As of 2007, the gaming industry outpaced the movie industry worldwide in terms of total revenue; by the end of this year, it will become the fastest growing component of the media sector worldwide. With the advent of smartphones and the “casual gamer,” more people are playing videogames than ever before. Whether you’re a hardened veteran raised on the likes of Mario and Sonic or a gaming neophyte playing Breakout or Words With Friends on your iPhone, there’s a panel or speech at SXSWi that’s bound to interest you.

For me, here are the top five:

1. Interactive Canon: Press Pick The Best Games Ever (Tuesday, March 15th, 12:30PM)

This one should be interesting to the long-time gaming crowd. Just as there are books that everyone should read or movies that everyone should see, there are games that everyone should play. But which games? Evan Lahti, Senior Editor at PC Gamer, will be leading a discussion with other professionals from the gaming journalism industry in order to establish a sort of Criterion Collection of gaming.

I’ve got my own personal list (check the comments section), as I’m sure any big gamer does, and I’m eager to see what the guys and gals in the panel–and the audience–come up with. I imagine this ending up like any one of the countless debates happening every day on GameFAQS.com, except with more civility. Which is to say, with any civility at all.

2. Game Publishing Evolution From Traditional To Digital Distribution (Monday, March 14th, 11:00AM)

The iTunes Store has obviously had a huge effect on the music industry since its release in 2003, and video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are changing the face of the movie and television industries. While it’s true that Steam (a digital distribution platform for computer games managed by Valve since 2002) has been around for a while now, the home console and traditional handheld sectors of the gaming industry have thus far been reluctant to embrace digital distribution.

There’s been some progress made in recent years, particularly with the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 offering digital downloads of several retail games. But mainstream gaming’s only 100% digital distribution platform, the PSPGo, was an unmitigated disaster (the sales numbers have some describing it as “the biggest failure in recent video gaming history”). On-Live, a games-on-demand service for PC gamers, has met with some acclaim and launched a television-based console late last year, but it’s still a bit early to declare it a success.

It’ll be interesting to see what Chris Petrovic, Gamestop’s GM of Digital Ventures, has to say about digital distribution. As a company that makes a huge chunk of its profits from used hardware and software sales, some would say Gamestop has the most to lose should the gaming industry go all-digital.

3. Can The Games Industry Learn From Web UX (Monday, March 14th, 9:30AM)

As more and more people with web development backgrounds get into the gaming industry, it’s become apparent how clunky and cumbersome and just “not fun” games can be. The panel description touches on an interesting recent phenomenon; big-name game publishers, instead of tailor-making a suitable gaming experience for mobile devices, try to cram their huge console games onto an inappropriate platform. For example, the iPhone version of Resident Evil 4, while certainly technically impressive, is a bit of a bore compared to its console-bound big brother, and is a bit “too much” for the typical iPhone gaming crowd. It tries to appease both audiences, and ends up falling by the wayside because of it.

On the flipside, what can the relative newbies in the game development world learn from the seasoned vets? There are two distinct markets for games–the “casual” market who plays iPhone or browser-based games (maybe a Wii game if they’re feeling bold) and the “hardcore” market who plays the home consoles and higher-end computer games–and to me, it sounds like at least part of this discussion will be about reconciling those two markets and getting a bit of cross-cultivation going, so it should be interesting.

4. Beyond Check-Ins: Location Based Game Design (Saturday, March 12th, 9:30AM)

Location based stuff is getting pretty big, with venues offering discounts and free goodies to people who check in or visit a certain sequence of places or events. While location based games aren’t necessarily new, the current offerings are pretty limited. John-Paul Walton and Zach Saul, the co-founders of location based games developer Dokogeo, are going to talk about current weaknesses with geo games, as well as their ideas about the future of this particular genre.

As far as the mainline gaming industry goes, I think we’re going to see a huge interest in location based games over the next year or two. Sony’s new handheld due late this year, the NGP, is coming equipped with 3G access and built-in GPS, so you can expect them to make a push for developers to come up with new ways to make use of those features.

5. Augmented Reality For Marketers: Future of Consumer Interactions (Saturday, March 12th, 5:00PM)

This one isn’t directly related to videogames exactly–the discussion’s mostly going to be about how to effectively use augmented reality in advertising campaigns and getting it to link up with location-based software and social media to offer a complete experience to the consumer. However, I find the technology behind it really interesting.

For the uninitiated, augmented reality is basically putting digital images or info on the screen of your favorite electronic device–for example, pointing your cell phone camera down an empty street and seeing a tank rolling down that street on your screen. It’s a fairly recent development technologically, and one that the big gaming companies are very interested in; Nintendo, for example, will include six special cards with their new handheld, the 3DS, that can be used to play augmented reality games using the system’s built-in 3D camera. Here’s a demonstration of a target-shooting augmented reality game:

This is all just the tip of the iceberg for gamers at SXSWi. Stay tuned for more news and previews leading up to the conference.