GDC 2006 Announces Reduced Pre-Registration Deadline

The organizers of the 2006 Game Developers Conference (operated by CMP Media, as is Gamasutra.com) have announced that today, February 15th, is the final day to register at the reduced 'early-bird' registration rate for GDC 2006, which is taking place at the San Jose Convention Center from March 20-24 2006. Recent announcements of new speakers for GDC 2006 have included Ultima creator Richard Garriott, presenting a session on "Designing Tabula Rasa: Lessons From The World Of MMOs", Epic Games president Tim Sweeney, discussing "Building A Flexible Game Engine", and Q Entertainment's Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Phantagram's Sangyoun Lee combining for 'All About Ninety-Nine Nights: Next-Gen Character Design'. Also recently confirmed in keynote positions are Sim City and The Sims creator Will Wright, will "explore topics related to next-generation game design and development strategies", in a keynote that will take place Thursday, March 23rd from 12pm-1pm. In addition, Nintendo's Satoru Iwata platform keynote, titled "Disrupting Development," and focusing on the need for innovation in video games. will be held on March 23rd, from 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM, and in which the Nintendo president will discuss his company's role in the next generation of consoles, which it will enter with the release of the Revolution later in 2006. One other platform-specific keynote is still to be announced for GDC 2006. Finally, the 'vision' track will be headlined by Ron Moore, who will present “Building a Better Battlestar” on Wednesday, March 22, from 12:00 to 1:00pm, discussing his experiences creating something new and successful out of an existing and adored intellectual property, in re-inventing Battlestar Galactica for its current Sci-Fi Channel TV adaptation. Further information on pass pricing for GDC 2006 is available on the official Game Developers Conference 2006 website.