As the GDC 2015 lineup begins to come together, conference officials would like to highlight a few notable Design track talks you should know about. This in-depth track is available for All-Access and Main Conference pass holders, and remains one of the most popular and enduring tracks of the show. Among the early announced Design talks are Epic’s Celia Hodent on the intersection of neuroscience and game design, the vice president of RuneScape sharing data on how to make games that people want to return to and Riot’s Dr. Lin on using science to shape player behavior in online games. These talks are part of the Design Track for GDC 2015’s Main Conference, which will take place Wednesday-Friday, March 4-6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. This marks Riot Games’ Dr. Jeffrey Lin’s return to the GDC stage. As the lead designer of social systems at Riot, Dr. Lin is uniquely qualified to guide you through some basic psychology and social dynamics, teach you how to apply science to game design and (hopefully) design better multiplayer experiences for your players. During his “More Science Behind Shaping Player Behavior in Online Games” talk he’ll share methods, stories and lessons learned in three years of striving to improve player behavior in League of Legends. In “The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Design”, Epic Games’ director of user experience Celia Hodent will share some brain facts relative to perception, attention and memory, and how this knowledge can be applied to game design. She’ll also lay out some new UX guidelines and propose concrete examples, mostly from Epic Games’ work. Also, don’t miss RuneScape vice president Phil Mansell’s talk on Returners and Retention: How to Win Back Lapsed Players.” Using case studies and data from recent game initiatives, Mansell will describe what has worked and what hasn’t across game content, community events, communications and billing, then offer tips on how developers can cultivate valuable returning players. Further details on all announced talks is available now in the online GDC 2015 Session Scheduler, where you can begin to plan out your conference week and later export it to the up-to-the-minute GDC Mobile App, coming soon. Conference officials look forward to announcing more GDC 2015 sessions spanning a diverse array of game industry issues in the months ahead. For now, don’t miss the opportunity to save money by registering early — the deadline to register for passes at a discounted rate is January 21, 2015. GDC 2015 itself will take place March 2-6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information on GDC 2015, visit the show’s official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.
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