This is awesome. It’s nice to know that they’ve finally just cut to the chase. I’ve been to GDC four times, and each time the highlight of the show has been Will Wright’s talk. Furthermore, his talks seem to get better and better every year – and, of course, more and more crowded. I was particularly fond of his wild tangent in 2004 about the history of the Russian space program (short version: NASA’s money and engineering hasn’t made the US’s space program any safer or more effective than the Russians who favor low-tech solutions).

Of course, his talk last year – when he revealed Spore – has become the stuff of legend, so it’s a sure thing that every person going to GDC 2006 will be trying to squeeze into whatever auditorium can’t hold us at noon on Thursday. Woe to any other speaker scheduled for the same time.

Fortunately for me (note the effortless segue here!), my talk is scheduled for a different time slot. I will be giving a presentation with Dorian Newcomb (our Lead Animator) on the prototyping phase of Civ4. We’ll be showing off some very, very early versions of the game, revealing what was playable and what wasn’t in the first year of the project. By the way, my 2004 GDC talk was given right in the middle of that prototyping phase, which lasted roughly from Fall 2003 to Summer 2004.