The 10th annual Game Developers Conference kicked off on March 9th. About 17,000 veteran and aspiring game developers, art designers, and programmers are expected to spend the next several days at San Francisco’s Moscone Center discussing the hottest current issues in the gaming industry.

The conference, which will continue until Saturday March 13, will feature roughly 400 talks, lectures, and round-table discussions on a variety of topics. These involve all aspects of the gaming industry which include game design, production, programming, and business. One of the GDC’s key features are the summits that spotlight certain noteworthy trends in gaming, each of which feature a number of talks on the subject. This year’s summits include the Social and Online Games Summit, the iPhone Games Summit, and the Serious Game Summit.

Although the GDC has so far only finished its second day there have already been a few notable events and talks, the biggest one being Sony’s official announcement of the official name for its answer to Nintendo’s Wii remote during today’s press conference. Called the PlayStation Move, the new device will receive more attention tomorrow as it will be demonstrated in a session. Another particularly noteworthy event was Playfish co-founder and Vice President Kristian Segerstrale’ lecture on the move towards social gaming and what it means for the industry as a whole. This lecture was part of the Social and Online Games Summit and will be covered in further detail in a following article.

In addition to more PlayStation Move information, the rest of the conference promises more highlights such as Civilization series guru Sid Meier’s keynote speech on Friday, Peter Molyneux’s (of Fable fame) talk on the complex challenges of intuitive design; some possible sneak peeks at games such as Final Fantasy XIII and Metroid M; and of course Thursday night’s Game Developers Conference Awards.