VentureBeat

The 2009 Game Developers Conference will feature a more global list of speakers who reflect the video game industry’s changing landscape.

The show, which runs in San Francisco from March 23 to March 27, will include keynote speakers Satoru Iwata, chief executive of Nintendo, and Hideo Kojima, the Japanese creator of the Metal Gear series of console video games, published by Konami.

Iwata is a hero for reviving the industry with the launch of the Wii game console, while Kojima created the hyper-realistic Metal Gear Solid 4 game for the PlayStation 3 last year. Iwata will likely talk about the Nintendo DSi, a new version of the company’s handheld game player with two cameras.

Meggan Scavio, the new director of the GDC (pictured right), said in an interview that she hopes the show will draw about 18,000 attendees, roughly the same as last year. Early bookings suggest the conference is on track to do that, which is an achievement, considering how bad the economy is and how layoffs have begun to sweep through big companies such as Electronic Arts and THQ. Scavio said the number of attendees will become more evident as the date approaches. It’s possible, she said, that more job seekers may attend this year.

One example of the globalization of gaming is a new party, the GDC World Mixer, which replaces the East West party aimed at Japanese and American developers.

The GDC is always pushing to expand the horizons of gaming. I can already tell what will be the funniest event: the Game Design Challenge, organized by Eric Zimmerman. It’s a competition between three game designers. They prepare for a couple of months to create a game based on a difficult design challenge. The challenge this year is to create a game based on their first sexual experience.

The GDC, hosted and organized by Think Services, will be held at the Moscone Convention Center again. It’s also expected to draw about the same number of exhibitors as last year — 300. There are 400 sessions planned, which is fewer than usual. New summits, which precede the formal conference, on March 23 and March 24 include game outsourcing, which has become an accepted industry practice in recent years, and artificial intelligence, which is increasingly important in creating believable behavior of game characters. Our own conference, GamesBeat 09, will be on March 24 and focus on the business of the expanding video game industry.

One of the big topics will be games for the iPhone, which has more than 4,300 games available now. Apple will have a strong presence. That’s a first Apple, which has never had a big effort in games on its past platforms.

Scavio, who moved up to become GDC director last year after Jamil Moledina left the job to join EA, said the sessions reflect the times. Several will focus on how to survive in the current economy. Flagship Studios will host a talk on how it failed and the lessons it learned as an independent game developer. The conference will focus on emerging platforms for games such as one being introduced by Zeebo. John Rizzo, chief executive of Zeebo, a San Diego, Calif.-based startup, will talk about making a game console for the developing world.

The part of the conference I’m most looking forward to is the keynote by Kojima, head of Kojima Productions, which makes games for Konami. He started the Metal Gear franchise more than two decades ago. Now the franchise represents the peak of “cinematic video games” whose story, game play and visuals are so realistic they are considered movie-like. You can bet I’ll be there to live blog that one.

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Tags: co:electronic-arts, co:konami, co:nintendo, co:think-services, co:thq