Game Developers Conference Carries On Innovation

The Game Developers Conference opened Monday at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, attracting thousands of video games enthusiasts despite a tough economy.

Regardless of economic ups and downs, the pace of creativity apparently won't stop and will continue to spur more innovation. "Like every industry, it's a tough time to do business," said Barry Parr, an independent media consultant, Monday. "But games are more than ever a huge part of the entertainment industry as a whole, whatever change the industry may go through."

From game designing, to programming to visual arts, its no secret that developments in these areas also drive mainstream technology development.

The GDC09 festivities will offer more than 500 lectures, an Expo and Career Pavilion, the Game Career Seminar, the 11th Annual Independent Games Festival (IGF), the 9th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, and Game Connection America.

"This GDC especially serves as a bar of measure and beacon for the games industry for 2009," Meggan Scavio, event director, said in a statement. "The strength and spirit of the industry is reflected here in these five days where the community gathers together to continue to network and learn from one another and to directly challenge current global economic conditions by finding and creating new opportunities."

Some heavy hitters in the games industry will speak during the week-long event.

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo will give the leadoff keynote at 9 a.m., PDT, Wednesday on "Discovering New Development Opportunities." Hideo Kojima, Corporate Officer, Executive Producer and Director of Kojima Productions, will follow at 10:30 a.m. PDT, Thursday with a keynote on "Solid Game Design: Making the 'Impossible' Possible," which will focus on conquering various development obstacles with creative game design, using the driving game design philosophies behind the Metal Gear series as reference.

GDC is owned by Think Services, which along with Everything Channel, operator of Channelweb.com, is owned by United Business Media.

For more information about GDC09,click here.