Brenda Romero leads initial list of GDC 2014 speakers

Speakers at the 2014 Game Developers Conference will include renowned game designer Brenda Romero, the conference’s organizers announced today.

Romero, pictured above at GDC 2013, will give a lecture called “Jiro Dreams of Game Design” in which she intends to discuss a game developer’s never-ending struggle to achieve greatness in spite of the realities of the business. The talk, Romero hopes, will inspire developers to re-dedicate themselves to the pursuit.

GDC officials also revealed two other sessions from next year’s conference today.

“Why’d She Buy THAT? Customer Psychology in Game Purchases,” by Lucien Parsons of Operations Catalyst Consulting, will aim to help developers understand how best to market and monetize their games. The session will offer analysis of the psychology of purchasing decisions in an effort to give game makers an “understanding of the motivations for buying that goes beyond ‘make it pink for women’ or ‘guys like guns,’” according to the lecture’s description.

Patrick Redding of Ubisoft Toronto, who most recently served as game director on Splinter Cell: Blacklist, will discuss the importance of building failure into game design in a lecture called “Make Things Worse: Enabling Setbacks for Consequential Play.” The idea, according to Redding, is to design setbacks that encourage players to put off their immediate goal and aim for something else, as oppose to reload a save game.

GDC 2014 will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from March 17-21, 2014.