How do you build interest in a game's universe before it's been released? What pitfalls do you need to avoid when telling your story within the game itself? And once the game is out, how do you work with your fans to enrich the universe and keep its storylines moving forward? Join Blizzard Entertainment's writers and story developers—the creative minds behind Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft—for a day of panels that will uncover how they achieve these goals the Blizzard way!

In the era of the greatest shift in interactive entertainment history, the primary challenge facing developers – indie or AAA, console or mobile – remains unchanged: how to make games that people play for years and remember forever.
 
In an era of cross-platform connectivity, GameSpy Technology has a solution: Good titles become great when players can share their experiences, both in and out of the game.
 
At this full day tutorial, industry leaders, game developers from every sector and GameSpy Technology staff will present strategies and showcase success stories for using online-enabled features to make your next game an enduring hit.
 
And then we’ll all drink beer.

See Mixer details here.

Get a peek at the latest technologies Google is developing for games. From scalable servers, to high-performance code and graphics in web browsers, to easily porting existing game code and libraries across platforms, Google’s online technologies can help you better create, distribute and monetize games that reach a larger audience than ever before.

Join Google engineers for a full day of in-depth technical discussions about tools, technologies, and platforms for game developers, including Chrome, WebGL, Native Client, Google App Engine, In-App Payments, PlayN, and Google TV.

For more information: www.google.com/events/gdc/2011

See Mixer details here.

Join Unity Technologies and select partners for a day of presentations and workshops about Unity, the award winning game development platform for the desktop, web, mobile and consoles. The day's agenda will include introductory material as well as more advanced topics that are designed to demonstrate Unity’s ease of use and “author once, deploy anywhere” capabilities.  Attendees will learn how Unity can be used to create console quality content for deployment virtually anywhere including new and emerging platforms.  Please join us for what is sure to be an informative day for anyone interested in Unity.

See Mixer details here.

The Game Writing Tutorial is an intensive one day workshop for beginning to intermediate game writers on the theories and practices of narrative design, with a focus on innovating characters and world building. Led by game writers and narrative designers of both AAA and indie titles, sessions will cover diversifying worlds and establishing fictional authenticity, creating more compelling and unique characters, and writing strong, expositive dialogue with attention to tone and audience. Attendees will simulate the design experience by working on a game in "writing teams" and participating in comprehensive exercises during each session. The tutorial's final session will use the day's completed writing samples and give attendees effective strategies for evaluating work and offering constructive feedback during the collaborative process