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The 2009 Game Events List [12.30.08]
- Jill Duffy
 Two crucial parts of maintaining a career as a video game developer are keeping up with trends and keeping up with industry friends. One of the best ways to kill two birds with one stone is to attend professional industry events.
To help you get a handle on the swelling number of game industry conferences that happen each year, and to help you plan to attend some of them, I've created this list of major (and some minor) game industry events for 2009.
While some of the conferences can set you back a thousand dollars or more to attend (especially with travel costs), others have minimal fees or are free. Some are held in the U.S. and Canada, but plenty of others take place in Asia, Australia, and Europe.
The annual Game Developers Conference (disclaimer: the company that runs the GDC also owns this site), which will be held in San Francisco in March 2009, is the largest professional conference, and it is chock-a-block with side conferences, professional awards shows and other important things that aspiring game developers are somehow expected to wrap their minds around all in one shot. I still get lost in what's going on at that show, and I've been attending for years. I would never expect a student or someone new to the industry to make sense of it on their first shot; so in this list, I've included a breakdown of what goes on at GDC and a brief history of the show itself.
A few known shows have not announced dates for their 2009 events as of this writing. These are listed at the end and will be updated and editing into the list, which is chronological, when the dates are confirmed. If you know of or are hosting an event that you feel should be included in this list, you may email it to me for consideration (theexperts@gamecareerguide.com).
Jill Duffy, Editor-in-Chief, GameCareerGuide.com
Winter and Spring 2009
International CES
a.k.a. the Consumer Electronics Show or CES
January 8-11, 2009 (Thursday through Sunday)
Las Vegas
Game Design Expo
February 7 and 8, 2009 (Saturday and Sunday)
Vancouver Film School, Vancouver
Taipei Games Show
February 12-16, 2009 (Thursday through Monday)
Taipei, Taiwan
D.I.C.E. Summit
a.k.a. Dice
February 18-20, 2009 (Wednesday through Friday)
Las Vegas
SXSW Interactive
a.k.a. South by Southwest Interactive or Screenburn
March 13-17, 2009 (Friday through Tuesday)
Austin
2009 Game Developers Conference
a.k.a. GDC
March 23-27, 2009 (Monday through Friday)
San Francisco, Calif.
Important Notes about GDC
History. GDC has been around for more than 20 years. It was started by Chris Crawford in 1987 and at the time was called the Computer Game Developers Conference. Historically, it was always held in San Jose, Calif. (Silicon Valley), until 2005 when it had its first year in San Francisco, a city with a much bigger convention center (Moscone) and a higher number of hotels within walking distance to the convention center. In 2006, the conference was held in San Jose one final time (the Moscone Convention Center had already been booked solid for that year). For the foreseeable future, the conference will be held in San Francisco.
Events within GDC.
There are a number of events that take place inside GDC, during GDC, or in conjunction with GDC, which can be a bit confusing for newcomers. For 2009, these events will include:
- The Independent Games Festival (a.k.a. IGF)
- The Independent Games Festival Mobile (a.k.a. IGF Mobile)
- The Independent Games Summit (a.k.a. IGS or Indie Games Summit)
- The Independent Games Festival Awards (a.k.a. IGF Awards, or sometimes just called IGF, which is the awards ceremony for the festival of the same name, which is actually a competition) March 25, 2009 (6:30 p.m. Wednesday)
- The Game Developer Choice Awards (a.k.a. Choice Awards) March 25, 2009 (6:30 p.m. Wednesday) Note: The Choice Awards and the IGF Awards are held together -- same time, same place. Okay, well, technically, they are separate and are held in direct succession, but there's no break between them and they happen on the same stage, so you be the judge.
- Casual Games Summit, March 23 and 24, 2009 (Monday and Tuesday)
- Game Outsourcing Summit, March 23, 2009 (Monday)
- Mobile Games Summit, March 23 and 24, 2009 (Monday and Tuesday)
- Serious Games Summit, March 23 and 24, 2009 (Monday and Tuesday)
- Worlds in Motion Summit, March 23 and 24, 2009 (Monday and Tuesday)
- Game Connection America (a.k.a. Game Connection) March 24-26, 2009 (Tuesday through Thursday)
- Game Career Seminar at GDC09 (GameCareerGuide, represent!), March 27, 2009 (Friday)
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