We're Baack, and This Time We Brought GDC Canada WIth Us..

After five years in Michigan and Southern Ontario, Future Play, the international conference on gaming and design, is heeding the advice popularized by Horace Greeley to "go west!" Future Play is teaming up with the Game Developers Conference Canada (R) (GDC Canada) and will be held on May 12-13th 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Registration is now open.

"We're excited to be joining forces with GDC Canada," says Dr. Bill Kapralos of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and co-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."

Future Play is an annual conference hosted by Algoma University of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario with support from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, located in Oshawa, Ontario. The conference focuses on three major themes: future game developments, future game impacts and applications and future game talent.

GDC Canada is a conference for 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 at GDC Canada will provide the opportunity for leading intellectuals and industry researchers to present their findings before an audience that includes: students, game developers, government representatives, investors and academics. Over the years the Future Play conference has also featured many renowned keynote speakers from the gaming field including: Don Daglow of Stormfront Studios, Academy Award winner and inventor of Perlin Noise Dr. Ken Perlin and John Lester, the creator of Second Life.

This year's conference speakers will 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. Researchers from a number of universities from across North America and around the world, will be presenting their work as well.

Online registration for Future Play 2009 at GDC Canada is available now on the revamped Future Play website at www.futureplay.org.