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Here’s my best guess at my GDC 2010 schedule. Please let me know about talks that you particularly recommend, whether before or after the fact—I was rather relieved when, partway through looking through this, I remember that my All Access Pass will let me listen to recordings of talks that I missed this year! Please say hi if you run into me; if you don’t know what I look like, the pictures at the top of this page are still reasonably accurate.

Tuesday:

• 10:00–10:30: Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked
• 10:30–11:00: Abusing Your Players Just For Fun
• 11:15–11:45: The State of Social Gaming: Industry Overview and Update
• 11:45–12:15: Open Source Secrets: The Software Architecture Behind a Successful Virtual Goods Business
• 1:45–2:45: Why Are Gaming Veterans Flocking to Social Gaming?
• 3:00–4:00: What Social Games Can Learn From Virtual Worlds
• 4:15–5:15: Rapidly Developing FARMVILLE: How We Created and Scaled a #1 Facebook Game in 5 Weeks
• 5:15–6:00: AI Developers Rant!

Wednesday:

• 10:00–11:00: How to Manage an Exploratory Development Process
• 11:15–11:45: Kids and Parents Playing Together Online: the Next Frontier of Casual Gaming
• 11:45–12:15: Lessons Learned building Moshi Monsters to 15m Users
• 1:00–1:30: Mythbusting Fireside Chat
• 1:45–2:45: The Convergence of Flash Games and Social Games
• 3:00–4:00: Devs vs. Cybercriminals: Protecting your MMO from Online Crime
• 4:15–5:15: Indie Gamemaker Rant!
• 5:15–6:00: Who’s Got Game?

Thursday:

• 9:00–10:00: The 4 Most Important Emotions for Social Games
• 10:30–11:30: Creating Successful Social Games: Understanding Player Behavior
• 1:30–2:30: Crushing The Overhead: Case Study of A Microstudio Start-Up
• 3:00–4:00: What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling
• 4:30–5:30: Micro or Massive: It’s Fricking Tough to Achieve a Vision

Friday:

• 9:00–10:00: GDC Microtalks 2010: Ten Speakers, 200 Slides, Limitless Ideas!
• 10:30–11:30: The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)
• 1:30–2:30: The Nuovo Sessions
• 3:00–4:00: The Connected Future of Games
• 4:30–5:30: The Evolution of Habbo Hotel’s Virtual Economy

Saturday:

• 9:00–10:00: Where Did My Inventory Go? Refining Gameplay in Mass Effect 2
• 10:30–11:30: Motivating Casual Players: Non-Traditional Character Progression and Player Retention
• 1:30–2:30: Get Your Game out of my Movie! Interactive Storytelling in Mass Effect 2
• 3:00–4:00: Metaphysics of Game Design