GDC 2014, what did you guys do?

General Discussion
1

I was just curious what you guys did at GDC 2014, did you have a stand or anything?
Maybe could someone like @sdee who did a lovely DT for us clarify? :smiley:

EDIT :

Am I ruining a new DT subject now? :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
2

looking into the future again, are we? :wink:

I would be interested to hear how the event was for the team though (either here or on DT)ā€¦

2 Likes
3

I actually wasnā€™t there in person this year, because I totally got a turn last year, but I know that @not_owen_wilson saw some interesting graphics talks (and also a fascinating and unrelated game-design-for-VR talk), that @Albert attended a bunch of AI-related sessions, that @Tom saw at least one good animation talk, and that @Doug caught some interesting audio lectures where he got to feel like the senior man on campus. :smiley:

We didnā€™t actually have a booth or anything, since GDC is primarily an industry-oriented conference and we were neither hiring nor selling a technology related to other games, but it sounded on Friday anyway, like everyone had a good/informative time.

For what itā€™s worth, one of last yearā€™s highlights for me was to be in the same room as X-Com designer Julian Gollop as he did a post-mortem on the game that I totally played a million hours of with my dad. It was super inspiring to hear that such a classic could be written by a 2-5 person team.

7 Likes
4

thats excellent! hobnobbing with your peers is almost always productiveā€¦ :smile:

go @Doug! :smiley:

i always knew you had it in you, despite what @Geoffers747 has been posting on the seedy underbelly of the internetzā€¦

3 Likes
5

@sdee thanks for the reply! :smile:

@SteveAdamo heheā€¦ now theyā€™ll have to come up with a different DT :stuck_out_tongue: j/k

6

Going to a conference where a bunch of very smart people give talks is always a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you learn a bunch of very interesting things! On the other hand, your ego is beaten senseless. The Infamous: Second Son engine postmortem was especially demeaning to a n3wb indie developer such as myself. The kind of engineering that goes into creating and supporting that kind of technology is a little breathtaking. On the other other hand (I have three) it does reinforce the feeling that I never really want to work on project that requires 500 person-years of effort to build. This is a minor theme in my life: the tradeoff between doing something big and flashy, or small and personal. Right now: liking small and personal :smile:

Other notable GDC stuff:

  • John Romero was there deathmatching people in Doom 1
  • I accidentally met Brian Hook (ex iD/3DFX guy, all-round programmerā€™s programmer)
  • Tom Forsyth gave a terrific talk on building VR experience that donā€™t make the player want to blow chunks. Heā€™s an excellent speaker: just the right blend of technical information, humour, and eloquence.
  • Saw a few performance-related talks that went over a few techniques that will (eventually) find their way into Stonehearthā€¦
7 Likes
7

You forgot ā€œbig and beige/olive boring but tremendously technically complicated and useful.ā€ :wink:

2 Likes
10

honestly, canā€™t imagine attendees wanting anymore from an event than thisā€¦ :wink:

sounds like it was a (productive) blast!

edit: apologies, the contraction actually makes it funnyā€¦ at least to meā€¦ :smile:

2 Likes