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This was our maiden voyage if you will, to the game developer’s conference. I truly didn’t know what to expect from the onset. My experience with industry showings is basically limited to several years of E3 and the occasional gala or scheduled event.
The GDC is an entirely different environment, and one in which the press is certainly not the most important part. It’s not about showing your wares as much as it’s about a sharing of information. Even though I chose to treat this like any other expo due to my lack of editorial support, the feeling of common effort was difficult to avoid. The Independent Games Festival expo was especially engaging, given the fact that the games showcased were labors of love (albeit often tainted by the threat of university deadline). A report on these will come in a day or so, but the basic mood for the games was one of quiet difference. They were not so distinct from their commercial counterparts as to become experimental, but just off the track enough to appear unique.
Even without the conferences, the general attendees were there with a goal of knowledge pooling and creation. I met some delightful fellows from Canada who called themselves Okayfun. They’ve an innovative idea for a racing game which I do hope will see the light of day. Like many others, for them the conference was an opportunity to hawk their product; to pitch their idea and skill to the industry.
Many people at the show carried a laptop on which to display their efforts, or at least some design documents and marketing surveys. I sat down to lunch with a fellow I met at the nerd-fest that was the gaming room on the final day of the conference (check out a pic rife with gripping info). Sean Boyle is a visiting professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who has some very interesting ideas. I got to take a look at two of his projects via his laptop, while Jaimie competed in the Nvidia got art? competition. (as an aside – Jaimie didn’t win...she came in second behind a guy who had a bigger cheering section. Regardless, there was another fellow with a better entry than both Jaimie and the winner – he just didn’t have any friends with him!)
Sean had a Macross battle simulator which has some amazing possibilities. At the moment, the game randomly battles two opposing forces from the Macross universe, which ultimately ends in the demise of one side or the other. You can input some rudimentary commands like speed-up and such, but there are plans to implement Dragon Force-esque battle controls, which could really make it an interesting realtime combat sim.
His Thesis was a game called Chantara, a MMORPG with an excellent parasite-eve style battle system (though Sean professes to having never played the game). It’s strictly co-operative between the online players, and if any other player is within the vicinity of a battle as it begins, they will be engaged in combat alongside all other players who occupy the screen.
Very cool ideas, and just an example of how everyone you meet here has some sort of special talent or vision, as corny as that sounds. This is a stark contrast from the popularity contest that is E3. And it was a singular experience to be ‘press’ at this event, given that we’re certainly not the biggest name out there. On the one hand, since members of the press were few and far between, we were treated with greater accord than we will likely ever receive at E3, barring some huge explosion in the import gaming market. But even so, marketing reps would constantly break of speaking to me in order to deal with any other regular conference-goer. Their priorities are a bit more admirable than the booth maintainers of E3 in that way.
The GDC is quite an event, and one quite worth attending. I’d have liked to attend more of the conferences, and perhaps get a better feel for the developer’s end of things, but perhaps that’s something to tackle in the years to come. Certainly being able to attend the first three days would have helped lower the urgency with which we had to cover the expo. Suffice to say, it won't be the last trip we make there. Cheers and best wishes to all who made it a worthwhile and enjoyable experience!
brandon sheffield
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