It’s time for another Game Developer Conference round up to see what’s new in the gaming world.  Yesterday, we featured what happened on Day 1 of the event.  Click here to read more on that.

Today is the 3rd day of the event but lets look at some of the highlights at GDC Day 2.

SimCity

Maxis, the company which started an an independen video game developer and is now a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, announced at an event alongside GDC the new franchise of their popular game SimCity, which goes by the same name but will be the first 3D installment of their franchise.

“It’s been about 10 years since we shipped the last true Maxis SimCity,” said Lucy Bradshaw, senior VP of Maxis.

Bradshaw hinted at smartphone connectivity but didn’t actually confirmed it.  She discussed how the new franchise introduces players to the concept of cause and effect and that the 3D graphics will change “something that was very painterly in the past to something that is tactile and physical.”

Maxis will be having the “Inside the GlassBox” session today which will discuss the creation of the new SimCity engine.

Game Development Middleware

Autodesk announced  a new and enhanced game development middleware from their recently launched Autodesk Gameware product line.  Autodesk Gameware provided solutions for Eidos-Montreal, a Square Enix company’s “Deus ExTM: Human Revolution,” Epic Games’ “Gears of War 3” and Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (SCEA)’s “Resistance 3.”

“We united our efforts to streamline the game development process under the Autodesk Gameware banner and created the Gameware website to reach out directly to the development community,” said Marc Stevens, Autodesk vice president, product management. “Over that past four years, we have been investing significantly in the area of runtime technology. The new releases of our Gameware products highlight our continued commitment to providing game development solutions that help increase production values, while reducing development risks.”

Autodesk Scaleform 4.1, the new version of of their video game UI solution, has updated features and enhancements designed especially for mobile game development, such as a new mobile-ready player, flexible input support, game kits and tutorials extend the product’s toolset for developing mobile game UI, as well as 2D games and apps.

Bright Future For PC Gaming

PC Gaming Alliance released their third annual “Horizons” research report that covers 2011 year-end sales figures and encompasses major aspects of the PC gaming software industry worldwide through 2015.

The report stated that because of the explosion in casual and Free-to-Play (F2P) gaming, PC games are back to the forefront of the games industry.  The Horizons report also stated that PC gaming revenue for 2011 is up by 15%, compared to 2010, at $18.6 billion.

“The PC Gaming juggernaut continues unabated, across the industry and geographic boundaries. While reports of Gaming sales at Retail show signs of struggle, the impact hasn’t been as great for PC Gaming which had an earlier adoption of newer formats, business-models & delivery with: Digital Distribution, Free to Play, and Subscriptions fueling PC Gaming’s strong global growth. For example: Valve’s market leading Steam digital distribution service now reports over 40 million users, and traditional retailers are following suit by investing in this space more heavily such as GameStop’s acquisition of the Impulse digital distribution service,” said Matt Ployhar, PCGA president and Intel analyst.

“Not only investment dollars, but real revenue and profits, are now being generated solely from purely digital business models, formats, and delivery.”

And finally, Apple will be crashing GDC.  Well not really, it’s just that the venue for Apple’s event is near the GDC venue,  So when Apple makes its big reveal, the spotlight on GDC will probably be directed to Apple’s event.  There’s no telling what Apple will unveil today, but the iPad 3 is expected to take center stage.