GDCing 09: Of Attendees and Volunteers (part II)

from gamedev.net, taken by David Michael

Wednesday is perhaps the biggest day of the Game Developers Conference. In it, the GDC transforms from peaceful educational summit to the display of colors, sounds and ideas that made it one of the most important gatherings for game industry professionals in the world. One of the biggest concerns of those attending it, however, is deciding what events to attend. The conference is so large that there is a lot happening at the same time and, unfortunately, when there are so many overlapping speeches, keynotes and roundtables, it is impossible to go to everything.

Leigh Alexander covered the IGF Mobile Awards, a recent yet often overlooked event of the GDC. In her words:
“I never thought too highly about mobile games up until last year — until the iPhone era, really. And even thereafter, although I’m an iPhone user, I still was highly doubtful that I’d ever use it as a gaming platform.[...] We already know that design innovation is going to come out of the independent space — now add in the low barrier to entry for iPhone apps compared to even XBLA/PSN or Wii Ware development, and that means even more indies are going to be proliferating on that platform. Plus, with the new SDK Apple’s going to release at some point in the near future, there’s going to be more multiplayer functionality, in-game DLC, and just about everything we’re used to on the platforms we already use.”

Considering how prevalent mobile phones are becoming and how quickly they are establishing themselves as gaming platforms, I definitely advise anyone with the proper hardware to check out the games listed in her Gamasutra article .

Another event of GDC that does not get nearly enough attention are the roundtables. Those vary a lot in quality, but for the most part, if it is a topic that interests you than these are worth at least for the networking. Unlike sessions, where attendees are expected to sit quietly while they are lectured by speakers, roundtables offer the opportunity to discuss and interact with speakers and other attendees from topics as varied as race, gender, game design and copyright laws.

Andrew attended the Anti-censorship Committee Roundtable led by Daniel Greenberg which, according to his notes (which can be viewed here)  talked about the problems and challenges of censorship, particularly in the US. He also received a ‘cheat sheet for the ESRB that I’d be definitely interested in taking a look at some point.

Grant also attended a roundtable on Wednesday, though his reason for being there highlights one of the perks of volunteering at the GDC. More often than not, volunteers are sent on events merely because someone has to go and set up the room, badge the doors and hand out those omnipresent survey sheets. This means volunteers go to unexpected sessions on subjects they know nothing about. Grant Shonkwiler, for example, went to an IGDA roundtable simply because he had to be there, and says: “I got this shift randomly and knew nothing about it except it was a round table for the IGDA. Come to find out I complained about my local IGDA at the right time because a bunch of east coast game developers were present, I ended up joining the discussion as much as working it. What was great is we broke out into strike groups and discussed what we wanted to accomplish in our personal careers and helping the IGDA over the next year. It was a great session and I met some awesome people, and hopefully we can revitalize some of our east coast chapters.”

Trevin York, also a Conference Associate, worked on the roundtable ‘How to Sell Your IP to Hollywood (Without Selling Your Soul)’ which “revolved around video game intellectual properties transitioning to movies, discussing whether this was a good idea, what a deal might consist of and why, and things to watch out for.” In his opinion, by the time the meeting ended, the topic was just getting started.

I’d also like to point out that, out the 4 people whose entries I have avidly read, only one went to the big event, the Nintendo keynote on Wednesday morning. It was generally perceived as a lackluster event made special for nothing if not the free DS Game that Iwata distributed to the audience. Most people I talked to at the conference agreed that there was little reason to attend a keynote since those are the most well covered events of GDC.

As for myself, I attended the panel on Evolving Game Design with Emil Pagliarulo (lead designer of Fallout 3),Goichi Suda (or Suda 51), founder of Grasshopper (No More Heroes and Killer 7), and Fumito Ueda (lead designer and director of Shadow of the Colossus and Ico) and saying that it was interesting or insightful wouldn’t begin to cover it. While I would have liked to hear more on the general state of the industry and the theory behind their game design ideas, it was a great panel. Gamasutra has a great article on it by Christian Nutt which is well worth reading.

Unfortunately as a CA, I left early to help the technicians with the translation equipment, task that only ended 2 hours later, which is a pity because, like Leigh I would have loved to be able to say ‘”let me bear your children’ to Suda 51 even if I too can’t speak Japanese.

Obviously, there are more to GDC than sessions and roundtables and keynotes, but more on that on the next entry…

[The entries discussed here can be seen in Sexy Videogameland , Now Playing, Andrew's Site and GShonk's Weblog ]