EUROPE'S GAMES DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY OUT IN FORCE FOR DEVELOP CONFERENCE & EXPO IN BRIGHTON

Over 1,000 games industry professionals from 22 countries are expected to descend on Brighton over the next three days for the Develop Conference & Expo, which runs from July 24-26 at the Hilton Metropole.

The event opens today with Develop Mobile and GAMES:EDU and continues through until the last session of the conference - the Buzz Quiz - at 1645 on Thursday July 26.

Representing the very heart of the European development community, delegates will gain invaluable insight into the future of games development and keep their finger on the pulse of the latest trends, technology and business issues. Over the three days, 75 sessions will take place featuring 90 speakers covering topics across seven tracks: Art, Audio, Business, Coding, Design, Production and World Vision.

The organisers are expecting the seminar theatres to be packed to the rafters for this year's four - very different - keynotes:

Richard Garriott (executive producer Tabula Rasa, NCsoft): The Rapidly Maturing Genre of Online Gaming - Wednesday 0930

Chris Satchell (general manager XNA Group, Microsoft): Creative Divergence: Surfing the Web 2.0 Community Wave - Wednesday 1730

Tsutomu Kounu (Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Japan Studio): How was LocoRoco Created? - Thursday 0930

Tommy Tallarico (president Tommy Tallarico Studios): Audio track keynote - Thursday 1545

Develop magazine's staff writer Ed Fear is one of many looking forward to the keynote addresses: "We've all heard the Web 2.0 talk, but the keynote from Chris Satchell should demystify and inspire delegates on how the internet changes games development."

Chris Satchell explains: "Having grown up as a developer in the UK, I know that the European development community is hugely talented, influential and extremely important to the global industry. The Develop Conference is the natural place for me to reach out to that community: it has a great combination of commercial and creative content and is attended by the brightest developers from across Europe."

Ed Fear's Develop team mates Michael French, Joao Sanches and Jon Jordan have also - painstakingly - managed to short list five additional notable highlights:

Home Development Toolkit: Sony's virtual space has intrigued everyone, and this session should provide more answers as to how developers can get involved.

The SingStore, Open for Business: This session will present SingStar PS3 as an intriguing case study on what it takes to set up shop in the online world.

Deferred Rendering in Killzone 2: It's one of the most-watched upcoming releases, so it will be interesting to see how Guerilla has built technology that aims to live up to the hype.

Textures and Shaders in the HD Era: An exploration of how Bizarre Creations is innovating and managing its use of shaders for Project Gotham 4.

Buzz: The Video Game: With questions written by Michael French, we will discover - once and for all - who actually is the games development industry's biggest Know-It- All!

"We're only in our second year and already we have more delegates, more speakers and a more international focus and attendance than any other development event in Europe," said Andy Lane, event director at Tandem Events. "Quite simply, the Develop Conference is THE event for the European development community to meet, network and be inspired."