During GDC last week in San Francisco research firms NPD, iResearch and Digi-Capital held a talk on digital games sales and revealed some interesting numbers on the space. According to data revealed during the event, digital game and downloadable content sales are growing at a rate of 33 percent year over year in the United States and Europe, while spending in China is expected to grow 10 percent annually for the next three years. Asia is going to be the most dominate region in the world when it comes to online and mobile games by 2016, according to the speakers.

During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week Google's YouTube announced a new API for game developers that allows them to allow users to directly stream video from their games without using an external streaming service such as Twitch.TV or Ustream. YouTube streaming is already in some games - like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - but the goal of the new API is to bring in-game streaming solutions tied to YouTube to far more developers.

Facebook was at the Game Developers Conference today in San Francisco throwing around a lot of facts and figures to show that it is still a popular and relevant gaming platform. The company said that over 250 million users are still playing Facebook games each month, accounting for around 20 percent of the social network's daily traffic. Facebook also claims that over 100 game makers generated over $1 million (each) or more last year. Collectively game developers earned over $2 billion in payouts.

The PC Gaming Alliance, a not-for-profit industry consortium dedicated to evangelizing the PC Gaming space delivered annual custom research results to PCGA members, and shared portions of the findings with the press at a news conference during GDC this week.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell tells All Things D that the smart money is no longer going into smartphones as the industry shifts to focus on new platforms.

"All the money's out," Bushnell told the publication. "Do I really want to do a mobile game that's one of 300,000, where discoverability is everything? You really have to have a little more sizzle on the steak."

If you like free things then you may want to get in on this action. From now until March 31 you can play the beta version of Desktop Dungeons for free simply by signing up here and proving that you are not some sort of filthy robot (no offense to filthy robots out there).

Jake Solomon and the team at Firaxis Games have put together a video asking the community to watch them at this year's Game Developers Choice Awards at the Game Developers Conference in late March. From there the video kind of goes off the rails.

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) sent out a reminder to students who would like to join "IGDA Scholars" at GDC in San Francisco later this year through its annual scholarships program. The registration for the 2013 IGDA Scholarships Program is January 11, so if you are interested in signing up you should head on over to igda.org/scholars now.

Last month pioneer video game artist Paul H. Steed passed away. Steed's credits included the Quake and Wing Commander series. He also served as an Advisory Board member for the Game Developers Conference for a number of years. Out of respect for Steed, the Game Developers Conference Advisory Board announced the launch of a memorial fund for Paul Steed's family.

At a panel last week during the Game Developers Conference a former Mass Effect designer pleaded with the public at large to stop complaining about downloadable content and to judge developers like BioWare on their work instead. The comments were made by ex-BioWare designer, Christina Norman, who now works at League of Legends maker Riot Games. She spoke out during the panel discussion to stress the need for downloadable content to follow a game's release in rapid fashion.

Organizers of the 2012 Game Developers Conference announced that around 22,500 people attended this year's weeklong event. They peg this as a 22 percent increase over last year's attendance which came in at around 19,000.

GDC director Meggan Scavio said that GDC 2012 provided the "full spectrum of the game development community."

An odd story on the conservative political news site The Daily Caller corners EA at GDC to ask them about the new SimCity game  and if it was inspired by the recent publicity related to former presidential candidate Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. EA announced this week that they would release a new game in the city-building game series in 2013.

The Witcher series developer CD Projekt Red said during a Game Developers Conference panel this week that all of its future games will be DRM free. The comments were made by CD Projekt Red CEO Marcin Iwinski. Iwinski said during the panel discussion that the studio wouldn't use any digital rights management software in its games again because it over-complicates things for them and doesn't really protect their games from piracy. Iwinski went on to say that the retail version of The Witcher 2, which used SecuROM as its DRM solution, was cracked in two hours of its release.

Sony says that, to-date, it has managed to "move" 10.5 million units of its Move peripheral for the PlayStation 3. The figure was revealed by Sony developer support engineer Gabe Ahn after a Game Developers Conference panel on developing games for the company's motion sensing controller. That figure represent "units shipped to retailers" and not "units sold." Further, Ahn says that the Move attach rate is one for every six PlayStation consoles sold as of December 31, 2011. Further muddling those numbers, it also includes Move and Navigation controllers.

A homeless man managed to slip into the Warner Bros. Lollipop Chainsaw press party in a San Francisco night club last night. According to an unnamed source speaking to Computer and Video Games, the homeless man managed to slip into the event with a gaggle of journalists who were there to interview Lollipop Chainsaw and No More Heroes creator Suda 51.

Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was named the Game of the Year award at the 12th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco last night . Valve's Portal 2 received three awards for Best Game Design, Narrative and Audio. 

Bastion from indie developer Supergiant Games also took home two Choice Awards: Best Debut and Best Downloadable Game. EA DICE won the Best Technology award for the Frostbite 2 engine used in Battlefield 3, while Naughty Dog's Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception snagged the Best Visual Arts award.

France's video game trade association Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo announced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this morning a new brand to promote French video game creativity. The brand, "Le Game," is backed by the trade group and the French government, and has the backing of Game Connection USA. So what is Le Game all about, you wonder?

GDC kicks off next week in San Diego, and this year it will host an all-inclusive venue for developers of all stripes to show off their latest work to all GDC pass holders. Exhibitors include BitFlip Games, City of Steam, Current Circus, Defiant Development, Hibernum Creations, Lokisplanet Inc., LunarG, Mojocat Games, Monochrome LLC, Pantera Entertainment, SampleSumo, Simple Machine, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, Techtonic Games, Inc., The Binary Mill, Trickstar Games, Universally Speaking, XGen Studios and many more.

GDC Online organizers announced two programs that will grant free Expo Passes to video game and tech industry locals (to Austin and the state where the event takes place next month) and qualifying students. The new program is part of the event's outreach to local talent including students and working professionals.

With the 2011 Game Developers Conference Europe (GDC Europe) coming to a conclusion on August 17, organizers have tallied the final attendance count. According to GDC Europe organizers, more than 2,100 game professionals representing 57 countries attended the event. Professionals from all areas of the game industry convened throughout the three day conference to discuss trends and new opportunities among their peers. A marquee keynote lineup of notable industry veterans joined 170 European and international speakers, 46 exhibitors, 35 sponsors and more than 300 media representatives.

The 2011 Game Developers Conference Europe will feature independent game developers, social games leaders Playdom and Zynga, and major development studios including BioWare, Epic Games and Quantic Dream when it returns to the Congress-Centrum Ost Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany August 15-17, 2011.

GDC Europe promises over 100 sessions on game development across its full roster, including the five tracks of business & marketing, game design, production, programming and visual arts. This year, the conference also introduces four summits, each focusing on a specific sector: Social Games Summit, the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, the Independent Games Summit, and the Community Management Summit.

Highlights of the GDC Europe 2011 schedule include:

The man, the myth, the legend - Richard Garriott, will deliver the keynote to GDC Europe this year. The creator of the Ultima series and the popular and long-running MMO Ultima Online, will talk about his newfound love for social gaming.

Garriott’s keynote, "The Three Eras of Gaming and Why This One is a Game Changer," will explore the industry’s transformation powered by social and mobile games.

"There are few developers with Richard Garriott’s history, pedigree and vantage point," said GDC Europe president Frank Sliwka.

Indeed. His only real low points were Ultima IX and Tabula Rasa. Last year Garriott founded social game development company Portalarium, to create social games. Recently, the company secured $3.6 million in funding. Garriott plans on creating an "Ultima Online-like social game."

Organizers of GDC Europe announced the line-up of speakers expected to attend its first Independent Games Summit today. The Independent Games Summit will feature a talk from Frictional Games' Thomas Grip entitled "Evoking Emotions and Achieving Success by Breaking All the Rules," discussing the lessons his company has learned while developing the survival horror game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Douglas Wilson, co-founder of the Copenhagen Game Collective, will also be on hand to deliver a talk entitled "Intentionally Broken Game Design and the Art of Deputizing Players." The talk focuses on the art of creating compelling multiplayer experiences for players.

A press panel called "Indie's Got PR Talent" will feature Ashton Raze of The Telegraph and Jim Rossignol from Rock Paper Shotgun. The duo will share its experiences with indies and offer advice and tactics for breaking through and getting your game promoted.

GDC Europe organizers revealed new lectures for the August show, including BioWare talking about Mass Effect 3's new creatures, IMVU discussing "continuous deployment", and Slant Six speaking about  production pipelines. Taking place Monday through Wednesday, August 15-17, 2011 at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost, GDC Europe 2011 takes place alongside gamescom.

Main Conference sessions already announced include Brink, Blue Fang and Crysis 2 talks, and a lecture that compares the different creature creation pipelines used on Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference offered a positive post mortem on last week's show, listing attendance, the number of talks, and other important highlights. GDC hosted a record 19,000 game industry professionals and media at the San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. The event featured more than 450 lectures, panels, summits, tutorials and roundtable discussions across five days of content, with GDC references. Media coverage from outlets like the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, USA Today, and more covered this year's event.

Lecture highlights from GDC’s 15 tutorials and summits included Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka discussing the Angry Birds phenomenon (GDC Smartphone Summit), Zynga's Mark Skaggs on going from FarmVille to CityVille (Social & Online Games Summit), game designer and author Jane McGonigal on 'gamefulness' (Serious Games Summit), and Super Meat Boy's creators on their rough route to success (Independent Games Summit).

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson told attendees of the GDC Indie Games Summit that the notion of piracy as being theft is incorrect.

"Piracy is not theft," said Persson during the session. "If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world. There is no such thing as a 'lost sale.' Is a bad review a lost sale? What about a missed ship date?"

Persson suggested to attendees that many developers see pirates not as "inherently evil, but as potential customers." Persson also took on comments made by Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata, saying that his criticism of small and rampant mobile and social games excludes the fact that games such as Minecraft are more of a service than a one-time purchase. Persson said that games such as his creation and Angry Birds are constantly adding updates and new content and that both have incredible sales numbers.

Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption was a big winner at last night's Game Developers Choice Awards, along with Minecraft, Cut the Rope, Mass Effect 2, and Limbo. Red Dead Redemption picked up the Game of the Year award, Best Game Design, and Best Technology. Minecraft was named Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, and won an award for Innovation. Limbo won for Best Visual Art, while Mass Effect 2 earned an award for Best Writing, and Cut The Rope won Best Handheld Game.

Legendary Sega developer Yu Suzuki won a Pioneer Award for his work on such classic titles as Outrun, Space Harrier and the Shenmue series. EA co-founder and current Digital Chocolate CEO Trip Hawkins presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Populous and Fable designer Peter Molyneux.

The full list of award winners are below:

Nintendo CEO and president Satoru Iwata took a shot at hand-held smartphone devices this week during a speech at GDC. Iwata said that smartphone manufacturers do not value video games as much as they should with many seeing the quantity of apps as more important than the quality.

"We want consumers to appreciate the premium value of software through our platforms. Although Microsoft and Sony are different to us, I believe we all share this idea 100 per cent. We demonstrate a high value of game software. “However, smartphones and social platforms are not at all like ours. These platforms have no motivation to maintain a high value of game software. For them, content is just created by someone else."

“Quantity is how they profit. The value of game software does not matter to them.”

He went on to say that the amount of games creates a higher risk of failure and puts developers' jobs on the line:

C|Net reports that the citizens of San Francisco are apparently ticked off at THQ - and by extension its partner GameStop - for releasing hundreds of balloons into the sky as part of a mock protest of North Korea - part of a marketing ploy for its new game Homefront. The balloon release happened during the Game Developers Conference. Many of the balloons had a postcard-size flyer attached to it advertising the game. People in the downtown area saw the balloons soaring in the sky, but were disgusted as they watched them land in the San Francisco Bay. That is when some residents began to express their anger. The anger was aimed at GameStop, which was a promotional partner with THQ and whose name appeared on the balloons.

Today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, GamePro Media and Princeton Review announced the top two winners in their "Top Schools for Video Game Design Study for 2011." For the second year in a row, GamePro Media and The Princeton Review awarded the University of Southern California the two top prizes. The ranking recognizes the top 10 undergraduate and top 10 graduate programs for video game design out of 150 surveyed in North America. USC ranked highest in both categories.

The survey asked more than 50 questions, and covered a wide range of topics from academics and faculty credentials to graduates' employment and career achievements. Choices included quality of the curriculum, faculty, facilities and infrastructure. The Princeton Review factored in information collected from the schools about their scholarships, financial aid and career opportunities.