I attended GDC for the first time in 2022! That now makes me an expert to explain it to everyone else who will go in the future!
… of course not, but read on to get my opinions on some common FAQ. I assume this is applicable for 2023 and a few years beyond.
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…
I was originally supposed to attend GDC for the first time in 2020. Like many people, my plans were canceled barely a few weeks before the event.
Anyway, GDC 2022 is happening in-person for the first time in three years, and I’m going! I’ll write a follow-up post about how it went in a couple weeks (given the pandemic situation, how this event was dealt with should be of high interest). In the meantime, if you happen to also be attending in San Francisco from March 21 – 25, 2022, don’t be afraid to say “hi!” and swap a business card or two. I don’t have anything new to show, but I’m looking for opportunities and collaborators that I can work with as early as this summer.
After two full years, I’m finally getting to travel again. So… yay?
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).
