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Game Developer Conference Day 2
Mar. 24th, 2004 04:16 pmHere I am in sunny California... well, San Jose anyhow. The conference is fun so far, mostly full of geekery boring to the vast majority of people who read my LJ. I'll post the technical stuff in a separate entry or four when I get back to Seattle.
The attendance is pretty good. Last time I was at GDC was in 2000, and there seems to be more people this time. The gender balance is a bit better too, although still a lot of guys and the booth-babes that go with male-dominated industry shows. Also a lot of students, particularly during the all day tutorial sessions held the two days before the main conference and expo open.
As with any conference, what really matters is not the technical content, the free swag T-shirts, or even the opportunity to network with people in your industry. It is the parties. Pure and simple.
Microsoft's DirectX Developer Day party this year was pretty lively and well done. Back in 2000, the graphics engine programmers who attended the event were let into the party an hour earlier than anyone else. Result: boring--although I had free run of the pool table for a while. While this year's Dev Day was still primarily male PC graphics geeks, there were more production and product management types. The party had good snacks, an open bar, lots of glow-in-the-dark swag, and good dance music. Given it was a party for geeks, the organizers wisely hired four girls to actually dance. They were wearing some kind of bizarre flashing glow-tube things over their outfits and did the 'fire-twirling' thing with more glow-sticks. They would be a huge hit with the Burners I'm sure...
After a good two hours of solid dance music and flowing booze, a total of two people besides glowly-girls were dancing. While I'm trying to get over my public-dancing issues, I have a hard time being the only person on the dance floor. After another hour and the return of the DJ after a break, there was actual dancing taking place, but the majority of people were just watching the glowy-girls until they left.
Update: Ah, the true danger for me at these things isn't the free booze--which frankly I could care less about--, it is the book publisher show deals. As a self-avowed office supply and book fetishist, the Charles River Media booth's 30% tax-free free-shipping deal proved too much for me. I'm so far resisting the urge to blow similiar big-bucks at Morgan-Kaufman because they only have one book I want and are only offering a 20% discount, but I really want Geometry Tools for Computer Graphics... I think I'll at least wait until the last day of the show to think about it some more.
The attendance is pretty good. Last time I was at GDC was in 2000, and there seems to be more people this time. The gender balance is a bit better too, although still a lot of guys and the booth-babes that go with male-dominated industry shows. Also a lot of students, particularly during the all day tutorial sessions held the two days before the main conference and expo open.
As with any conference, what really matters is not the technical content, the free swag T-shirts, or even the opportunity to network with people in your industry. It is the parties. Pure and simple.
Microsoft's DirectX Developer Day party this year was pretty lively and well done. Back in 2000, the graphics engine programmers who attended the event were let into the party an hour earlier than anyone else. Result: boring--although I had free run of the pool table for a while. While this year's Dev Day was still primarily male PC graphics geeks, there were more production and product management types. The party had good snacks, an open bar, lots of glow-in-the-dark swag, and good dance music. Given it was a party for geeks, the organizers wisely hired four girls to actually dance. They were wearing some kind of bizarre flashing glow-tube things over their outfits and did the 'fire-twirling' thing with more glow-sticks. They would be a huge hit with the Burners I'm sure...
After a good two hours of solid dance music and flowing booze, a total of two people besides glowly-girls were dancing. While I'm trying to get over my public-dancing issues, I have a hard time being the only person on the dance floor. After another hour and the return of the DJ after a break, there was actual dancing taking place, but the majority of people were just watching the glowy-girls until they left.
Update: Ah, the true danger for me at these things isn't the free booze--which frankly I could care less about--, it is the book publisher show deals. As a self-avowed office supply and book fetishist, the Charles River Media booth's 30% tax-free free-shipping deal proved too much for me. I'm so far resisting the urge to blow similiar big-bucks at Morgan-Kaufman because they only have one book I want and are only offering a 20% discount, but I really want Geometry Tools for Computer Graphics... I think I'll at least wait until the last day of the show to think about it some more.
