The Game Developer's Conference is coming up - March 7-11 in San Francisco, California. You still have a chance to register early for the special deal.

The GDC is one of my favorite events. It's an actual conference, unlike E3, which is more of a buzzbath and industry hoopla. The focus of GDC is, as the name suggests, game development - from design to production to marketing and selling. For the next week or so I and my cohorts will be writing about the highlights of this year's GDC and why you need to be there. Call it the GGA Guide to GDC 2005.

The most unpredictable - and thereby the most exciting - event is always the Experimental Gameplay demo, run by Jonathan Blow. It's a free-for-all of risky games, games that were developed with little commericalism in mind, all to test out a new mechanic or to make use of an interesting interface or just for the hell of it. It's open to everyone from game veterans to absolute beginners. It's exhilerating, fascinating, and totally impractical. I never miss it.

And, needless to say, I also never miss any time Will Wright speaks. He'll be talking this year about the Future of Content. It doesn't matter what he talks about, his lectures will always leave your mind spinning with about a billion ideas. You could write a book on every "talking point" he introduces.

And then there's Ernest Adams, iconoclast, rebel, free-wheeling intellectual. Some would add, crazy old coot (I mean that in the most affectionate possible sense, Ernest). He often relates videogame thematically to literary tropes or mytho-psychological undercurrents. You'll hate him or love him, but his remarks will always stimulate hours of relection or debate during the afterparties.

Tomorrow: Guide to GDC 2005 continues. Games, sex, and rock and roll!