GDC Wrap up

[walbourn]

Another GDC over, and I'm about to get a cab to the airport for my return flight home. It was a good show overall for Microsoft, but I have to admit that I'm personally getting less out of it than I once did. I've heard a similar sentiment from other long-time GDC attendees. Some of the sessions were definitely worth attending, but as usual the lectures are probably best skipped in favor of reading the proceedings. The job fair was lively, and unlike previous years the balance was in favor of actual employers rather than having row upon row of recruiters--which always made me wonder what the ratio of recruiters to actual jobs in the game industry was like at the time. The expo was the usual collection of middleware, books vendors, hardware and platform types, mocap houses, and outsourcing agencies. The booth babe phenom has always been much more calm at GDC than at E3, but this year they hosted an art show which had no a single male figure on display.

SIGGRAPH tends to be a better show for inspiring me, but perhaps that's just because I've been to GDC too many times in the past 8 years...

Update: Sitting in the San Jose airport in the food court with some co-workers, two college-age girls sat down next to us with a burrito, a quesidilla, and a 40 of Corona. It was 11 in the morning. We were guessing she was just heading home from spring break and had to ease her blood-alcohol down...