GDC Announces Keynotes, New 'Game Connection' Event

General Interest: Andrew House, executive vice president, Sony Computer Entertainment America, responsible for the game content lineup, brand management and advertising of the Playstation 1 and 2 consoles.

Production track: David Perry, president, Shiny Entertainment, a 21-year game industry veteran. His last project was the No. 1 game Enter the Matrix.

Game Design track: Neil Young, vice president and executive in charge of production, Electronic Arts who is currently leading the development of The Lord of the Rings games.

Programming track: John Carmack founder/owner/lead programmer, id Software, whose credits include blockbuster hits Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein. He is currently working on the highly anticipated Doom III.

Visual arts: Phil Tippet, founder of Tippet Studios, visual effects supervisior on such feature films as: The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Jurassic Park. Also announced was a partnership with Lyon Game to bring publishers and developers together to preview new game concepts at Game Connection @ GDC. The purpose of the format is to give developers an opportunity to efficiently show game concepts and development capabilities to the leading international publishers while attending the GDC. Game Connection @ GDC meetings are confidential and take place in private rooms. Publishers and developers can efficiently manage their time via an online scheduling system, which allows companies to arrange more than 30 developer presentations in the two days available. The GDC is produced by the CMP Game Group, which also produces this site.