GDC 2016: All the headlines

MCV Staff 21st March 2016 Development News

From VR and a slew of major engine updates to livestreaming and AI texture generation, this year’s Game Developers Conference certainly didn’t let up on the big news from Monday to Friday.

The price and release date for the PlayStation VR were finally revealed, with Sony also demonstrating the headset’s ability to offer room-scale experiences to developers – but watch out, anything less than 60 frames per second performance won’t cut the mustard.

At the annual IGF and GDC Awards, Her Story cleaned up, with developer Sam Barlow winning big at both the indie-focused and mainstream ceremonies. Although, CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher III ultimately claimed the biggest prize: Game of the Year.

In terms of tools, Unity and Unreal both had plenty to say and show off, with Epic saying 2015 was the best year yet for its iconic engine and Unity revealing its dominance in the mobile sector.

Meanwhile, CryEngine introduced a Pay What You Like business model and unveiled its VR-friendly focus for its fifth iteration.

Other software to launch at the show included Wwise, Vulkan, Substance Painter and Artomatix Materialize, the ambitious asset generation tool that plans to hand over the hard work to artificial intelligence. Develop spoke to the firm to uncover its plans for the impressive tech.

In the livestreaming space, Twitch was once again flying the flag for devs to get involved, detailing its latest boons for studios looking to broadcast their titles online.

There was plenty to talk about during the speakers sessions, too. Fullbright founder Steve Gaynor insisted that there is still more to be done in terms of inviting female devs into the industry, Cliff Bleszinski explained Boss Key’s move away from free-to-play for LawBreakers and we all learnt why video games need more dick jokes.

Oh, and Star Wars is coming to VR. Try to remain calm.

For more coverage from this and other GDC shows both past and future, bookmark www.develop-online.net/gdc.

Think we’ve missed something worth shouting about (or have something else you want to say)? Email the author at mjarvis@nbmedia.com.

Here’s this year’s GDC headlines in cold, hard list form:

‘Hiring ideal job applicants limits diversity,’ says Fullbright founder

Boss Key abandons free-to-play model for LawBreakers

‘To make games the most powerful artform, don’t freak out about dick jokes’

PlayStation VR supports Vive-like room-scale experiences