Anyone here going?

I'm going. I'm not going to any of the seminars, but I'm going to be loitering, talking with people, etc. I hope to see someone I know and score an extra badge off of them, then perhaps I'll make it in to the seminars or show floor.

Just wondering!

~Hanford

I'm not going, but I just wanted to make a shout out for the IGC (Indie Games Con). It's a lot smaller then the GDC and a lot more indie focused. I had an absolutly amazing time last summer, I'll definitely be attending again this year (late july-aug). Mark it on your calanders!

I'm not going to GDC this year, and I think that'll be the first time since 1996 I haven't gone. I'm a little sad about it, but I don't want to take either the time nor pay the (outrageous, IMO) fee to get in. But, if I found myself in the Bay area I'd at least go loiter in the hotel lobby. :)

That said, if you haven't gone before and are interested in the more technical side of the industry, this can be a great show to go to. Definitely a schmooze-fest for geeks, and a great way to meet people in a fairly easy atmosphere.

I will be going to E3 this year -- thats more the marketing/deal-making side, and also a schmooze-fest, and to a fairly new conference (more academic, I think) the International Conference on Entertainment Computing (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/icec2003/) at Carnegie Mellon in May.

And I hope to go to the next Indie Games Con. That looks to me a lot like GDC did a long time ago.

I might go. My friend is trying to get me a free pass if they have any extras left. Else I might just pay the fee and see if I can meet some people.


As for E3 have any of you guys thought about everyone here getting a booth together? Like an indie booth heh.

John

I won't be attending the GDC this year. I hosted an IGDA indie roundtable there the past couple years, but that's been discontinued by the IGDA -- I'm really not sure why they discontinued it, since it was well-attended and received high marks (average attendee rating of 4.8 out of 5.0).

I've attended the past two years, but I won't be making it this year. Planned to go all year, but decided a few weeks ago that I needed to focus on the indie book and a couple other projects, and didn't want the 2-weeks worth of disruption.

I still plan to attend the next Indie Games Con this summer, and will probably be back at GDC next year.

-David

I meant to sign up as a volunteer this year (since I didn't have an extra $1200 lying around), but it slipped my mind until it was too late. :( But I'm going to do everything I can to attend the IGC this year.

I'll be going, press pass and all. Pretty excited actually.

Hey Greg,

Good to hear it! say, I've sent several emails to DIYgames asking about how I could get my game on your site, and I've never gotten a reply. What's a guy gotta do? Ask publically in a forum? ;)

~Hanford

Originally posted by hanford_lemoore
Hey Greg,

Good to hear it! say, I've sent several emails to DIYgames asking about how I could get my game on your site, and I've never gotten a reply. What's a guy gotta do? Ask publically in a forum? ;)

Hahaha, no doubt. I'm a horrible person that way, I freely admit it. I've been spending the last couple weeks playing 'Trash' and 'A Tale In The Desert' so it's be rough :) Anyway, I'm adding Rocknors today, hehe.

Greg,

Can you possibly do a diary of the GDC at your website? An Indie POV of the whole thing would be useful for all of us here.

My 2p.

Originally posted by Gmicek
Hahaha, no doubt. I'm a horrible person that way, I freely admit it. I've been spending the last couple weeks playing 'Trash' and 'A Tale In The Desert' so it's be rough :) Anyway, I'm adding Rocknors today, hehe.

-and let me just add that your news section is quite good, so it would be nice to see more game reviews and some actual previews. Quit playing Trash and give us a preview of it. ;)

Thanks Greg! Let me know when it's up! hanford@monolux.com

~Hanford

Originally posted by jaggu
Can you possibly do a diary of the GDC at your website? An Indie POV of the whole thing would be useful for all of us here.

That's a good thought. The main thing I was going to do at the show was hand out demo Cd's. I bought 500 mini cds(but might get more) that hold 210 megs each and I will be stuffing them full of demos, screenshots, and other bits of information on some of the best independent games to come out in 2002 and 2003. Since this is all coming out of my pocket I can't get too nuts with it, but each CD will come with a mini jewel case, cd label with the DIY Games logo on it, and a sticker on the outside listing the contents of the CD. The only thing left now is to finalize the list of games to be included, get permission from each of the developers, design a cd label, and burn the cds using my burning machines.

As far as a diary goes I should be able to do updates from the show floor provided I have better luck with my wireless connection in San Jose than I did last year in L.A. I'll have to give that one some though :) Anyone know what the gang at Game Tunnel are planning on doing for the show? I thought I saw him mention that he was going to be there.

Originally posted by Hydroaxe
and let me just add that your news section is quite good, so it would be nice to see more game reviews and some actual previews. Quit playing Trash and give us a preview of it.
No doubt. I've had about a dozen people offer up reviews for various games, and even went so far as to give them the game, but none of them have come back with a review. Tragic. Preview wise the Trash preview should be nice (and should include a noninteractive demo straight off the DIY Games GDC'03 demo cd), and my copy of Anito (http://www.aninoentertainment.com/) soon enough.

So who all ended up going GDC? I saw Hanford there and did an interview with him. It actually turned out to be a 4 or 5 hour talk of a variety of topics. Needless to say it'll get cut down just a tad for publication purposes, hehe. I also ran into Mark Currie from Inhuman Games, Borut from White Knucle Games, and Sparky and Lars from Octopus Motor(did a hour long interview with them then we all went out to dinner). What's cool is that these are people I just saw at the convention who weren't in the IGF or part of a booth.

I've had an opportunity to hand out about 350 of my DIY GDC'03 Demo Cd's so far. I mostly tried handing them to people with press passes and exhibitor passes. However, whenever I saw a "famous" person I ran right up and handed them a CD. One nice thing was that I had a chance to have dinner with some of the editorial staff of a particular computer gaming magazine as well as one or two of their freelance writers. I, of course, busted out the cds. Here's a list of the games on the CD i'm handing out. I'll admit that I didn't have an opportunity to get the green light from everyone who has a game on there, but they're only demos so hopefully I wont start getting letters from lawyers :eek:

6 Day Assassin
Basegolf
Best Friends
Buboids
Cramgene
Crumby & Co.
Goofball
Kings Quest 2
Kooshie
Miko & Molly
Norman Cooks: Search For The Don
Planetary Defense
Plasmaworm
Pontifex 2
Rocknors Bad Day
Space Station Manager
Starlines Inc.
Strange Adventures In Infinite Space
Superstar
Tactical Soccer
Teenage Lawn Mower
Trash
Ultra Assault
Wonderland

My standard script when I handed someone a cd went something like this. "That's a compilation featuring 24 of the top titles from independent developers. Be sure to check out Rocknors Bad Day and Ultra Assault(I would always shuffle the titles I said at this point). If you don't like those I garantee you'll like some of the others. If not I'll give you your money back." That would usually get a laugh.

Greg, it was nice meeting you! it was a lot of fun to chat and the 5 hours just flew by!

I spent yesterday at the GDC and ran into a lot of friends. Most from LucasArts ... They were all really happy that I was going the indie route, and impressed that I had a title out already. The funny thing about being in the pro industry is that you all-but-forget that games can be made by 1 or 2 people and be done in less than a year.

There's a lot of layoffs in the pro games industry. It turns out that although the amount of $$$ the games industry is making, the amount of $$ being SPENT on a title has gone up, too. I was told that the average was $5 million, so it sounds like there's less work, although there's more money being made. I ran into a few old friends who were in-between jobs. :(

I may go back tomorrow too.

~Hanford

I didn't go to the GDC this year, but I spent all day at the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim (next to Disneyland). This was a unique experience, since I went as a member of the press. My wife runs a popular online vegetarian magazine, so she and I went around tasting new product samples and looking for potential advertisers. By the end of the day we were both stuffed. I sampled soy sausages, organic teas and coffees, several salsas, tangerine-flavored dark chocolate, various juices ranging from noni to wheat grass, pastas and rice dishes, soy soft serve, plus tons of other foods. It was odd going to a conference where there were more food samples than CD-ROMs, but the food was certainly better than at the GDC. :)

Now my stomach is trying to figure out how to digest the dozens of different foods I ate. :eek:

LoL, my stomach envies yours steve!

I just wanted to add greg, you've got my vote for favorite GDC coverage this year. I love the sense of humor.

Steve, that sounds great. I had a hot dog at the GDC. :eek:

Game Tunnel was at the GDC as well, and I felt it was a wonderful thing to talk to many of the developers I had never met, though I would have loved to talk to a couple more.

I hope to be adding to GT everything I wrote down during my two days there....though honestly it really only covers the IGF as I rarely strayed far from that section of the floor...so if you are looking for more general coverage, gamedev.net would be the logical choice.

Anybody see Alien Flux?
(He says, hopefullly)

Cas :)

For whoever might be interested...I finally got my musings about the IGF at the GDC up on Game Tunnel. (http://www.gametunnel.com)

Wonderfully good time with many fond memories. Hoping things will only get better in the future for the independents.