GDC Canada, Future Play Conference Team Up

Organizers for Future Play, an annual conference focusing on emerging game development trends and ideas, announced that the event will colocate with the first Game Developers Conference Canada (GDC Canada) this year. Presented by Reboot Communications and Think Services (owners of Gamasutra), GDC Canada enables Canadian game developers to share best practices for fostering ingenuity and quality games. The conference emphasizes studying the challenges and opportunities inherent in creating games with long-production cycles, large development teams, and across multiple platforms. Future Play 2009 will run alongside GDC Canada, which will take place May 12-13th in Vancouver, British Columbia. Running since 2002 -- when it was known as Computer Game Technology (CGT) Conference -- Future Play was previously held in Michican and Southern Ontario, hosted by Algoma University. Future Play brings together academics, industry leaders, government officials, investors, and students to discuss future game developments, future game impacts and applications and future game talent. Researchers and leading intellectuals from universities around the world share their findings on those three areas in various panels and lectures. This year's scheduled speakers include Duane M. Dunfield, President of Red Hot Learning; Eric Gagnon, General Manager of Cinetek Studio; Jerry Heneghan, Founder and CEO of Virtual Heroes Incorporated; Lucie Lalumière, Vice-President Interactive with Earth Rangers; Kevin McNulty, founding partner of Coole Immersive Incorporated; Kal Shariff, CEO of Project Whitecard Incorporated; and Kenton White, co-founder and CTO of DISTIL. "We're excited to be joining forces with GDC Canada," says Dr. Bill Kapralos of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and chair of the Future Play 2009 committee. "We feel that the new format we will be introducing will provide leaders from both the gaming industry and academia with a unique forum to discuss the future of games and gaming." More information and registration details for Future Play at Game Developers Conference Canada 2009 can be found at Future Play's official site.