Introduction
If you're at all unfamiliar with GDC, it's an annual event bringing together game designers, artists, programmers, and publishers to learn and network. Set in San Francisco's enormous Moscone Center and home to lectures, demos, intriguing games both new and old, and thousands of videogaming's brightest, it's one of the most popular events in the industry. So, just what the heck was I doing there?
Well, my team and I had just recently become Student Showcase winners in the Independent Games Festival for our entry, Opera Slinger. As part of the award, we were given the opportunity to display our game at GDC - they even gave us our own pod right on the show floor from which we could provide demos to passersby.
How did it all go? The short answer is that it was absolutely fantastic. For the long answer, read on.
The Long Answer
We arrived early on Wednesday morning, setting up our booth as quickly as possible to ready it for the oncoming hordes of game developers and members of the press. Our game involves platforming and singing, so it was quite interesting to encourage visitors to try it out (though I'm pretty sure we'd managed to annoy the bejeezus out of the other nearby Student Showcase winners by the end of it). I'd wager that the most interesting part of the conference was simply getting to meet the people who came by the booth to check out our game.
While many come to GDC to attend its excellent lectures and industry-related technology talks, I realized that standing by that booth actually gave me the opportunity to meet those very same heroes of ours face-to-face, rather than in a crowd of hundreds. As an example, on the first day, one of my team members got a chance to show the game to Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris, and I was lucky enough to see him when he came by again on Friday.
Manning the Booth
Near the end of the first day, an awards show was held for the Independent Games Festival's nominees, as well as the Game Developer's Choice Awards. While Opera Slinger did not win for the newly-added category of Best Student Game, simply having the opportunity to be there was reward enough. We were seated alongside fellow nominees and industry VIPs alike, and it was great to see so many of our favorite developers all in one place, right next to us.
The next day brought an even greater surprise - our teacher, Ron Weaver, asked several of us if we'd like to visit Pixar Studios, which was located near the city. Such an easy question to answer. We piled into a car and drove out to Emeryville and met with a wonderful contact of Ron's named Allison Styer, who was kind enough to give us a tour of the building. Pixar is utterly slick and besides bricks, seems to be built entirely out of pure awesome. They even have life-size statues of many of their movie characters spread throughout the hallways, while Sully & Mike from Monsters, Inc. greet visitors at the entrance.
