GDC 2012 has just kicked off. We're live on the show floor

The Games Developers Conference has just begun in San Francisco. Devs from every corner of the industry are congregating to talk about their craft. It's a very exciting time.

Will Valve open the Pandora's box that is the Steam Box ? What's the mystery game that EA are due to announce on Tuesday ? What will Sid Meier have to say in his keynote speech? Are Hitman Absolution 's crowds extremely good or a bit good? Read on for the highlights.

The conference begins low-key but unpredictable. Today, we'll be attending various talks from indie developers and meeting up with Paradox Interactive . Tuesday is a similar affair, though some Planetside 2 news might break later on.

Things get really exciting on Wednesday. Lord of Civ, Sid Meier is doing a talk on Interesting Decisions, Notch is having a Fireside Chat, Square Enix are talking Deus Ex and Valve are talking TF2 . There's also rumours of a mystery game getting announced by EA in their Game Changers conference. It could relate to more Sim City news, or something even more exotic. IO Interactive will also be unveiling Hitman Absolution 's outstanding-looking crowd tech.

We've got a bundle of interviews on Thursday with some of your favourite devs, but we can't give away too much yet. We'll also be attending postmortems on Portal 2 , The Old Republic , Fallout , The Witcher 2 and League of Legends . It's going to be one hell of an insightful day. Keep an eye on our GDC 2012 tag for more.

Bioware kick off Friday's schedule with a talk on Contrast and Context in Story and Cinematics. There'll also be discussion from Zynga and PopCap , an analysis of recent Indie hit Dear Esther, along with chats on experimental play sessions, game dev parent's rants and the nature of game reviews. We'll almost definitely have something to say about all that.

And then it'll be over. The most exciting developments won't be on the schedule, so keep an eye on our GDC 2012 tag for more. Excitement!

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