Co-founder of Firaxis Games (and  Sid Meier has been selected for the opening keynote address of Game Developers Conference 2010. What’s the topic of his presentation? “The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know is Wrong).” In it, he’s going to argue that the psychology of the player is what game designers should be taking into account when they work. He’s going to do this with examples from his own work. (As a psychology person, I am extra-intrigued and wish to subscribe to his newsletter.)

GDC organizers have also lined up more topics and lectures, detailed below.

- Ubisoft Montreal lead designer Patrick Plourde will speak on ‘Designing Assassin’s Creed 2′, discussing how “the design team faced the challenges of an enormous scope, one of the biggest development teams ever assembled and a limited time frame” for the critically acclaimed, Renaissance Italy-set action game.

- In a lecture entitled ‘Get Your Game Out Of My Movie! Interactive Storytelling in Mass Effect 2′, BioWare’s  Armando Troisi “will focus on the narrative design fundamentals used at BioWare and how they evolved for Mass Effect 2, explaining components of the just-debuted game’s story design, problems encountered during implementation, and design choices made for the long-awaited franchise sequel.

- The always popular Game Design Challenge returns this year with a unique theme – the designers “must conceive a game that somehow incorporates the actual death of a real person.” The contestants for the ‘Real-World Permadeath’ challenge, MC-ed by Eric Zimmerman, are last year’s Challenge winners Heather Kelley (Kokoromi) and Erin Robinson (Puzzle Bots), facing off against Thatgamecompany co-founder Jenova Chen (Flow, Flower) and Airtight Games’ Kim Swift (Portal).