Heading out to GDC

Tomorrow morning I head out to the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco for the rest of the week. If all goes well with breaks and wi-fi, I hope to bring you frequent updates on the news, interesting panels, awards and game demo's.

Meanwhile, I have a story in today's Daily Variety introducing our print readers to the conference, how it's changing and what it means. Cut Scene readers probably already know about GDC, but you may not know that 10% of the attendees this year will be from the traditional media business. That really underscores how much business is getting done at GDC. It's not just educational sessions for artists and programmers anymore. It also underscores that whenever the videogame biz gets together, people from Hollywood want to get involved. I expect a healthy contingent of producers, agents, executives, creatives, etc. to be up there.

Be sure to check back Wednesday through Friday for regular GDC updates. Stuff I'm planning to check out and blog about:

-Microsoft's keynote, which I presume will be about new tools in its XNA program to let "regular" people create or edit games. Though I'm pretty curious what the Xbox Live folks have hidden behind this curtain. (picture courtesy of Kotaku)

-The GDC awards

-Ken Levine's ("Bioshock) session on storytelling in games

-Ray Kurzweil's keynote on the future of games

-"Street Fighter IV"

-"Lego Batman"

-"Prototype"

-"Speed Racer"

-Disney's "Pure" and "Prince Caspian"