After weeks of planning and searching, we're now ready to show you some highlights of the most up-to-date topics facing game industry professionals today!

Jamil’s “Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge” Session Recommendations

• STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED: How LucasArts is Building a Game, a Development Team and a Technology Pipeline... At the Same Time - Speaker: Haden Blackman (Project Lead, Lucasarts Entertainment Co)
• The Emergent Gamer - Speaker: Rod Humble (Head of The Sims Studio, Electronic Arts)
• The Future of Animation is Games - Speaker: Bill Kroyer (Writer/Director, Sacred Road, Blockade Entertainment), Mark DeAngelis (Vice President of Programming & Developm, Voom Networks HD)
• My First MMO - Speaker: Dave Jones (Realtime Worlds)
• FABLE 2 –The Big Three Features Revealed - Speaker: Peter Molyneux (Head of Studio, Lionhead Studios)
• The 1st Annual Startup Showcase - Startup Launchpad Presented by GDC and CRV - Speaker(s): George Zachary (Partner, Charles River Ventures), Susan Wu (Principal, Charles River Ventures), Owen Mahoney (Electronic Arts), Jamil Moledina (Executive Director, GDC, CMP Game Group)
• Conquering Bane's Citadel: The Collision of Casual and Hardcore Gaming in PUZZLE QUEST - Speaker: Steve Fawkner (CEO and Lead Designer, Infinite Interactive)
  

The Keynotes

• A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community - Keynote Speaker: John Schappert (Corporate Vice President LIVE, Software and Services for the Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft)
• The Next 20 Years of Gaming - Keynote Speaker: Ray Kurzweil, Inventor & Futurist
  
  
  
  
  

GDC Attendee Favorites:

• Experimental Gameplay Sessions - Speaker: Jonathan Blow (Number None, Inc.)
• The Game Design Challenge: The Inter-Species Game - Speaker: Eric Zimmerman (Chief Design Officer, Gamelab), Alexey Pajitnov (Game Designer, Lifemode Interactive), Brenda Brathwaite (Game Designer, Savannah College of Art & Design), Steve Meretzky (Senior Designer, Blue Fang)

From the Audio Track:

• Music in Video games: Surpassing the Scope of Film Scores? - Speaker: John Debney (Composer)
• The CRYSIS of Audio - Speaker: Tomas Neumann (Senior Audio Programmer, Crytek), Inon Zur (Composer), Christian Schilling (Senior Sound Designer, Crytek)
• Procedural Music in SPORE - Speaker: Kent Jolly (Audio Director, Electronic Arts), Aaron McLeran (composer, n/a)
  
  [View all Audio Track Sessions]

From the Business and Management Track:

• Pioneering in Episodic Games and Digital Distribution - Speaker: Kevin Bruner (CTO, Telltale)
  
  [View all Business and Management Track Sessions]
  

From the Game Design Track:

• Storytelling in BIOSHOCK: Empowering Players to Care about Your StupidStory - Speaker: Kenneth Levine (President/Creative Director, 2KBoston/Irrational)
• Rules of Engagement: Blizzard's Approach to Multiplayer Game Design - Speaker: Rob Pardo (VP, Game Design, Blizzard Entertainment)
• E Pluribus Unum: Matchmaking in HALO 3 - Speaker: Chris Butcher (Engineering Lead, Bungie Studios)
• Standing the Test of Time: A Q&A with Sid Meier - Speaker: Sid Meier (Director of Creative Development, Firaxis Games), Noah Falstein
• How Heroes are Made: A Collaborative Approach to Serialized Content in a Transmedia World - Speaker: Jesse Alexander (Co-Executive Producer/Writer, “Heroes”/NBC)
• WII FIT: Creating a Brand New Interface for the Home Console - Speaker: Takao Sawano (Deputy GM in Entertainment Analysis & Development, Nintendo)
• PROTOTYPE: Open World, Open Mind, Next Generation Thinking - Speaker: Eric Holmes (Lead Game Designer, Radical Entertainment), Tim Bennison (Sr. Producer, Radical Entertainment)
• Creating Spielberg's BOOM BLOX - Speaker: Louis Castle (VP of Creative Development at EALA, Electronic Arts)
• Your Music Is the Game: Designing PHASE, the Other Project at Harmonix - Speaker: Chris Foster (Senior Designer, Harmonix Music Systems)
• Creativity in the Form of Improvement - Speaker: Yoshiki Okamoto (President, Game Republic)
• Development - SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL - Speaker: Masahiro Sakurai (Designer and Director, Sora Ltd.)
• DINER DASH: HOMETOWN HERO Postmortem: Where Casual Games Meet Virtual Worlds - Speaker: Brad Edelman (Chief Technology Officer, PlayFirst, Inc.), Kenny Shea Dinkin (Vice President and Creative Director, PlayFirst)
• Dynamic Cinematic Gameplay: Creating STRANGLEHOLD's "Tequila Bombs" - Speaker: Neill Glancy (Lead Designer, Midway Games)
• Metaplace Postmortem: Reinventing MMOs - Speaker: Raph Koster (President, Areae, Inc.), Sean Riley (Lead Programmer, Metaplace)
  
  [View all Game Design Track Sessions]
  

• Lighting and Material of HALO 3 - Speaker: Hao Chen (Engineering Lead, Bungie Studios)
  
• CRYSIS Next-Gen Effects - Speaker: Tiago Sousa Effects/Graphics Programmer, Crytek)
• The Technology of FINAL FANTASY - Speaker: Taku Murata (General Manager, Technical Research Divi, Square Enix Co.,Ltd)
• Lightmap Compression in HALO 3 - Speaker: Yaohua Hu (Engineer, Bungie Studios)
  
  [View all Programming Track Sessions]

From the Production Track:

• The BioWare Live Team: Building Community through Technology - Speaker: Derek French (Associate Technical Producer, BioWare Corp.)
  
• Challenges of Creating Linear Content in a Game Engine - Speaker(s): Kim Libreri (DIGITAL DOMAIN, INC.), Jerry O'Flaherty (Director, Warner Brothers Studio)
  
  [View all Production Track Sessions]

From the Vision Track:

• How to Create an Industry: The Making of the Brown Box and PONG - Speaker: Allan Alcorn (CTO, IMMI), Ralph H. Baer
  
  [View all Vision Track Sessions]

From the Visual Arts Track:

• Uncharted Animation: An In-depth Look at the Character Animation Workflow and Pipeline - Speaker: Judd Simantov (Lead Character Technical Director, Naughty Dog Inc), Jeremy Lai-Yates (Lead Gameplay Animator, Naughty Dog Inc.)
• The HALO 3 Cinematic Process - Speaker: CJ Cowan (Bungie)
  
  [View all Visual Arts Track Sessions]

• Being Brian Crecente: Using an Off-The-Shelf Role Playing Game to Teach Journalism - Speaker(s): Nora Paul (University of Minnesota)
  
  [View all Serious Games Summit Sessions]

From the Worlds In Motion Summit:

• Facebook and the new web of Social Gaming - Speaker(s): Nabeel Hyatt (Conduit Labs), TJ Murphy (Warbook/SGN), Mark Pincus (Zynga)
  
  [View all Worlds in Motion Summit Sessions]