Will Wright Keynote Confirmed For GDC 2006

The organizers of the 2006 Game Developers Conference have confirmed that noted game designer Will Wright, creator of Sim City and The Sims, will deliver a keynote address at the 2006 Game Developers Conference (GDC), to be held from March 20-24 in San Jose, Calif. In his address, Wright will "explore topics related to next-generation game design and development strategies", in a keynote that will take place Thursday, March 23 from 12pm-1pm. Wright, co-founder of the now EA-owned video game developer, Maxis, is best known as the brains behind the groundbreaking Sim City and The Sims. He has received numerous accolades from the entertainment community, including a spot on Entertainment Weekly's "It List" of "the 100 most creative people in entertainment. Wright has also been featured on TIME Digital's "Digital 50", a listing of "the most important people shaping technology today." In addition, Game Developer magazine will be running an exclusive interview with Wright in its April 2006 issue, which will debut at Game Developers Conference 2006 in late March, in which the designer discusses his design philosophies and beliefs in further detail. It's not known if the Maxis designer will discuss his forthcoming title Spore in any further detail in his GDC keynote, but there are three other lectures from Maxis employees working on Spore which touch on the game in various ways, including Caryl Shaw's 'Building Community Around Pollinated Content in Spore' and Eric Todd's 'Spore: Preproduction Through Prototyping'. [GDC 2006 is presented by the CMP Game Group, organizers of the Game Developers Conference Europe and standalone Serious Games Summit, and publishers of Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra.com.]