GDC 2012 to Bring Back Popular Series of Classic Game Postmortems Featuring Alone in the Dark, Fallout, Gauntlet and Harvest Moon

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Game Developers Conference® (GDC) will continue its examination of benchmark games that have long served as inspiration to the development community with the return of the Classic Game Postmortem series to its Main Conference for a second consecutive year. 

After its acclaimed debut as part of GDC's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration last year, the series returns to GDC 2012 with post-mortems of the original editions of seminal games Alone in the Dark with designer Frederick Raynal, Fallout with producer, lead programmer and designer Tim Cain, Gauntlet with creator Ed Logg and Harvest Moon with producer and co-designer Yasuhiro Wada. Organized by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, GDC is the industry's most comprehensive and longest-running professionals-only event and will take place March 5-9, 2012 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. 

Infogrames' atmospheric 1992 action-adventure title Alone in the Dark is widely considered the forefather of the survival horror genre, establishing conventions like claustrophobic areas, stories revealed through expository items, and giving players limited ammunition to deal with hordes of monsters. Its cinematic presentation and fixed third-person camera angles went on to influence many non-survival horror releases, too. Alone in the Dark's designer Frederick Raynal will share how he and his team crafted the seminal game and helped spawn a genre that still scares millions today.

The Fallout series has changed development or publishing hands a number of times (most recently to Bethesda Softworks), switched perspectives, and jumped from turn-based to real-time gameplay, but the series' survival and consistently high quality games are a testament to the strengths of the original.

Interplay Entertainment's first Fallout in 1997 offered players a post-apocalyptic open world filled with distinctive characters, moral dilemmas, and quests that could be solved in multiple, oftentimes-unconventional ways. Tim Cain, producer, lead programmer, and one of the primary designers for the beloved game who is now at work at Obsidian on the new South Park RPG, will deliver a talk on how he helped create a franchise that set a new standard for open-world RPGs and still resonates with players.

Atari's 1985 title Gauntlet was the first video game to bring the now-pervasive multiplayer feature of class-based heroes to arcades and later consoles with its Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, and Elf.  The game also was one of the pioneers of the co-op dungeon crawling/looting game. Ed Logg, designer of Gauntlet who was also responsible for helping to design ground-breaking games including Super Breakout, Asteroids, Centipede and Millipede, will share his thoughts on creating the game that popularized the phrase "Wizard needs food badly" and paved the way for class-dependent experiences like World of Warcraft, Phantasy Star Online, and others. 

Finally the Harvest Moon series made waves for portraying peaceful rural life in a video game world, and has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide in the last 15 years.  Yasuhiro Wada will discuss the original 1996 Super Nintendo title Harvest Moon, a game he not only produced, but also helped design and direct, and will touch on the ideas that gave birth to the series, and the many successes and failures that can occur in developing and producing a video game franchise. In a talk simultaneously translated from Japanese, he will also offer insight into the business aspects behind the series' growth.

"The classic postmortems were first conceived as a special way to help celebrate the twenty-fifth edition of GDC last year, but after seeing its overwhelming success and due to popular demand, we decided to make it a permanent fixture at the conference, considering how many important and influential games we have yet to explore," said Meggan Scavio, GDC general manager.  "From the definitive survival horror and RPG experiences to the original farm simulation game to an arcade legend that ate quarters from every GDC attendee, we are confident that there will be a variety of fascinating lessons to be learned for everyone who comes to these sessions."

For more information about the 2012 Game Developers Conference or to register online, visit www.gdconf.com.

About the UBM TechWeb Game Network 
A core provider of essential information to the professional game industry, the UBM TechWeb Game Network – formerly known as the Think Services Game Group - 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 Game Developers Conference® Online, the Game Developers Conference™ Europe, the Game Developers Conference™ China, Game Developer Magazine, Game Developer Research, 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 TechWeb
UBM TechWeb, the global leader in technology media and professional information, enables people and organizations to harness the transformative power of technology. Through its three core businesses – media solutions, marketing services and paid content – UBM TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed brands and media applications in the technology market. More than 14.5 million business and technology professionals (CIOs and IT managers, Web & Digital professionals, Software Developers, Government decision makers, and Telecom providers) actively engage in UBM TechWeb's communities and information resources monthly. UBM TechWeb brands includes: global face-to-face events such as Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and Enterprise Connect; award-winning online resources such as InformationWeek, Light Reading, and Network Computing; and market-leading magazines InformationWeek, Wall Street & Technology, and Advanced Trading. UBM TechWeb is a UBM plc company, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.  Visit: www.ubmtechweb.com

CONTACT: Brian Rubin / Teresa Tyndorf
fortyseven communications
(212) 391-4707 / (323) 658-1200
[email protected] / [email protected]

Sandra Lew
UBM TechWeb Game Network
(415) 947-6232
[email protected]

SOURCE UBM TechWeb Game Network

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