San Francisco/GDC Trip Day 3
Better posted late then never… Anyways, here’s day two at GDC.
The morning got off to a good start with an interesting talk by the always entertaining Cliff Bleszinski (Cliffy B) titled, Designing GEARS OF WAR: Iteration wins. Being a fan of Epic Games, I all ready knew that they used an iterative process to make their games, so that wasn’t the golden nugget of knowledge I took away from this talk… It was how they used this process and the series of decisions that they made along the way that intrigued me. Anytime you get to hear the inner workings of a production that churned out a AAA title, you learn a lot. *Quick Note: Gears started out as Unreal Warfare, a class based squad shooter.*
Cliff with camera induced laser beam eyes. What’s that fanboy? ZAP!!
After a short, half hour break, it was off to wait in line for the Miyamoto keynote… which would have been cool and all (I’ve heard him talk before), but the convention associates turned us away for not having the correct badges… even after we got into yesterday’s keynote with the same ones. WTF?!?
Feeling somewhat rejected and cast aside, I crossed the street and headed over to the North Hall where I hung out for a bit to take the annual salary survey (free t-shirt yo!) and check out the cool I am 8-bit v2.007 preview art exhibit. I own the first book and was happy to see so many new pieces that struck my fancy. I wish I was that skilled in traditional art…
Moscone North Hall - Lobby
Moscone West Hall - 2nd Floor Escalator
Next up was a great (and entertaining) talk by the two main guys at Introversion Software. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re the guys that won the IGF last year for Darwinia. It was a lot of fun to hear them talk about their short history in the industry and their very indie business philosophies. You gotta admire these guys… they’re full of that fearless, youthful spirit and clearly have a passion for what they do. A very inspiring talk to get you motivated… plus I got a foam Darwinian character. What I’m going to do with it is still up in the air, but it’s still a cool little memento.
For lunch, George and I met up at the IGDA Annual Meeting to grab a free boxed lunch and hear what the organization has been up to this past year. I’ve been an on and off member of the IGDA for a few years now, and while I like and understand the mission of the organization, I can’t help that feel they aren’t making a whole lot of noticeable progress… at least from my perspective.
The rest of the afternoon George and I wandered the booths of the Career Pavilion making contacts, looking for jobs, etc. We both managed to meet a handful of recruiters, designers, and artists who were very nice and we even made a few good jobs leads. It was a good productive day at the conference, but by the end, I was ready for some excitement of a different flavor.
Thursday night is traditionally the big party night for the GDC attendees. Loads of companies both big and small throw all sorts of parties… some invite, some not. We originally planned to hit up the collection of parties at the Suite Night event taking place in the W Hotel, but ended up skipping those in order to grab a bite to eat to prepare for the much talked about CCP/White Wolf party. So after chowing down some of the best “mall food” ever at the mall down the street, we hoofed it down to the Glas Kat for what turned out to be a great night of drinks, dance and hot goth chicks. See, CCP (Eve Online) just recently merged with White Wolf (World of Darkness: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage), so the night’s theme was a cluster fuck of vampires, geeks, go-go dancers and sadomasochism… and to top it off they had an open bar!! It was an interesting night indeed. You really haven’t lived until you see a drunken programmer trying to dance next to a Suicide Girl on the dance floor. You can’t make up comedy like that. It’s a night I won’t soon forget.
My Eve Online spray tatoo - cool ass logo, no?
George picked the BEST spot for his spray tattoo…
Corey getting a little to excited about his tattoo choice. Rawr!