GDC 08 Wrap-up: Sessions you might have missed

The following are presented without comment. All are worth your time. And all except one includes slides. Enjoy!

1. GDC08: The Social Gaming Panel from the GDC (liveblogged by Virtual Worlds News)

“99% of the games on Facebook are non-viral, meaning that if you just left them alone, they would not grow next week,” Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga Game Network

Slides from the panel (courtesy of Nabeel Hyatt)

2. GDC08: Virtual Greenspans: Running an MMOG Economy

"For most people, the pleasure is in the journey, not the destination. The same is true for gameplay - we want some benefit from our hard work online, and we want to see it, we want it to be measurable." Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, Economics Professor working for CCP (makers of EVE Online)

3. GDC08: MMO Goal Structures as a Panacea

"One of the biggest lessons we've learned so far from that: you need to actually measure what your users are doing. You don't need to reinvent the wheel to increase your user base -- you can use the systems that already work and do more with them." Erik Bethke, CEO of GoPets.

Read Jeremy Liew's excellent notes here.

Erik Bethke's slides here.

4. GDC08: The Power of Free to Play

“I think even the walled gardens will begin to see an impetus to break the subscription barrier down and get more players in there,” said Crook. WoW is letting users get access to characters on the Web, already making it more available." Adrian Crook (Game Designer and Blogger, freetoplay.biz)

Adrian's slides here.