to the professional game industry, the UBM Tech Game Network offers market-defining content, and drives community through its award winning lineup of print, online, event and research products and services. These include the Game Developers Conference®, the Webby Award-winning Gamasutra.com and network of sites, the Game Advertising Online ad network, the App Developers Conference™, the Game Developers Conference® Next, the Game Developers Conference™ Europe, the Game Developers Conference™ China, the Game Career Seminars and GameCareerGuide.com, the Independent Games Festival and Summit, and the Game Developers Choice Awards. Visit:  www.jointhegamenetwork.com

About  UBM Tech
UBM Tech is a global media business that brings together the world's technology communities through live events, online properties and custom services. UBM Tech's community-focused approach provides its users and clients with expertly curated research, education, training, community advocacy, user-generated content and peer-to-peer engagement opportunities that serve the Electronics, Security, Enterprise IT and Communications, Network Infrastructure and Applications, Game and App Developers, and Tech Marketing communities. UBM Tech's brands include Black Hat, DesignCon, EE Times, Enterprise Connect, Game Developers Conference (GDC), HDI, InformationWeek, and Interop. Create, a UBM Tech full range marketing services division, includes custom events, content marketing solutions, community development and demand generation programs based on its content and technology market expertise. UBM Tech is a part of UBM (UBM.L), a global provider of media and information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion. For more information, go to  http://tech.ubm.com.

SOURCE UBM Tech Game Network

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