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Revolutionising games at GDC

Among the most anticipated sessions are the annual experimental-gameplay workshop, where designers submit new kinds of game ideas that are then showcased before audiences primed to critique and learn from them.

Some of the many hit games that have made their public debuts in the workshop are Namco's critical hit Katamari Damacy and 42 Entertainment's I Love Bees.

"It's been the source of some very innovative ideas," said Ron Meiners, a contract community manager and veteran of game companies like Ubisoft Entertainment and There.com. "It gives designers a chance to stretch the limits in a context that's even potentially meaningful. Given the economics of the industry, it can be difficult to create meaningful, new ideas about games. The workshop serves to remind the industry of the foundation of games -- creative new ways to play."

Another GDC mainstay is the Game Design Challenge. The panel, now in its third year, is organised by game studio GameLab's Eric Zimmerman, and is certain to attract a standing-room only audience.

The panel's conceit is to present top-flight game designers with a challenge: to design a game concept for something the industry would probably be too scared to actually make. The entrants' designs must be fleshed out, but are unlikely to be made.

In 2004, Wright won the challenge to make a game about love with Collateral Romance, in which star-crossed lovers have to find each other by making their way across a warzone in the online first-person shooter Battlefield 1942.

This year, Zimmerman has tasked three new entrants -- Epic Games lead designer Cliff Bleszinski, Midway studio creative director Harvey Smith and Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi -- with coming up with a concept for a game that could win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But GDC is also as much about the hard-core inner workings of the game development process as it is about high-concept ideas. Thus, the conference schedule is filled wall-to wall with panels such as '3ds Max -- Complex data mapping production techniques', 'Advanced light and shadow culling methods', 'Artificial intelligence in computer games -- present and future' and 'How ambient experiences can take adventure gaming to the next level'.

Still, for many, GDC is about having a chance to reality-test new ideas and projects with peers and see what others have done in the past in similar situations before having to show them to potential retailers and marketers at E3 in May.

"Because of the risky nature of what we do, technically and fiscally, we are all a little scared," Steele said. "There is security in the validation of hearing how a well-established studio solved a problem you are facing."

Meanwhile, with the biggest GDC crowd in the conference's history expected to jam the San Jose Convention Center and meeting rooms in nearby hotels, some are worried that organisers will repeat the mistakes of last year when, for example, Wright's talk about his next game, Spore, was scheduled in a room far too small for the hordes who wanted to attend.

And that's because Wright is about as big a celebrity as the game industry has.

"I am fond of saying," said Steele, "that Will Wright doesn't even realise yet that he's the Jimmy Hendrix of our generation."

Moledina said everyone who wants to will be able to see Wright speak.

"Wright's keynote will be in the civic auditorium, which has a 3,000-seat capacity," Moledina said. "I was there last year for his talk and couldn't get a seat. So no, that's not going to happen again."