SXSW is very excited to announce that Will Wright will serve as the keynote speaker on Tuesday, March 13.

Wright can be considered the Bono of the video game industry — in fact, he was the first game designer to be profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and has been named to Entertainment Weekly's "It List" of "the 100 most creative people in entertainment" and Time Digital's "Digital 50." He is probably best known for creating the critically acclaimed series, The Sims, which has sold more than 70 million games around the world and is one of the few video games that has attracted an audience that is equally split between men and women. The series is one of the most successful in the world, having generated more than $1.6 billion in sales. Wright is now working on his newest game, SPORE. As noted in a recent feature in the New York Times Magazine, "No one doubts that the game [SPORE] will be the most ambitious work in the history of this new medium, whenever it is released. But for it to succeed as a game, it can't just be complex. It also has to be fun. If anyone can pull it off, it's Will Wright...There is probably no one alive who has a comparable track record of combining arcane scientific theories and compulsively addictive entertainment."

In addition to Will Wright's keynote speech, the video game industry will be explored in the new ScreenBurn component of SXSW Interactive. ScreenBurn panels run March 10-13, while the ScreenBurn Arcade is scheduled March 10 and March 11. Admission to these ScreenBurn events is included as part of your SXSW Interactive, Gold or Platinum registration. For 2007, ScreenBurn is sponsored by Seagate Technology. Photo courtesy of Electronic Arts.

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