For the first time in… almost three years… I had the chance to finally travel again on a long-awaited vacation. I went to San Francisco for the first time, and had a fantastic trip. It’s a great city and tourist destination.

In fact, the only disappointment about the city was a conference called GDC…

To be fair, my first time at GDC was fun. But it also gave me mixed feelings regarding my place in it.

You might be wondering how GDC 2022 went, the first physical GDC event since 2019. My estimate is that there were maybe 5,000 – 10,000 attendees instead of the usual 30,000 across the week; still busy, but also a lot of space remaining in the biggest event rooms. From what I’ve heard from experienced attendees, exhibitor booths were less than usual (some of the biggest developers sent their employees to talks, but didn’t book a booth this time), but there were still enough to fill a day to view. I accounted approximately 500 talks on the final schedule, instead of 700 – 800. In terms of safety precautions, all attendees were required to have 3 vaccine doses, and required to have masks on in all indoor settings, with plenty of hand-sanitizer stations. We all had to wear a plastic zip-tie bracelet all week that verified our vaccination status. Everyone was respectful of this. I felt safe, perhaps even safer than going to a grocery store.

The events in Eastern Europe were on people’s minds throughout the event, and would be referenced in direct and indirect ways. Again, it’s good to see support and prayers, but knowing the state of the world made it a little difficult to enjoy any sort of vacation or business week.

The pass was a paper badge with a QR code to enter talk rooms. Apparently, this was not as nice and more flimsy than the hard badges given years ago. But perhaps the QR technology was more generalized and more accessible after its popularity from the past two years.

GDC’s unofficial parties (hosted by companies, indies, or interest groups) are said to be a big draw, so I tried to attend some, despite hating loud music, dark rooms, and alcohol. Two parties didn’t seem to occur at all (either their posted times were wrong or no one showed up). One hot-dog gathering turned out to be pleasant with interesting conversation. Another bar-hosted talk event’s loud music made it impossible to do anything but drink in the crowded space, despite being a popular venue. A couple others I missed due to schedule conflicts with other events in the conference hall. Anecdotally, there were maybe half as many parties as previous years, with less company sponsors. Curiously, some of the parties were on the other side of town, virtually impossible to get to without a car. The rest were in the infamous “Tenderloin” district, also requiring a bus ride to get to. Was it really so difficult to host these across the street from the conference center?

I had difficulty meeting people during the conference, made worse by not knowing anyone present. A few people I reached out to meet turned out to be attending virtually, away from California. GDC’s official app worked fine for talk schedules, but was horrible and buggy for messaging and booking meetings. In person, people in lines were either focused on talking with friends or attending the next talk, and weren’t too open to chat. People were much more open at the nightly parties, perhaps because they were relaxed and had nothing else to worry about that evening, and could be more generous in the moment.

There were a few live sessions that seem helpful: portfolio reviews (intended for visual artists), and an IGDA-run advise session, where we were assigned a “mentor” to get advice on topics from design, to starting a career, to running a business. Not all of the advice was practical, but it was helpful to have a person’s ear for a dedicated 30 minutes to get frank tips that I wish I had as a student.

The Expo show floor was fun to walk through. Most booths are desperate to sell their product to the developers passing by, which was an awkward dynamic. A lot of cryptocurrency, NFT and mobile booths and talks were present, with very dedicated support from a very small group of men in suits. There weren’t any real resume interviews (separate art portfolio reviews were available elsewhere), but a couple booths mentioned they were hiring. I spoke briefly to a senior engineer at a “Careers” section of a top company, only to horribly embarrass myself with how unprepared and uneducated I appeared. I had wondered why I could never get an interview at the place over the past several years; now I’d expect nothing less than my name to be thrown out immediately upon sight.

All the while, I posted my conference-goings on Twitter, and briefly put a call-out for people I was looking to network with. Primarily musicians, possibly artists and publishers. I got a couple online returns from people not in GDC. And in those fields, the fields I was looking for… I got zero back from GDC. The conference is known to be important for networking, but my largely ignored Twitter profile got me better results within the same week. Other experienced attendees also admitted that the essential nature of GDC to find a job is less relevant now than it was 10 years ago.

Also (as previously referred to), I discovered too late that the advice of “skip the talks and network instead, and watch the talk recordings later” only works if you have the expensive “All-Access” pass. Anything less doesn’t include talk recordings. The nature of this was not clear at all on the website. Previously, I thought (given that you could only physically see maybe 6 talks a day) that a “Summits” / “Core” VS “All Access” pass was the difference of 12 VS 30 live talks. But it’s really the difference of 12 VS all 500. Suddenly, if you care about the talks at all, the “All Access” pass seems like the only viable choice. Or, you could get the cheapest “Expo” pass plus a GDC Vault pass, giving you much more than the “All-Access” pass gives (all prior years of talks including this year), for less than the top 3 expensive tiers cost. I’m better now that I’ve learned it, but it’s still a big chunk of money lost for 2022. And GDC’s increasing price of the Vault, without alternative options (Why can’t I buy just the latest year’s talks? Why do I need to pay for a full 12-month subscription instead of 1-month?), makes this less viable for most small developers, and GDC has little incentive to improve. Even if only for accessibility reasons, it seems like a huge misstep to not include recordings and transcripts in the conference passes.

The talks ranged from useful and interesting technical stuff, to reassuring advice to artists and students. Usually with the advice of “I know it’s scary, but take a chance, and it’ll be OK.” Intense feelings of jealousy and despair overwhelm me when I hear this. The games and work on display here is wonderful and deserving of praise, but what about all of the equally wonderful rejects? Why are we talking about better conditions for the 1% of accepted workers when 99% aren’t even allowed in the room? Perhaps I reveal too much of myself.

All-in-all, I still had fun at GDC. It’s best to treat as a big party: you’ve made a game, you want to celebrate with other people who make games. Maybe you’re a student and want to see what these amazing people are like in real life. It’s a time to celebrate the industry and the art and the people. It’s NOT a great place to find job opportunities or people to collaborate with: Twitter and LinkedIn are much more helpful for that. So are the smaller local events in your own neighborhood. The exception to justify GDC might be the traditional presence of big publishers there, but even then, I feel like it’s easier to get their attention with an email than it is in the lunch line.

I increasingly feel like game events should be about celebrating the art, not about self-promotion. I like to make things. You like to make things. Let’s enjoy the things those people made over there. This casual attitude makes it a little easier to accept not getting anything useful out of GDC, or constantly having trouble finishing projects for release. And I continue to believe that hyped-up events that bring crowds of people in one place are still important for the games industry: just don’t get so hyped that you’ll be disappointed. And I don’t think the reduced nature or extra precautions caused by this being the first physical event since 2019 was a big problem, although if companies don’t return in full next year, it might become one.

And despite GDC, I enjoyed the city of San Francisco far more than I expected, and the trip was worthwhile for that alone. The city is a great holiday destination that just happened to have a business conference while I was there. If it’s to visit the city again, I would like to attend GDC a few more times in the future. Just with the cheapest “Expo” pass next time, and just for 2 – 3 days instead of a full week.