March 3, 2008
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GDC Wrap-up
It’s bee more than a week since GDC (Game Developer’s Conference), but catching up on schoolwork has taken the majority of my time. The conference was a fun event as usual. It’s amazing how broad it’s become in the 4 years that I’ve been volunteering for the conference. When I first started, the focus was on traditional console development, with the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii not even launched yet. This year, I went to topics on open world and social networking games, something I would have never imagined 4 years ago.
My brief schedule went as follows:
Monday: Worlds in Motion Summit. This was a summit that didn’t exist when I first started attending. But looking at the program, it’s understandable. Virtual worlds and economies, free to play, funware, social gaming? These things weren’t around 4 years ago, or weren’t considered viable. Now their at the frontier for casual game with huge potentials for monetization. The only question is how to get there.
Tuesday: Game Development Deals 2008: This was a bit of a wash. I love the moderator, Jim Charne, but the topics covered were very mundane and easily retrievable from the web. The best portion of this summit was the wrap-up at the end where they went through a real world situation and played it out so that people understood what could actually happen if you were involved in a business deal. Starting from a group of developers who’s studio was recently shut down. Then it all came together.
Wednesday and Thursday was a mix of trolling the career pavilion and working as a volunteer. I was surprised by the number of positions available for MBA’s and the lack of business student representation seeking these positions. I guess I’m crazy for trying to stay in this field. But I love it!
Friday: Startup Launchpad! This was another great session. You got the chance to listen and talk with VC’s and VP’s of corporate development as well as new and seasoned CEO’s. They let it all out to talk about what the pitfalls of starting up are as well as where they think it’s heading (online social games with advertising and lead retrieval as your source of income). Overall, I used it as a place to network and meet more people that I was interested in working with in the future. It’s always a hard decision between starting something of your own or working for the man. The man does take care of you pretty well.
The next couple of weeks will be a mess with finals coming up. I’m having a harder time in my classes this quarter compared to the last, and its definitely showing in my coursework. What’s worse, I like the courses this quarter more than last quarter, but I just don’t have the time I need to dedicate to them. I guess I can learn the material better over spring break. That or meet up with old friends.
