LU Student Gets Inside Look at the Video Game Industry

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Posted: 4/8/09

By Gerry Martin
Rotunda Reporter

When someone thinks of a gaming conference the first thought that comes to them is usually E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Until a few years ago that had been the de facto gathering for all things gaming related in the eyes of the consumer. In the background there was a much more professional show designed towards the actual people working in the industry. That show was the Game Developer's Conference. Begun in 1988 in the bedroom of a developer, by 2009 the conference has expanded to cover nearly the entirety of the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Calif.

Why this whole mini-history about the GDC (as it is known by everyone that attends)? Because that is where I just returned from! That is right folks; yours truly is a budding game programmer and designer and has attended GDC for the third year in a row. I have quite a few things to report about my stay there which spanned from Tuesday night through Friday afternoon.

Day one was mostly my arriving in San Francisco. I met quite a few other students and saw how many traditional four-year colleges are integrating mock game studios into their programs for experience. It is a cross-disciplinary study so people from all majors in all aspects of the company from managing the project to the actual programmers involved.

Day two was the real start of the GDC. I attended several workshops in the morning including "Windows 7 Overview for Publishers and Developers," showing what Windows 7 will be doing for games. I am not a Microsoft fan-boy, but if they follow through with half of their promises for Windows 7 it will be an amazing and much faster experience. The expo area was my next stop as that is where most new things are shown off and here is where you could really see the effects of our current economy. There were much fewer booths than last year and the booths themselves were smaller. The career expo area had almost more booths than the regular expo area and even then there were very few entry-level jobs available.

The Independent Games Festival and Game Developer Awards were later that night. "Fallout 3" won game of the year, and Hideo Kojima got a lifetime achievement award.
I got to meet Tim Schafer after the show. He was the presenter for the Game Developer Awards He was the creator of quite a few older LucasArts games ("Secret of Monkey Island," anyone?) and is currently the one who created "Brutal Legend," which will hopefully be released soon. Schafer is quite insane, which is great, and appears to be a job requirement in this industry. I also got to speak to Kojima. He does not speak English very well so I wasn't sure how to get his attention. So I just ran up him and his group that was leaving and said, "Mr. Kojima-san! Mr. Kojima-san!" Then I bowed as deeply as I could and said, "Thank you very much for your wonderful games." He smiled and said, "Thank you." Infinity Ward also showed a teaser trailer for their new game, which appears to be "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2."

Day three had much more of the same from day two with more expo booths and the career expo area. CCP/White-Wolf was showing off their game "Eve-Online" and is hinting at other things in the pipeline. Last year they discussed doing a "World of Darkness" MMO, so I am wondering if that is the project they were not really talking about? "Apocrypha," which is their newest free expansion for "Eve-Online" came out just the week before GDC and they were quite heavily promoting it as well.

Day four was the last day of the GDC for me, and it was a short day overall. I got a chance to go back and demo some games I had not been able to before. Both "Ghostbusters" and "Wolfenstein" were on display, though no pictures or video could be taken of them. "Ghostbusters" was incredible. It was very easy to play and it felt like a "Ghostbusters" game. That will be coming out for both PC and consoles later this year. "Wolfenstein" was a bit of a let down for me. It looked, felt, and smelled the same as its previous release from several years ago.

Overall, even with the economy on the downturn the gaming industry is doing well. People need something to take their minds off everything happening and games offer the most bang for their buck. I expect the job situation to improve next year as long as our economy does. I am also hoping Sony will get its act together and show us something worth buying. Their booth showed nothing new and they had no major announcements either. Maybe during the rest of this year they will have time to unveil something to make their "Blue-Ray" player worth buying. If you want to read about everything I saw at the GDC, check out my blog at www.gerrymartin.info.