Last week, San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center played host to the 2009 Game Developers Conference and hordes of attendees. Today the event's organizers declared this year's installment of the insider-focused convention a success, noting that more than 17,000 participated in the show, whether by attending the more than 500 lectures, panels, and presentations or by visiting the expo floor, various seminars and summits, or the Game Developers Choice Awards.

　　The GDC show floor is one of the event's big draws. "The success of this past week in San Francisco proves the resilience of the games industry," event director Meggan Scavio said in a statement. "It is a testament to the spirit of our more than 20-year-old conference and community, and evidence of video games' continued evolution into a mainstream form of entertainment, that the various constituents of the industry were able to come together at GDC as they did year."

　　The flagship Game Developers Conference will return to the Moscone Center March 9-13, 2010. Until then, event organizer Think Services will be running satellite GDC shows around the world. GDC Canada will hit Vancouver in May, followed by GDC Europe in Cologne, Germany, in August. Then it's back to the US for the online-focused GDC Austin in September and finally to Shanghai for GDC China in October.

　　For more on the GDC line of shows, visit the official Web site.