The Games Developers Conference (GDC) is the world's largest and longest-running professionals-only game industry event. The 2012 expo will be held on March 5 - 9, 2011 at the Moscone Convention Center in beautiful San Francisco. The GDC attracts over 19,000 attendees, and is the primary forum where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry. The GDC is produced by the UBM TechWeb Game Network.

This market defining conference features over 400 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts. In addition, the GDC expo showcases all of the most relevant game development tools, platforms and services helping to drive the industry forward. The conference also features the fourteenth annual Independent Games Festival, where new, unpublished games compete for the attention of the publishing community, and the twelfth annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the premier accolades for peer-recognition in the digital games industry.

Sessions at the GDC are divided into seven tracks and eight summits, generally according to the subject discipline such as programming or art. This year's GDC Tracks include the following:

Audio Track:
The Audio Track brings the industry's top professionals to share their knowledge and experience from the real-world, addressing these unique problems: aesthetic, technical, business, logistical and then some.

Business, Marketing and Management Track:
The Business, Marketing & Management Track seeks to educate and inform developers about the business of game development and ways in which their business can be improved.

Game Design Track:
Creating compelling, immersive games requires understanding, visualizing, demonstrating, and tuning the interactions of an ever-increasing number of game tools and systems. While game designers need to understand and exploit the possibilities of new technologies such as realistic physics, facial expressions, and lighting techniques; they must also continue to master the traditional disciplines of drama, game play, and psychology.

Production Track:
In recent years, game industry production challenges have been split between massive budgets for AAA console games, and significant new production challenges from social, online, smartphone and other emerging types of game. The goal of the Production Track is to provide developers with concrete tactics for managing game production, no matter what size or scope your game is.

Programming Track:
As new platforms emerge and existing platforms evolve, programmers face an ever increasing challenge to produce games that capture the attention of the public and the media. The Programming Track focuses on these challenges and the opportunities presented by next and current generation development including: mature consoles, new handhelds, a highly competitive sales environment, and increased demand for very high production values in games.

Visual Arts Track:
The Visual Arts Track strives to educate artists and technical artists about methods for producing game art and animations; from stellar concept art techniques to post production best practices. Our focus for GDC 2012 is how to produce exceptional art while reducing costs.

Monetization Track:
The Sponsored Monetization Track at GDC will contain three full days of content (Wed-Fri), focusing on the current and future opportunities for monetizing social network titles, free-to-play web games, kid-friendly online titles and large-scale MMOs. Leading payment providers will share the pitfalls, successes and best practices in this thriving and competitive marketplace. The sponsor programmed sessions will feature prominent industry executives giving their perspective on the latest developments in this critically important ecosystem.

The eight Summits at GDC are:

AI Summit:
The AI Summit at GDC features panels and lectures from more than two dozen of the top game AI programmers in the industry, giving you an inside look at key architectures and issues within successful commercial games, as well as let you eavesdrop on conversations, debates, and rants on how game AI can move forward.

Game IT Summit:
Game IT is a daylong conference focused on the use of videogames to tackle common organizational goals through enterprise-focused game development. As the power of play, video game design, and social systems meets up with ever more powerful browser-based application stacks, organizations are looking to create new ways to boost productivity, improve customer interactions, and take advantage of the disparity between the perceived power of videogames vs. traditional Web & IT approaches to UI, engagement, and collaborative interactions.

Localization Summit:
The Localization Summit at GDC is aimed at helping both localization professionals and game developers and publishers understand the critical details of how to plan and execute game localization as a part of the game lifecycle.

Games for Change @ GDC:
Games for Change @ GDC supports the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts. The Summit will highlight models for collaboration on game design, bridging the gap between commercial and issue driven game development, distribution and publishing alternatives, and much more.

GDC Education Summit:
The GDC Education Summit will explore experimental and inventive educational approaches that established game curriculum builders can bring back to their faculty and classrooms.

Independent Games Summit:
The Independent Games Summit represents the voice of the independent game developer at GDC. It features lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the best, brightest, and most notable independent game creators, including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists and winners, to discuss game design philosophy, distribution, business, marketing, and much more.

Smartphone and Tablet Games Summit:
The GDC Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit brings together top game developers from around the world to share ideas, introduce best practices and discuss the future of gaming on established and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, including the iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows 7 and more.

Social and Online Games Summit:
The Social and Online Games Summit gathers the industry's established leaders and up-and-coming rebels for a series of illuminating sessions about the technology, design, business, marketing, and future of social and online games.

GDC 2011
March 6 - 9, 2011
Moscone Convention Center
North and West Halls
Howard Street, between 3rd & 4th Streets
San Francisco, CA 94103