The annual Triangle Game Conference, which focuses on the development scene concentrated in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, is back for another year, and has announced its tracks and speakers.

The event will be held at the Raleigh Convention Center and Marriott City Center April 7-8, and organizers say it will offer five tracks plus a "new and improved" Career Lounge where job seekers can meet with industry professionals.

"We wanted to make this year's Career Lounge informal and collaborative," said the event's Troy Knight. "Using an open floor, roundtable format we'll be able to give students and professionals the opportunity to meet experts representing several of the industry's leading developers, publishers and innovators."

On the game development track, speakers will include Hazardous Software's Chris Hazard, Sesame Workshop's Ann Thai, Insomniac Games' Jim Van Verth, and Atomic Games' Patrick Seabring.

The engines and middleware track will feature talks from Emergent's Dan Amerson and Jeremiah Washburn and Epic Games' John Farnsworth, among others. Virtual Heroes' Jerry Heneghan and IBM's Michael Rowe will be among the lecturers on the Immersive Learning track, which will focus on serious games, virtual worlds and social networks for training.

The conference will also have a business of games track, where publishers, producers and other industry professionals like Perimeter Partners' Jason Della Rocca and Digital-Roar Studios' John Lyons will talk trends and business models.

Finally, on the games and media, the Bohle Company's Sue Bohle and Neogence's Robert Rice, among others, will talk media, marketing and journalism in an era of convergence.

Those interested in the event can find further information on registration, the career expo and the full list of speakers at the Triangle Game Conference's official website

By Leigh Alexander
March 19, 2010 02:49:00 PM PT