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[NOTE: We're also putting on the first-ever Indie Games Summit at GDC Austin in September 2009 - more information is available at this IGF blog post.]
The Independent Games Summit, which first took place in 2007, is a forum to discuss the state of independent games at the Game Developers Conference, the largest game creation conference in the world.
It takes place alongside the pioneering Independent Games Festival at GDC, which is in its eleventh year of awarding and showcasing the best independent video games, with this year's winners including Blueberry Garden, Between, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos and Musaic Box and others.
The Summit, which took place for the third time on March 23rd and 24th, 2009 in San Francisco, California, featured lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators, including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists and winners.
The latest information on the 2009 Independent Games Summit, including line-up, pass price, and recent additions is available at the official 2009 Indie Games Summit page on the GDC website. Some of the speakers for 2009's third ever IGS included Stardock's Brad Wardell (Galactic Civilizations II), 2D Boy's Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler (World Of Goo), Jonatan 'Cactus' Soderstrom (Clean Asia, Psychosomnium), and more.
This information center, part of the IGF website, exists in order to document current and previous iterations of the Independent Games Summit, linking to videos and write-ups of previous years' lectures and panels for posterity.
The 2009 Independent Games Summit
 For the third year in a row, the Independent Games Summit took an
up-close, intimate look at the indie scene, surveying the past,
evaluating the present and projecting the future from both creative and
business perspectives.
The 2009 Independent Game Summit took place on March 23 and 24 in
San Francisco as part of the Game Developers Conference. As
distribution methods and business models for independently developed
games continue to evolve, that amount of freedom and flexibility means
that indie developers are running into new challenges, many of which
notable lecturers addressed during the summit
For instance, there was Ron Carmel with World of Goo developer 2D Boy, who went into detail
about the financials behind creating the game and launching a company.
Petri Purho, Independent Games Festival Grand Prize Winner and Crayon Physics Deluxe creator talked about prototyping as a way to "get the bad game ideas out of your system."
Hothead's Vlad Ceraldi and Joel DeYoung were also there, shared their experiences with the creation of Penny Arcade Adventures and the currently-in-production Deathspank. Brad Wardell, CEO of Galactic Civilizations developer Stardock was also on hand to explain the opportunities indies have with core gamers.
Other sessions included an iPhone discussion with Adam Atomic Saltsman (Semi Secret Software - Wurdle) and Sergei Gourski (Subatomic Studios - Fieldrunners);
an indie-focused presentation from the eyes of big-time corporate (yet
indie-friendly) developer Rod Humble, EVP of EA Play; and an indie developer rant that covered everything from sex education "games" to ethical game design.
The 2008 Independent Games Summit
 In its second iteration, the 2008 Independent Games Summit at GDC looked to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from indie game distribution methods through game design topics, detailed postmortems of independent titles, digital distribution-centric business concepts, and much more.
The event took place on the Monday and Tuesday of Game Developers Conference 2008, February 18th and 19th, and the full lecture/panel roster is available for reading. Featured lectures included N+ co-creator Raigan Burns on rolling your own tech, Q Games' Dylan Cuthbert on creating the PixelJunk series (including the first public unveiling of PixelJunk Eden), and Introversion's Vicky Arundel (Darwinia) on indie marketing.
Also notable was Torpex's Bill Dugan on the making of XBLA title Schizoid, a postmortem of the IGF Grand Prize-winning Aquaria from Bit Blot's Derek Yu and Alec Holowka, a panel on web browser-based games, and contributions from the creators of Professor Fizzwizzle, Outpost Kaloki, Shantae and more.
Extensive coverage of this Summit appeared on sister site Gamasutra, including, from day one, the opening panel, the Aquaria postmortem, Raigan from N+'s 'unique knobs' talk, the Flash games panel, and the PixelJunk Eden discussion.
Also covered from day two was the 'Two Kyles' lecture on paths to indie greatness, plus the full postmortem of N+ for XBLA, and Croal and Totilo with a media perspective on indie, and the final 'State Of Indie' panel.
The 2007 Independent Games Summit
 Featuring lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators around, the inaugural Independent Games Summit took place at Game Developers Conference 2007 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, on March 5th and 6th, 2007.
The full roster for the 2007 Independent Games Summit is available to read, and included notable lectures from Braid's Jonathan Blow (pictured), ThatGameCompany's Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (Flow/Flower), and a talk on going from Narbacular Drop to Portal by Valve's Kim Swift.
Some of the other notable lectures included a special keynote by Space Giraffe creator and indie legend Jeff Minter, an indie business talk by The Behemoth's John Baez (Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers), and an Innovation panel including Everyday Shooter developer Jon Mak and a number of other indie luminaries.
Many of the top IGS 2007 talks are available for viewing on Google Video, including Kim Swift's lecture on Portal, the Jon Blow 'indie prototyping' talk, and a postmortem of XBLA title Small Arms from its creators at Gastronaut Studios.
In addition, sister website Gamasutra covered a number of the 2007 IGS lectures with write-ups, including those by Jeff Minter, by John Baez, by XBLA/PSN representative, and the panel on indie innovation, plus the final 'State Of Indie Games' panel. Finally, audio of Monday's lectures and Tuesday's lectures are available for purchase from the GDC Radio website.
[If you'd like to discuss any elements of the Independent Games Summit, including lecture suggestions, media interviews, and other feedback, please contact us at chairman@igf.com.] |
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