Game Developers Conference 2018
I just noticed I haven't actually published a blog post since I started to detail out GDC last year. I think I've started a "How living in Amsterdam is going" post a couple times, but haven't managed to finish that up. Hopefully soon. Anyways...
Last week I was back in the states for the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC). As it was my second time there, I felt much more prepared going into the event. Knowing where things are and how things generally work helps a lot in managing your time and quelling anxiety. There are still some things I want to work on for next year, such as planning ahead for ancillary networking events and maybe even an after party (I'm looking at you Unity). I definitely need to work on putting myself out there more and try to make friends in the industry. I'm a pretty shy person, so that's a tough thing for me.
This trip, much like the last one, I spent a lot of my time in talks, presentations, and seminars on various subjects. There always seems to be way more that I'd like to see than I have time to attend. But I did my best, and the rest I'll have to hit up on the vault later. Here's the list I attended over the week for those that are curious.
The Year in Mobile Games
Good Game Design is like a Magic Trick
Practical IP Law for Indie Developers 301: Plain Scary Edition
Know Your Market: Making Indie Games That Sell
Crafting RPG Worlds in Real Environments with AR
Making Twitch Interactive with Twitch Extensions (Presented by Amazon)
New Mobile Frontiers: HTML5 Development Best Practices (Presented by Facebook)
Mobile Game Designers Notebook
Mobile Game Dev Stories
It's About Time: System Design for Mobile Free-to-Play
Job System & Entity Component System (Presented by Unity Technologies)
Board Game Design Day: Balancing Mechanics for Your Card Game's Unique "Power Curve"
Let's Be Realistic: A Deep Dive into How Games Are Selling on Steam
Indie Soapbox
Inside Oculus 2018 (Presented by Oculus)
Developing the Art of 'Fortnite'
GDC Microtalks 2018: Playing with Fire
'Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality' Postmortem: VR Lessons *Burrrp* Learned
'Horizon Zero Dawn': A Game Design Postmortem
How to Write Games for the Internet without Embarrassing Yourself
Playing with Pride: When Game Culture and LGBTQ Culture Collide
Marketing on Zero Budget
Micro Postmortems
One thing I made sure to hit up this year, after missing it last time, was the awards ceremony. On Wednesday evening they have the IGF Awards Ceremony followed by the Game Developers Choice Awards. It was a hilarious and inspiring couple hours seeing some of the best of the best games and developers. Those of us not nominated or part of the nominated's friends and family were walled off in the back three quarters of the room, while the people at the front tables did some pretty good drinking it looked like.
I spent some time on the show floor on Wednesday and Thursday. Being a part-time indie, a lot of the b2b offerings aren't super applicable to me. However, there was still a good bit to see. I got to try out the new Oculus Go headset and play a little bit of "They Suspect Nothing" at the Oculus booth. I spent a good deal of time at both the Amazon and Microsoft booths learning more about their services and collecting swag. I love the azure blue coloured xBox controller MS was handing out. And I also got to play a little bit of Squanch Games' "Dr. Splorchy Presents: Space Heroes" on the new Lenovo Mirage Solo Daydream powered headset that they teamed up with Google on.
In the small bits of downtime I had, I managed to catch up with an old work friend, went to see the new Tomb Raider movie, and wander around SF a bit.
All in all, it was a really great week. I really hope that I can make it back again next year. In the meantime, I'll be attending my second Unity conference (first in Europe) this June at Unite Berlin! I hope to have the game I'm working on formally announced by then!
