The BlackBerry Gaming team is back from an awesome Game Developer Conference 2013 held last week in San Francisco. The crew was there with the BlackBerry Gaming Booth to show off gaming on BlackBerry to gamers and game developers from around the world.

During BlackBerry Jam Europe 2013, we made a big announcement about Unity support for BlackBerry 10. The big news this time around was the announcement of the Open Beta SDK release that will start in the next few weeks. We have been hard at work to provide a Unity Add On integrated with cool BlackBerry 10 features that game developers have been asking for.

Gamers and game developers got to experience some of the features of the Unity Add On for BlackBerry 10 at Unity’s BlackBerry Pod space. That turned out to be the busiest station we have ever manned. The gamers were stunned at seeing a BlackBerry Z10 turn into a high performance mini console with a simple HDMI cable and a Bluetooth HID Steel Series gamepad controller. They were further excited by the fact that BlackBerry 10 now supports some very popular gamepads out there right out-of-the-box and this feature integrated directly with the Unity SDK. The goal is to have game developers make as little code changes as possible to port their games over along with seamless gamepad support.

Along with the BlackBerry Lead Developer from Unity and CEO of Darkwind media, Scott Flynn, I was co-presented three exciting  Unity Booth sessions and a very well received GDC session on Professional Game Engines for BlackBerry 10. For those who missed the sessions, the GDC Session will be directly made available through the GDC vault.

If you are looking to be the first ones to port your Mobile Unity Games to BlackBerry 10, pre-register here for the Unity BlackBerry 10 Open Beta. As a participant in our open beta for the Unity BlackBerry 10 add-on, you get the chance to see how your content will run on this new global platform, and give feedback for improvements directly to Unity developers.

And of course, for any questions, comments, concerns or kudos on the Professional Game Engines, Middlewares or Gaming frameworks for BlackBerry feel free to reach out to me directly at rmadhavan@blackberry.com or connect to me directly on Twitter at @rmadhavan7.

Happy BlackBerry Gaming!

The BlackBerry presence at GDC wasn’t just to showcase the powerful platform and tools we provide for game developers, it was also to show those developers and designers how they can be successful on BlackBerry 10.

Our booth was a reflection of our message to the game development communities. We played host to evangelists, consultants, platform developers, technical leads, marketing guys, documentation writers, and game developers. We demonstrated that we are here to support developers and entrepreneurs – this is how we relate to developers all around the world and how we want to connect with game developers as well!

At GDC we shared the news of our partnership with Unity- expanding the possibilities that developers have to create and bring titles to BlackBerry 10. We also had special guests join us on stage to share stories on how successful they were with their titles on BlackBerry 10.

We showcased some of the great game titles already available on BlackBerry 10 and gamers took advantage of the opportunity to play on the BlackBerry Z10. The busiest part of the booth was where we showed off gaming on the BlackBerry Z10 with Shadowgun using our Gamepad API and the HDMI output of the BlackBerry Z10 as a true console replacement.

People who came into our booth were mostly looking for opportunities. People that left the booth were thrilled about BlackBerry 10 and the opportunities our platform provides.

For those who don’t me, my name is Pratik Sapra and I work as a Gaming Consultant on the Developer Relations team at BlackBerry. In my role, I work with game developers on the technical side and help them bring awesome gaming titles to the BlackBerry platform. I am really looking forward to this weeks Game Developer Conference along with the rest of the BlackBerry gaming crew.

In that regard, I am very excited to share that we have a great set of in-booth sessions (Booth 1216) lined up at our GDC booth. We will be presenting a wide range of topics covering everything you need to know about game development on BlackBerry 10. You will be hearing directly from BlackBerry gaming experts on topics including Native Development, Cocos2dx, Unity, Scoreloop and many more. We will be kicking off each day with a general overview session followed by a set of how-to sessions focused on specific topics and technologies. Scroll down below for the full session schedule.

Wednesday, March 27^th

10:00 – 10:15AM            Native Game Development on BlackBerry 10

11:00 – 11:15AM            How to set up a native game in under 10 minutes on BlackBerry 10

1:15 – 1:30PM                  How to add gamepad support to BlackBerry 10 games

2:00 – 2:15PM                  How to write an HTML 5/ WebGL game on BlackBerry 10

2:30 – 2:45PM                  How to write an Adobe AIR application on BlackBerry 10

3:00 – 3:15PM                  How to write a multiplatform game on Blackberry 10

Thursday, March 28^th

10:00 – 10:15AM            Social Gaming on BlackBerry 10

11:00 – 11:15AM            How to bring your Unity 4 game to BlackBerry 10

1:15 – 1:30PM                  How to port your iOS game to BlackBerry 10, Tips & Tricks

2:00 – 2:15PM                  How to bring your Cocos2dx game to BlackBerry 10

3:00 – 3:15PM                  How to add Leaderboards and Achievements to BlackBerry 10 games using Scoreloop

Friday, March 29^th

10:00 – 10:15AM            Building your Gaming Strategy for BlackBerry 10

10:30 – 10:45AM            How to add in-game advertising to BlackBerry 10 games

11:00 – 11:15AM            How to add in-app payment services to BlackBerry 10 games.

1:15 – 1:30PM                  How to package, publish and distribute your BlackBerry 10 game on BlackBerry World

2:00 – 2:15PM                  How to save BlackBerry 10 game state in the cloud

2:30 – 2:45PM                  How to convert, build and debug BlackBerry 10 games with Visual Studio

Here’s all the info on where we’ll be at GDC 2013!

http://www.gdconf.com - Booth 1216

Developing Cross Platform Mobile Games (Presented by BlackBerry)

Steve Grenier  |  Senior Software Developer, BlackBerry
Sean Paul Taylor  |  Team Lead, Gaming, BlackBerry

Location:  Room 3022, West Hall
Date:  March 27
Time:  3:30PM – 4:30PM

In this session, BlackBerry Gaming R&D experts Sean Paul Taylor and Steve Grenier will discuss some of the challenges and solutions when developing and distributing cross platform mobile games. Topics will include open-source options, with a focus on design and implementation details when developing your own cross platform game or engine. GamePlay3D, BlackBerry’s open-source, cross platform game framework will be used as a case study. Platforms discussed will include BlackBerry, Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS X and Linux.

Professional Game Engines for BlackBerry 10 (Presented by BlackBerry)

Scott Flynn  |  Blackberry Lead Developer, Unity Technologies
Ramprasad Madhavan  |  Gaming Consultant, BlackBerry

Location:  Room 2002, West Hall
Date:  March 27
Time:  5:00PM – 6:00PM

In this session, find out how to easily bring your games to BlackBerry 10 using new SDKs from major game engines such as Unity 4 SDK.

Building your Gaming Strategy for BlackBerry 10 (Presented by BlackBerry)

Anders Jeppsson  |  Director – Global Head of Gaming Category, BlackBerry

Location:  Room 3022, West Hall
Date:  March 28
Time:  5:30PM – 6:30PM

BlackBerry is currently rolling out its next generation BlackBerry 10 mobile computing platform and phones world wide. With over 70k apps available at launch on January 30th, all major game engines and with over 80 of the most commonly used open source projects already ported, going cross platform easier and makes more sense than ever before!

I’m looking forward to next week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (Mar 25-29).  With the global launches of BlackBerry 10, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a game developer on BlackBerry.

I’ve lived and breathed gaming for a very long time. Prior to joining BlackBerry, I was the founder and CEO of game development company SouthEnd Interactive between 1998-2010 and was Lead Game Designer and Senior Producer on games such as Deathrow (Xbox), R-Type Dimensions (XBLA), Lode Runner (XBLA) and Ilomilo (XBLA/WP7) on Xbox/360, PlayStation 3, Android, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7 and other platforms.

For the last three years, BlackBerry has been building the most accessible and most developer friendly platform for game developers -and here it is – BlackBerry 10!  Blackberry has also partnered will all the major game engine and middle ware companies such as Unity, Marmalade, Shiva to ensure that the tools you use today are available for you with BlackBerry 10 gaming.

Kick start your move to BlackBerry 10 by visiting www.github.com/blackberry where we have over 70 of the most used open source projects including cocos2d-x, box2D, bullit physics and Ogre3D.

Join many of the top gaming titles from top developers such as EA, Gameloft, Disney, Rovio, Halfbrick, AMA, SEGA, 10tons, Hexage, funkoi, PawPrint Games, Madfinger Games, zeptolab, … and the list just goes on and on!

Be sure to catch my session at Game Developers Conference and learn how BlackBerry 10 can be one of your primary profitable platforms that adds significant value to your game franchise.  The session is “Building your gaming strategy for BlackBerry 10” on Thursday March 28 at 5:30–6:30 pm West 3022.

I’d love to talk gaming with you! Please stop by the BlackBerry Booth 1216 at Game Developers Conference.

BlackBerry is one of the sponsors for the GDC again this year and the BlackBerry Developer Relations team has a great booth to showcase gaming and game development on BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Come visit us! (Booth #1909) Meet our gaming and platform experts – Volker Hirsch, Anders Jeppsson, Sean-Paul Taylor, Jonathan Feldstein, Ramgopal Rajagopalan, Dale Ducharme, Dimitry Tomilovskiy, Nick Landry; plus our Developer Platform Evangelists Larry McDonough and Patrick Mollins, not to mention your favorite BlackBerry Developer social crew (Alex Kinsella and me!). We’re also working on some great giveaways for the booth and our sessions.

We’re presenting a number of sessions this year focused on sharing information, tips and tricks and guidance for developing games for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry® 10 platforms.

GDC attendees will hear from our BlackBerry platform experts on topics ranging from how BlackBerry 10 is an ideal gaming platform, to making money with BlackBerry games, to social gaming. We have sessions on building games using our Native SDK (C/C++) or our Web toolset (HTML5 with BlackBerry® WebWorks™) as well. Partners such as PawPrint will speak about porting their games to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

In addition to these formal sessions, we also have some more informal sessions happening at our booth. We have experts speaking on Adobe® Flash® gaming and cross-platform building, as well as technical overviews on Native and Web development.

For more info on the BlackBerry sessions at GDC, follow these links:

BlackBerry 10 – A Game Developers Platform – Wednesday March 7 @ 11am-12pm

Introduction to the BlackBerry PlayBook Native SDK: Building a Sample Application – Wednesday March 7 @ 2-3pm

Porting Games to BlackBerry PlayBook – Wednesday March 7 @ 3:30-4:30pm

Social Gaming using BBM and Scoreloop – Thursday March 8 @ 10-11am

Writing Web Games for BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook – Thursday March 8 @ 2:30-3:30pm

Make Money on BlackBerry! – Thursday March 8 @ 4-5pm

Hope to see you at some of these sessions!

Here’s a fun fact: we are going to be at the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California! Similar to our participation at Mobile World Conference 2010, Research In Motion (RIM) is sponsoring a full developer day at GDC on Tuesday, March 9th. The day will feature an exhibitor stand, developer sessions, and all the key people you’ll want to talk to if you’re thinking about developing mobile games for BlackBerry® smartphones.

Game Developers Conference attendees will have the opportunity to hear presentations on both the business and technical side of BlackBerry smartphone gaming. After a full day of sessions on Tuesday, be sure to stop by our exhibitor stand – it’s a sure fire way to make business contacts and get the answers to your burning technical questions. Whether you’re a hobbyist, an indie game developer, or a big time publisher, if you’re into mobile gaming, we want to see you at GDC!

Visit the official Game Developers Conference website for more information on the conference and BlackBerry Developer Day.