Game Developers Conference 2015 organizers UBM Tech Game Network announce that it is now accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, panels, posters and tutorials through until Thursday, August 28th for next year's event. GDC 2015 takes place March 2-6 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) Europe today released results from its second annual European State of the Industry Survey, which reveals trends around regional development hubs, tax incentives and more. The survey is conducted annually prior to the launch of GDC Europe in August.

GDC Europe 2014 is organized by UBM Tech Game Network and runs from August 11-13 at the Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany. It takes place in tandem with Europe's biggest video game trade and public show gamescom.

Hot on the heels of Epic Games announcing that it would offer a monthly subscription plan to allow anyone to license its Unreal Engine 4 technology, Crytek is offering a similar deal for its CryEngine technology - for about $9 less. Crytek announced this week during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco that it would offer the CryEngine for $9.90 a month per user.

Lucas Pope's popular game Papers, Please took home the top prize at last night's Independent Games Festival Awards. In addition to winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Pope's game was honored with awards for Excellence in Narrative, and Excellence in Design.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today Epic Games announced that it is offering a monthly subscription to its Unreal Engine 4 game technology. This should allow indie developers who might not be able to come up with a large chunk of cash to license the engine outright a way to finance it over time.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Google announced a new version of the Google Play Games Services that enables cross-platform multiplayer support for iOS and Android games. Play Games Services is a backend API for developers of Android, iOS, and even Web games that gives developers the ability to set up achievements, leaderboards, multiplayer and cloud saves using Google's cloud infrastructure and development APIs.

The "Father of the PlayStation" will finally be honored by the Game Developers Choice Awards for his accomplishments while serving as the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment - bringing the masses Sony's very first home console and its subsequent iterations. Former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi will receive a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

Organizers of the 2014 Game Developers Conference (taking place in San Francisco this March) have confirmed the return of the GDC Play, the emerging/independent developer showcase. The 'Best in Play' awards will also be returning to this year's event.

GDC Play is a separate area of the San Francisco show that showcases emerging and independent developers with a series of tables and meeting rooms. It will take place at a new time this year - Wednesday, March 19 - Friday, March 21 at Moscone Center during the 2014 Game Developers Conference.

Finalists for this year's Independent Games Festival have been announced. The list of nominees for the biggest prize of the show - Seumas McNally Grand Prize - include such notable indie games as The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe); Papers, Please (Lucas Pope); Don't Starve (Klei); Device 6 (Simogo); Jazzpunk (Necrophone); and Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!" (Deirdra Kiai Productions).

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) opened submissions for the 2014 Independent Games Festival, taking place at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The deadline for the Main awards is October 19th, while the Student Showcase is October 31st. Finalists will be announced in January 2014. From there, finalist games will make their way to San Francisco to show off the latest builds at the IGF Pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2014 ExpoFloor, to compete for nearly $60,000 in prizes.

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.