GDC 2007 submissions open, GDC London announced

With this year's Game Developers Conference becoming a slowly fading memory, the event's organizers have turned their focus squarely to next year's event. GDC 2007 runs March 5 to 9, and today the CMP Game Group announced that it has opened the submissions process for those interested in presenting lectures, roundtables, tutorials, or sessions at the event.

The deadline to submit an abstract for consideration is July 28, 2006. Topics can cover issues ranging from the creation of a game to the business concerns surrounding it, and each abstract will be reviewed by the GDC advisory board before the conference program is set later this year.

"The rallying cry for GDC 07 is 'Take Control,' and we're asking game-industry professionals to explicitly detail their challenges and victories in creating next-generation and industry-broadening games," said GDC executive director Jamil Moledina. "Now more than ever, developers are empowered to create and distribute a broad range of games, be they casual, online, independent, small-footprint mobile, or epic, blockbuster console or PC adventures--using a broader range of financial and organizational tools and partners--and GDC presents the leading forum to share these opportunities as a unified creative industry."

[UPDATE] CMP has also announced a new GDC offshoot to be held across the Atlantic. Titled GDC London, the event will run from October 2-4 at the Piccadilly Circus headquarters of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

BAFTA headquarters is also the site of the London Games Summit, which takes place immediately after GDC London from October 4-5. That event is co-sponsored by trade-group Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), the British answer to the ESA, and Tiga, aka the Independent Game Developers Association, the UK version of the IGDA.

The London Games Summit was created to fill the void created after the UK's two top game events, the venerable ECTS and upstart EGN, committed mutual suicide by holding their events simultaneously in 2004.

GDC London itself also appears to be a replacement--or at least a rebranding--of GDCE, CMP's previous London-set developer conference. No keynote or conference speakers were named for the event, though CMP did promise it would offer "expert developers delivering cross-disciplinary sessions based on real-world, next-generation console games." The announcement promised more details in July.