Project Horseshoe, a think tank dedicated to solving the industry wide problems plaguing modern game-design met for the first time last month.

George Singer, the founder of the first annual three-day event says that it was a gathering of "30 of the industry's most vibrant, eclectic, accomplished, opinionated, and talented folks."

The event was held last Nov 2-5 and it set to identify workable solutions for what stops effective game design from happening.

Despite the event having managed to fly under the radar, probably due to the fact that it was held at the Canyon of the Eagles in Lake Buchanan, Texas, the event's attendees declared it as a resounding success and plan to continue the work they began at the invitation only conference.

Mike Steele, VP at Calabasas, Ca.-based Emergent Game Technologies had this to say about the event: "We're talking about information on everything from cryptology to real-time photo-realistic rendering to artificial intelligence to databases -- all the big, hard problems addressed in one small space."

One of the major topics of discussion was how developers might convince publishers to take risks and fund games that aren't easily categorized. David Warhol, president of El Segundo had this to say:

Everyone recognizes that games like 'Katamari Damacy,' that contain tremendously innovative gameplay mechanics, ought to interest publishers. But all that publishers seem to be looking for is the next sports game or the next first-person shooter. They're all afraid that they're not going to recoup their investment if they back something that's on the fringe.

Other topics recommended for discussion by members for future discussion include:

• What's the best way to train future game designers? "Since almost everyone with success in the industry was self-taught or, at best, mentored unofficially, there's no track record of how any given game design program has paid off," notes Noah Falstein, a freelance game designer and producer since 1980.
• How can we make games more emotional than movies? "What's preventing game designers from doing this," asks Nicole Lazzaro, president of XeoDesign.
• How can we make our games have real social/political applications while still being "good" games? "The existing 'serious games' are all too often failures as games," comments Dallas Dickinson, a producer for Sony Online Entertainment. "Is it due to some deep disconnect players have between playing games and learning about real problems?"
• When will game developers realize that business concerns are just as important as any other decisions in creating games? "How long will we allow people with business savvy but little or no real interest in games as a creative medium to dominate the economics of games?" asks Brian Green, a game developer and founder of Near Death Studios.

If you're interested with what else the game-design think tank has planned, feel free to check them out through our read link below.

For the Indie Game developers (and disgruntled World of Warcraft players) out there, something's brewing up next year. Last Straw Productions announced today that registration for the Indie MMO Game Developers Conference 2007, to be held in Minneapolis, is now open.

The event, to run on April 14 and 15, will serve as a venue for the aspiring Indie and hobbyist developers out to find other people who share their aspiration of creating their very own virtual worlds. It will feature several talks regarding Indie MMO development, with sessions ranging from game design, legal issues facing Indie developers, and team building "elevator pitch" sessions meant for developers to pitch their projects or their talents to other developers.

Participants can also look forward to talks done by famous MMO pioneer Richard Bartle and game developer Brian "Psychochild" Green to help give them hints on how to get their whole venture started. Interested participants can register over here, with a registration fee of US$ 49 for a two-day pass, including sessions, parties and access to the elevator pitch sessions. Make sure to registers early though, as tickets bought after December 15 will cost you US$ 99.