The topics which a prospective speaker can address range from game production and business to programming, art, design, and audio. Each abstract will be rated by the Game Developers Conference advisory board before final decisions are made on specific sessions later this year. The 2007 GDC advisory board consists of a number of senior industry figures including Cerny Games' Marc Cerny, Factor 5's Julian Eggebrecht, Atari's Paul Steed, Eidos' Julien Merceron, Microsoft Game Studios' Laura Fryer, Shiny Entertainment founder David Perry, Electronic Arts' Louis Castle, and many others.

"The rallying cry for GDC 07 is 'Take Control,' and we're asking game industry professionals to explicitly detail their challenges and victories in creating next generation and industry-broadening games," said Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference. "Now more than ever, developers are empowered to create and distribute a broad range of games, be they casual, online, independent, small footprint mobile, or epic blockbuster console or PC adventures - using a broader range of financial and organizational tools and partners - and GDC presents the leading forum to share these opportunities as a unified creative industry."

Many enhancements have been made to the submission process for GDC 2007. Some of the useful aids on the GDC site to help prospective speakers craft the most compelling entries include:

• A video presentation featuring advisory board member David Perry walking through the details of what the board is looking for, who the target audience is and what makes a successful presentation
• A more refined submission interface featuring a specific list of speaker expectations
• A sample submission representing one of the highest-ranking talks at GDC 2006

For further information, or to begin the submission process, please visit http://www.gdconf.com/abstracts