SAN FRANCISCO, California – With GDC 2011 as a backdrop, GamePro Media and The Princeton Review have teamed up for the second consecutive year to recognize the top schools offering video game design programs. The "Top Schools for Video Game Design Study for 2011" features 30 schools in all and names the top 10 undergraduate and top 10 graduate schools, plus five schools in each group as Honorable Mentions. The game industry is celebrating 25 years of GDC this week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where aspiring game creators are gathered.

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- OnLive, a pioneer of on-demand, instant-play video games, used GDC 2011 to launch a large Indie Game Sale to coincide with its sponsorship of the Independent Games Festival and presence at the Game Developers Conference. Supported by 11 different independent game publishers, the sale will offer OnLive members up to 80 percent off fun, original indie games such as Braid, Defense Grid Gold, World of Goo and The Maw, among others. OnLive is the official hardware platform sponsor of the Independent Games Festival and will be leading two presentations on cloud gaming at GDC.

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- The Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the Main Competition finalists for the thirteenth annual presentation of its awards, celebrating the brightest and most influential creations to come out of the independent video game development community in the past year.  All of the IGF finalists will be playable on the Expo show floor at the historic 25th Game Developers Conference (GDC), to be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center February 28-March 4, 2011.  In addition, nearly $50,000 of prizes in various categories, including the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize will be awarded to these games at the Independent Games Festival Awards on the evening of March 2 immediately preceding the acclaimed Game Developers Choice Awards.

SAN FRANCISCO, California – At CES 2011, Tap Me unveiled the industry’s first in-game, mobile advertising platform. The company’s namesake platform breaks new ground as it addresses a fundamental problem inherent in current advertising solutions that brands and advertisers have until now used to reach consumers in-game. Tap Me is introducing a new standard to in-game monetization — built with the gamer in mind and designed to play to the natural strength of the game medium. The Tap Me platform enables brands to engage with gamers in a way that adds value to their experience as they are playing the game -- rather than taking them out of it.

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- Electronic Arts and Bigpoint International Services have entered into a strategic relationship to distribute select titles within EA’s high-quality Play4Free portfolio to a global audience. To launch this relationship, EA will bring Lord of Ultima, a hit Play4Free strategy game, to the Bigpoint network in March 2011. Lord of Ultima is the first of many titles to be on Bigpoint’s global gaming site as EA increases its investment in the Play4Free brand internationally.

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- The Game Developers Conference 2011 (GDC 2011), the world’s largest and longest running event serving professionals dedicated to the art and science of making games, kicks off today at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.  The annual convention offers worldwide game development professionals a forum to network, share information and insights, and uncover new opportunities as they look towards the future of interactive entertainment.  This year marks the 25th anniversary of the convention, which will also include first looks at big games like Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3.