The Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California is the premier event for game developers. For industry professionals, students, and indie hobbyists, it’s a lot of fun. But it’s also expensive, both for the conference passes by themselves, and the airfare and hotels you’ll need to spend the week in one of America’s most expensive cities. There might only be one or two other comparable conferences in the world… are there any in Canada?
In addition to GDC, I attended a couple other events for the first time this year in 2022: the XP Game Developer Summit in Toronto, Ontario, and the MEGAMIGS Summit in Montreal, Quebec. Both are a bit smaller, but I was surprised at how much more I got out of them, in addition to being a lot cheaper and easier for me to travel to. If you’re a Canadian dev, before you book your tickets to GDC 2023, you might want to reconsider and stay closer to home. I discuss these events in more detail below.