The GameSpy Technology team has a lot of love for Austin – it’s ground zero for connected gaming development here in the United States, for starters (with a number of top developers headquartered nearby). Plus, it’s home to some of the finest barbeque (Stubbs, Iron Works, Salt Lick) and Mexican food (Las Manitas) joints in the country.  It’s also home to one of the industry’s best conferences: the Austin Game Developers Conference, which kicks off on Monday, September 15 at the Austin Convention Center.

We’ll be there in force all week, catching sessions, taking meetings and finding every excuse we can to buy folks a beer and some pulled pork.  This is always an exciting conference for us – we can’t think of another place where the industry is so frank about discussing its challenges, or so willing to share ideas for innovating in the space – and we’re thrilled to be back for another year.

And we’ve got several great reasons to be excited about the state of “connected gaming” this year, and our role in it:

• The 3 biggest selling games of 2008 (Grand Theft Auto IV, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Brawl) all used GameSpy Technology to push their respective franchises to new levels of online connectivity – with results that can’t be ignored
• Our new Direct2Game SDK is making full service in-game digital commerce – long a hot topic at Austin GDC—available to developers here and now
• GameSpy Open is connecting the open standards & indie gaming revolutions with world class online gaming technology, services and digital commerce
• Direct2Drive, FilePlanet and GameSpy Comrade are having their best years ever, providing developers and publishers with unbeatable ways to deliver more games to more gamers

Members of the GameSpy Technology, Direct2Drive, FilePlanet and GameSpy Comrade teams will be around to chat about all of this and more.  Contact us now to arrange a meeting – or feel free to badger us when you see us at the show – on the floor, at a party, jogging on the River Walk, wherever.

Level Up Charity Games Party

As part of our Austin GDC invasion, IGN and GameSpy are sponsoring the Level Up Charity Games party on Wednesday, September 17 at the Four Seasons Hotel.  The party kicks off at 6:00 p.m. (registration opens at 5 p.m., however – so get in early!), and is open to the public for a $20 donation to the ESA Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to providing free game design education tuition to minority and female students.

Stop by to mingle with the crew, and enjoy drinks, food and tons of game events – including tournaments for Rock Band, Madden, and Super Smash Bros. You could score yourself a copy of Rock Band 2 for the Xbox 360! And it’s all for a good cause. We’ll see you there!