Are you in Boston? If not, you should be. We’ll forgive you this time but E3 is right around the corner and San Diego Comic Con is after that. Events season is in full effect and we thought we’d help you get your gaming convention calendar in order starting with our panel at PAX East.   Check out our newly live Events page for all the current, past, and future events that Naughty Dog will participate in as we demo and talk about our games, highlight our gatherings and dish about general Naughty Dog gaming news.   First up is PAX East. Uncharted 3 Game Director, Justin Richmond, Game Designer, Eric Schatz, and Community Strategist, Arne Meyer will be speaking about The Chateau, Creation to Ashes from Uncharted 3. If you’re not in Boston, it’s streaming live on Twitch TV on our Events page so be sure to drop by and post some up comments to us about the panel. You’ll be able to share your comments on Facebook so you can bring your Read more...

We went right down to the wire on putting together a giveaway for PAX East, but our posters are confirmed to be en route to Boston as we speak! You may recognize the poster art from the GameStop exclusive pre-order offer from back before Uncharted 3 was released. We felt it was fitting to bring back the awesome artwork illustrated by Gabe for a PAX giveaway, because, you know, Gabe illustrates the Penny Aracde strips and they started this thing called PAX and... well, you get it. We updated the poster a little bit for the PAX East giveaway - you've got a nice blank border around the artwork so it's easy and totally suited to be matted and framed and placed on a wall in your Uncharted themed room. We've put all the necessary logos outside of the artwork as well, so when (not if) you do frame it, you can showcase the art, and just the art. We're bringing enough for the expected attendace in the Naga Theatre - so everyone who attends our PAX East panel will be Read more...

Our panel will be streamed LIVE to the internet by TwitchTV! We're one week away from PAX East 2012, to be held from April 6 to 8, and we're heading out to Boston to follow up our massively successful PAX East 2009 panel, Game Design with the Dogs, with another inside look at the game design process. Our panel, "An Unchated 3 Story: The Chateau, Creation to Ashes" will give you a never beefore scene of The Chateau enviornment. We're bringing some great snapshots of The Chateau during the course of development and will share our decisions that shaped the final Chateau sequencei in Uncharted 3 to a (hopefully) packed Naga Theater. The best news ever is that our panel has been chosen to be streamed LIVE to the internet by TwitchTV! If you can't make it to Boston, you've still got a chance to check out our panel - which is scheduled for Friday, April 6, from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Don't forget to add it to your Facebook calendar or into your schedule Read more...

Attention Mid-westerners! This coming weekend Major League Gaming is invading Columbus, Ohio to kick off its ninth annual Pro Circuit season. An Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception exhibition event will be held there and we wanted to pass along the full details: Major League Gaming Pro Circuit Exhibition Tournament - - Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception 3-day Free-For-All (FFA) style competition for $2,500 in cash prizes How players will sign up: Walk-up and play. There will be a queue. No sign ups. Players can compete as much as they want. Timing: Open Competition - Friday March 23rd - 6-10pm Open Competition – Saturday March 24th - 12-8pm Finals – Sunday March 25th - 9:30pm Tournament Structure: 8 Player FFA Games. Players with longest win streak during open competition will play in the finals. Top 4 stay. Prizing: $2,500 total cash prize pool, $1,500 awarded to the first place player. Location: Greater Columbus Convention Center 400 N. High Street Columbus Read more...

We often get asked for advice on how to get into the videogame industry by our fans. Most of the time we're asked about how to get into a position on the game development team and we do our best to try to give valuable advice. The one thing we don't often discuss is how many other jobs exist in the videogaming industry that aren't directly involved in development. I've personally sat on a bunch of panels talking about becoming a community manager or how to get a job in games journalism, but those still only represent a subset of the full range of jobs available in the industry. Why am I telling you all of this? Because if you're in the southern California area and/or attending WonderCon on Friday, I'm participating in a panel that aims to give you advice on how to take other paths into the industry from panelists who represent different disciplines. This is also a great opportunity to network with a bunch of folks from the games industry and we're all sticking Read more...

After a relatively quiet GDC 2011 (only four talks that year), the Dogs are hitting GDC 2012 full force. I know plenty of Dogs always look forward to GDC and it's definitely one of my favorite conferences each year. Actually, I think they're all my favorites. Regardless of your discipline in the industry, or if you're a student, if you pick the right sessions, GDC almost always manages to be informative and inspirational. Keep checking the GDC12 tag on this blog to get daily updates on the talks for that day and anything else that may happen which we don't know about right now! The full list of sessions, along with dates, times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them or print them out. Water Technology of UnchartedWednesday, March 7, 201211:00 AM - 12:00 PMRoom 2016, West Hall, 2nd Fl SpeakersCarlos Gonzalez-Ochoa (Naughty Read more...

We hope everyone has had a great first day of GDC 2011 and that some of you were able to attend the absolutely packed GDC Microtalks session yesterday. Today, we've got several sessions we recommend checking out if you're a Naughty Dog fan. The full list of sessions for today with times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them or print them out. Keep checking back on the GDC11 tag to stay up to date with the sessions and our goings on throughout GDC. Experimental Gameplay SessionsThursday, March 3, 20111:30 PM – 2:30 PMRoom 303, South Hall SpeakersAndy Schatz (Pocketwatch Games), Asher Vollmer (University of Southern California), Jason Rohrer (Independent), Hanford Lemoore (Independent), Michael Brough (Independent), Nicolai Troshinsky (Independent), Mihir Sheth (University of Southern California), Chris Read more...

We're just kicking off the first day of the main conference sessions here at GDC 2011. There's plenty of sessions during each time slot that promise to be interesting, compelling, educational or entertaining. I know it's been difficult for me to narrow down some of the sessions I've wanted to attend! Of course, one of Naughty Dog's own, Richard Lemarchand, is running a panel today that I've always enjoyed - and it's in it's third straight year at GDC! Titled GDC Microtalks 2011: One Hour, Ten Speakers, Hundreds of Fun New Ideas, the panel collects a diverse group of industry notables and gives them a highly constrained forum to discuss their thoughts on this years theme. I've copied the full session description below, so check it out for more details and I hope that some of you will attend! The full list of sessions, along with dates, times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if Read more...

Looking over the full list of sessions, it looks like GDC 2011 is going to be pretty cool conference this year, as the conference celebrates its 25th anniversary. For the occasion, the GDC Advisory Board has even scheduled a great series of Classic Game Postmortems, running the gamut from Pac-Man to Bejeweled, not to mention one on Marble Madness by one of our favorite industry luminaries, Mark Cerny. GDC 2011 is going to be a relatively quiet conference for Naughty Dog as everyone is back at the studio working on UNCHARTED 3 – we’ve only got 8 months left until release! Although we’re not hitting GDC full force like we did last year, there’s still a few sessions you should consider if you happen to be attending the conference. The full list of sessions, along with dates, times, locations and descriptions, is reproduced below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them Read more...

This weekend marks yet another Double Cash Weekend in UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer! For the next 5 days, the per-match limit on earned cash will be $150,000. That’s not a typo—we’re running the Double Cash weekend a day longer than typical for a holiday weekend. Make the most of it! It goes without saying that this is probably a good time to get a leg up on your run to hit level 80. I know I’ll be checking into multiplayer to get a jump on gaining levels. Double Cash Weekend Starts: Friday, July 2, 2010 at 10:00 AM PDT (what time is that in my city?) Ends: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 10:00 AM PDT (what time is that in my city?) Read more...

The next time you log in to UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer you’ll notice that your character selection choices in your multiplayer profile have changed significantly – but only for a limited time… more on that later.  You have a smaller pool of characters skins to choose from, but you’ll have 16 different versions of Drake and Flynn to choose from in the Heroes and Villians selections. Those 16 versions represent the countries whose soccer teams have made it to the second round in South Africa as of today. Since we’ve been seeing so many displays of team support across the Internet and on forums, we thought it would be cool to extend that show of fan support within UNCHARTED 2 multiplayer. So for a limited time – for two weeks or until about Monday, July 12, 2010 – you’ll be able to choose Heroes and Villians skins with the following country uniforms: Uruguay Mexico Argentina South Korea United Read more...

Naughty Dog programmer John Hable presented a talk called "UNCHARTED 2: HDR Lighting" to close out GDC10 during the last timeslot of the final day. During his talk John referenced a two-part presentation by Pal-Kristian Engstad, our Lead Engine Programmer, which covers optimizing for the SPUs. We've linked each part of that presentation below for those who attended John's session and those who are following at home (or coming in via GDC Vault access). Introduction to SPU Optimizations - Part 1 Introduction to SPU Optimizations - Part 2 Read more...

If you're still in San Francisco this Saturday for GDC, and haven't already succumbed to the effects of all the GDC activities, feel free to drop by any one of our four sessions today. This is also your last day to drop by the Naughty Dog booth at the Career Pavilion to ask any and all questions you may have about seeking employment at Naughty Dog and our studio culture. In that vein, if you're looking to work in the game industry, or if you want some tips on how to make yourself a more attractive candidate, may I suggest you check out game designer Jacob Minkoff's session, "Getting Noticed: Why You Need an Online Portfolio and How to Make One." Saturday (March 13, 2010) 10:30am - 11:30am Uncharted 2 Character Pipeline: An In-depth Look at the Creation of U2's Characters Richard Diamant (Lead Character Artist, Naughty Dog Inc.), Judd Simantov (Lead Character Technical Director, Naughty Dog Inc) Room 135, North Hall Some of the topics covered will include how we used Read more...

There are three sessions today, Friday, March 12, at GDC10 which have participation by Naughty Dogs and/or is about UNCHARTED 2. As yesterday, if you're at GDC10 this week, we'd love to see you come by and attend! Don't forget to also stop by our booth at the GDC Career Pavilion where we are holding a business card raffle for great (and at least one item of relevant) merch. Friday (March 12, 2010) 9:00am - 10:00am GDC Microtalks 2010: Ten Speakers, 200 Slides, Limitless Ideas! Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog), Ian Bogost (Associate Professor, The Georgia Institute of Technology), Chaim Gingold (levity lab), Gary Penn (Guru, Denki), Sam Roberts (Festival Director, indiecade.com), Margaret Robertson (Consultant and writer, Lookspring), Kellee Santiago (President and Co Founder, thatgamecompany), Suzanne Seggerman (President, Games for Change), Jesse Schell (ETC Carnegie Mellon, Schell Games), Jane Pinckard (Business Development, Foundation 9 Entertainment) Read more...

After the first full day of main conference sessions, many of us -- and I think all the Dogs at GDC -- will head to attend the Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developer Choice Awards. We're especially excited for the GDCA as UNCHARTED 2 is nominated in seven categories: Game of the Year Best Writing Best Game Design Best Technology Best Visual Arts Innovation Award Best Audio The IGF Awards are significant and you shouldn't miss them either -- they recognize the best entries into the Independent Games Festival and can give a great glimpse into some of the awesome things that come from being small and passionate -- showcasing interesting game play innovations and game developers to watch. Best of all, both awards ceremonies will be streamed back-to-back LIVE from GameSpot's GDC hub at http://gdc.gamespot.com/. Be sure to head over there at 6:30 PM PST (what time is that in my city?) to watch the awards events -- and hopefully cheer us on. Our fingers are Read more...

Today, Thursday, March 11, is the first day of the GDC10 main conference and Naughty Dog figures prominently in three sessions today. If you're at GDC10 this week (and reading this instead of attending sessions), we'd love to see you come by. Thursday (March 11, 2010) 1:30pm - 2:30pm Among Friends - An Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Post-Mortem Richard Lemarchand (Game Designer, Naughty Dog) Room 134, North Hall Naughty Dog faced many entirely new challenges in the creation of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves - in expanding our gameplay through the use of new traversal, combat and AI technologies, introducing characters that shed new light on our hero Nathan Drake, and tackling our first foray into multiplayer in four years. Co-Lead Game Designer Richard Lemarchand will candidly describe how we tackled the problems that we faced, and how the studio's philosophy of collaboration, open communication and investment of responsibility in the people who create the game allowed Read more...

Many of us at Naughty Dog are up in San Francisco to attend GDC10 this week. The Dogs are participating in ten sessions this week, covering just about every aspect of the development of UNCHARTED 2, along with some hiring advice and the continuing run of the GDC Microtalks session. We're also attending this year's Game Developer Choice Awards on Thursday, March 11, as we hope to win some awards from the seven categories we've been nominated in Naughty Dog is also going have its own booth at the Career Pavilion -- more on that and why you would want to swing by tomorrow. We've got the full list of sessions we're participating in, along with links to descriptions below. Visit our Facebook events page or the GDC Schedule builder if you want to add these sessions to your calendar, export them or print them out. Keep checking back via the GDC10 tag to stay up to date on GDC and what the Dogs are up to throughout the week! Thursday (March 11, 2010) 1:30pm - 2:30pm Among Read more...

The Game Developers Conference took over San Francisco again on February 18 – 22, 2008, and a bunch of the Dogs were there to give presentations on the methods and techniques they honed during the creation of Naughty Dog games like UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune. For those of you who couldn't make the conference, or are just curious about the state of the art in game development, we’ve made the presentation materials from GDC08 available for download below. GDC Session Descriptions (PDF, 20 KB) In depth Descriptions of the presentations delivered at GDC08 by members of team Naughty Dog Adventures in Data Compilation – UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune (PDF, 1.1 MB) Presented by Dan Liebgold Amazing Feats of Daring – A Postmortem for UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune (PDF, 18.3 MB) Presented by Richard Lemarchand Autodesk Mudbox: Integration and Use with Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya (PDF, 4.7 MB) Presented by Rich Diamant Creating a Character in Read more...