UPDATE (2020-03-13): In the last 48 hours, Michigan confirmed cases of COVID-19 being present. Schools canceled classes. Events of over 100 people are generally canceled, or banned. We had updated “notGDC Michigan” to be online-inclusive, and then online-exclusive when the original location became uncertain. Finally, we regretfully canceled “notGDC Michigan” today. It won’t be held on Saturday, March 14, 2020, but will hopefully be held later this year. It’s frustrating to cancel an event only 24 hours in advance, but for the safety and interest of the local community, it was necessary. Original article remains below.

I have been making games publicly since this blog was active (over 6 years now). I had never gone to GDC, the fabled conference that developers travel to from around the world each year. I was planning to go this March in 2020, but sadly, the great migration has been canceled: epidemic fears had caused all major companies that don’t NEED to be there to back out, and on February 28, 2020, GDC was officially postponed, to some undetermined date in the summer when travel fears die down.

That was about 2 weeks before GDC was supposed to take place. In that time, developers in Michigan have rolled up their sleeves, and are running their own local mini-conference: “notGDC Michigan,” on Saturday, March 14, 2020 from 2pm – 5pm at Lawrence Technological University. You can register and find out more information here: https://notgdcmi.com/

A mini-conference on game development in Michigan (plus a couple other events that weekend).

A quick disclaimer: I am not involved in this event in a major way, but watched as it began to materialize on the #GamedevMI Discord channel… ok, I helped spur everyone to settle on a date and collected speakers, but that’s all I did! I totally won’t be promoting myself! But I’m definitely excited to attend! And you should be, too!

The “notGDC” moniker is not new here. It’s already used as the unofficial, unrelated alternative channel to the real GDC. Both GDC and San Francisco are expensive (for that matter, ALL real business or academic conferences are pricey), so “notGDC” allows people who can’t afford the time or money to travel to take part in a casual way. It’s all online, where everyone uploads talks and blogs to help share the knowledge and passion. “notGDC” is just the shared umbrella that tries to distribute it all.

But Michigan is taking it one-step farther, by having a physical event the weekend before when GDC would traditionally take place! The event will take place on the LTU campus (not far from Detroit), a common location for game-dev meetups that occur at least once a month (including the new #notgdcmi event, I think there’s at least 4 events within 5 weeks of each other at LTU alone). It can be confusing to know where to go, so be sure to arrive early and ask around to find the right building. The 3-hour event will be filled with 20-minute talks about game design, art, business, and more. We’ll try to make the talks public after the meetup, perhaps to post on the real #notgdc page. There might even be some local developers casually showing off their demos for you to try at LTU! And it’s all free!

Ever since I’ve began working in Michigan, I’ve been amazed at the community and the interest in game development. By my count, there’s at least 6 distinct events that occur EVERY SINGLE MONTH between Detroit, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids (and that’s not including tabletop meetups!). Some of these events regularly get over 40 people, ranging from students to hobbyists to veteran devs. I’ve been saying for months that, if these events were to combine for a single annual event, there’d be enough content and attendees to make a formidable convention… perhaps not as big as the real GDC, but bigger than events in places like Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, or New York. That’s pretty good for a state with no AAA-studios to speak of!

“notGDC Michigan” might be the first major step to a larger convention… or might be a one-time thing. Given that it takes place in a single afternoon, I expect it’ll be fairly casual, and we have no idea how many people will come out (could be as few as 20, or as many as 200). Whatever the case, I’m proud to see the community make this happen in just the last two weeks.

If you could, please spread the word, and register in advance to help us guess how many people are coming. We’re setting the schedule of talks now, and it should be public in a couple days. Everyone in Eastern Michigan should try to come out… and if you’re from my hometown of Windsor, Canada, this is the closest event you have, so you should come out too!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/notgdc-michigan-gaming-convention-tickets-98692870031

notGDCMichigan logo. hashtag-notgdcmi

A cute pixelated map I made of Michigan, showing where the events are that weekend.

While we’re at it… like I said, there’s a lot of monthly/weekly game-dev meetups in Michigan! The weekend of March 14, 2020 has at least 3 (I include the other 2 on that poster at the top of this post). But it’s not easy to find them. This isn’t an official aggregate list, but it might be a good starting point for anyone who comes across this blog by accident. Remember to check that events are still scheduled and up-to-date before traveling out to check them out.

• IGDA Ann Arbor: https://www.meetup.com/a2-game-designers/
• IGDA Detroit: https://www.facebook.com/IGDADetroit/
• Locally-Sourced – Ypsilanti Locally-Made Game Demo Night: https://www.meetup.com/Locally-Sourced-Game-Demo-Night/events/
• Ann Arbor Weekly Game Dev Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/A2GameDev/
• Grand Rapids “Let’s Work on Things” Game-Dev Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/GamedevGR/
• Grand Rapids VR/AR Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/grand-rapids-vr-ar/

If you know of any others in Michigan, add a comment below or contact me to let me know!