The GDC Prime sessions are designed to provoke frank, intellectually honest discussion among attendees about the most pressing issues for the industry today, and what the future will hold. We have invited the peers among us who are thought leaders and crafters of innovative solutions to share openly their successes and challenges. We have also invited speakers working in a related discipline to share their insights and offer new perspectives.

Location Notes: All GDC Prime events will take place at the W Hotel
- Sessions: Great Rooms 1-2
- Breakfast and Lunch: Workrooms 1-3
- Lounge: Workrooms 1-3
- Registration: 3rd Floor lobby area across from Great Rooms
- Welcome Reception: 4th Floor terrace

Wednesday, March 7

12:00pm to 12:30pm
The Future of Entertainment: Programming for the modern consumer in new media-rich environments.
Sandy Climan, President, EMV

2:30pm to 3:00pm
The Source of Creativity
Steven Johnson, author, The Ghost Map

3:15pm to 3:45pm
Why GenY Buy: Results of a detailed analysis of both messaging and buying patterns in the key youth demographic, as proven by the iPod.
Ashley Grayson, VP Business Development, Criteria

It's generally agreed that Generation Y consumers, those 70+ million born since 1978, are impatient, wired, and love time-shifting their lives, but there's more. In this session, Grayson shows how traditional market research has so far overlooked what is unique about GenY: a new buying paradigm. Marketing and selling to GenY requires rethinking proven but no longer valid techniques, avoiding obsolete strategy, and rethinking the very concept of brand. Selling to GenY is not a channel problem; it's a message problem. Grayson also demonstrates how traditional marketing demographics aren’t the answer when understanding GenY. What is right right now will be determined by The Fellowship of the Ringtone, millions of small groups of friends who embraced the iPod and are eager to find the next big thing.

4:00pm to 4:30pm
Online Games as the Next Youtube: How user-created content has transformed online games into a new web platform.
Joi Ito, CEO, Neoteny

4:45pm to 5:15pm
Communities Come to Consoles: What the console Myspace will look like, and how games can leverage it.
Ben Cerveny, Director, the Playground Foundation

Thursday, March 8

12:00pm to 12:30pm
Sleepless in San Francisco: Issues to Keep Us All Awake
Neil Young, Vice President and General Manager of EA Los Angeles

2:30pm to 3:00pm
Can Merging Independent Developers Work?
Jon Goldman, CEO, Foundation 9

Foundation 9 merges seven unique studios into a single large-scale developer, leveraging multiple specialties across the publishing landscape, fielding over 30 titles in the market in 2007. The challenges of this scope of integration are considerable. Quality control, financial performance, managing fiercely independent key performers, and reducing redundant tasks are key issues in merging companies, but how dramatically does the creative element affect a chief executive’s choices on these issues? To what extent does a CEO have to manage the staff below as he manages expectations above? Goldman shares his experiences, with examples from the past year of rapid acquisitions, and the lessons he’s picked up along the way.

3:15pm to 3:45pm
Survival of the Fittest: An Asian take on risk management and evolved production with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.
Ray Nakazato, Executive Producer, AQ Interactive

Using the relatively new distributed development model, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were created using a tiny core team, supported by a network of developers forming the production team. Nakazato details how the decision was made to go in this direction, how they balanced the risks of abandoning the Japanese full-time studio model, the business philosophy of the new model, as well as how the funding for the structure was supported. Nakazato rounds off his analysis by comparing the results of the model with the initial goals of the projects. He concludes by providing his recipe for how Western developers can succeed with this model in Japan, and his vision of the future Asian and global ecosystem of game production in light of the success of this model.

To download the GDC Prime Registration Request Form (PDF), click here.