Due to unfavorable business circumstances, Stormfront Studios was forced to shut down, leaving its 33 employees wandering about looking for new work. It's always sad to hear news like this, especially when the studio already worked on notable franchises such as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Eragon (Xbox 360, PSP, PC) and other games. More in the full article.

Here's another update from the recent GDC 08. Stormfront Studios' bigwig Don Daglow talked about how developers can learn how to make and develop original IPs from movie games.

He noted that movie-game audiences are able to understand and have emotional commitment to these things. Find out more of what he said in the full article.

The gaming community awaits in excitement for the coming GC Developer's Conference, the largest game developer's conference in Europe. It's a forum for developers in the area of computers, game consoles and mobile entertainment, helping these developers gain more insight on game development. After GCDC of course, comes the Leipzig Games Convention, second only in magnitude to the Tokyo Game Show.

Only today, GCDC announced that they've created a new advisory board. The members of the GCDC advisory board are: Bob Bates from USA, Alexander Fernández from Netherlands - CEO Streamline Studios, Don L. Daglow from USA - president and CEO of Stormfront Studios, Sean Kauppinen from USA -  Vice President of Kohnke Communications, Tom Putzki from Germany, Bob Wallace from USA - Strategic Alternatives, and Frank Sliwka from Germany, project director of GCDC.

With the members being well-known experts in the gaming industry, those behind the Leipzig fair believe that the new advisory board will help bring GCDC to the next level as a world-class game industry conference. This year's GCDC will be held from August 22 to 27, at Leipzig, Germany.

  

The 2007 Game Developers Conference (GDC) will tackle the impact of next-gen consoles on developers, and it will provide information on adapting and creating dynamic next-gen games. The GDC is the biggest international event dedicated to game creation attracting over 12,500 visitors every year. The conference aims to provide educational, networking, and business opportunities for game development professionals.

The GDC will be held on March 5 to 9 in San Francisco. It features over 300 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on various topics about game development. The topics include game development for computer, console, mobile, arcade, and online games. Some of the topics this year include:

• Console Wars: Issues for the First Two Years of Next-gen by Don Daglow (President & CEO, Stormfront Studios, Inc.): Daglow attempts to answer many tough issues involved in the war between three innovative new next-gen consoles. What platforms to support? What kinds of games to develop, and which to avoid? How do I prevent disaster if I take a wrong turn?
• Physics on Next Gen Platforms by David Wu (Director of Technology, Pseudo Interactive Inc): The current (Next?) generation of hardware has a tremendous amount of computational power that is well suited for physics. This round table provides an opportunity for programmers interested in physics and designers with a high tolerance for technical jargon to discuss new ideas, trends, effective algorithms, API design, and Middleware for the parallel nature Xbox360, Cell and high end PCs. (Rumor has it if Wu can't make it Stephen Hawking will take over - just kidding!)
• Designing Revolutionary Controls by Jesse Raymond (Programmer, Vicarious Visions) and Mike Chrzanowski (Vicarious Visions): This session delves into the challenges of bringing a title from a standard controller to the Wii controller using Vicarious Visions' development of Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the Nintendo Wii as case study. The session also illustrates general techniques and pitfalls of controls development. Vicarious Visions presents topics including extensive testing, audience analysis, gesture development, and player instruction. (While you're at it could you add Wii strap re-design?)

Photos courtesy of the Game Developers Conference. For more details, please visit the GDC's official website.