Digital gaming luminaries will gather at Georgia Tech on December 1 and 2 for Living Game Worlds IV, a symposium featuring gaming pioneers such as Raph Koster, lead designer of Star Wars Galaxies, and Chris Klaus, founder of Kaneva.

This year, the conference will focus on 'Interplay,' networked online play as well as multiplayer games and virtual worlds. Panelists include: Richard Bartle, writer of the first multi-user domain; online game developer Brian Green; Chip Morningstar, chief technology officer for WeMade Entertainment USA and platform developer for Yahoo!; Randy Farmer, online gaming innovator and author; and Pavel Curtis, creator of LambdaMoo.

The symposium, which will be accessible via Second Life stream, will explore various aspects of networked play from an historical, cultural, technological and design perspective, as well as looking at current and future trends such as user-created content and use of virtual worlds in the workplace.

Themes to be explored include: historical and international perspectives, productive play (including use of games in the workplace), learning communities
infrastructures, architectures and experience, augmented and alternative reality games, new directions and game creation environments.

Living Game Worlds is an annual symposium presented by Georgia Tech's Experimental Game Lab (EGL) in the Digital Media Program of the School of Literature, Communication and Culture and the GVU Center. Each year, Living Game Worlds brings together experts from academia, industry and the arts to explore topics related to research, design and cultural practices of digital games.

For more information and to register for the conference, visit http://gameworlds.gatech.edu/