Develop announces speakers for 2007

Tandem Events has announced a preliminary list of speakers for this year's Develop Conference & Expo in Brighton, taking place July 24 — 26.

SCEE scriptwriter Katie Ellwood has signed up for the event, as has Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux and representatives from Rare, Blitz, Vfx and Instinct Technology.

The conference will feature 45 sessions in all, divided between design, productions, coding, business, art, audio and world vision, with four themes underpinning the whole event — community, connectivity, creativity and control.

"As we leave GDC behind, we couldn't have asked for a better following wind for our second Develop Conference this July," commented Owain Bennallack, chair of the event's advisory board.

"One of our long-standing key themes, social networking and its impact on games, surprised many as the talk of San Francisco, thanks largely to Phil Harrisonâs key speech revealing PlayStation Home and Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet."

"We think developers are now ready to hear a lot more about how the lessons of Web 2.0 can make their games better and more successful, and the Develop conference in Brighton is the only place to do so, as well as picking up plenty more traditional hints and tips about programming, art, audio, and production," he added.

Making a return to the Develop conference will be Develop Mobile taking place on July 24, and GAMES:EDU, a forum for developers and educators.