GDC 2007 in review
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
Ahh, last week I was so optimistic. We fully intended to bring you all sorts of great GDC coverage, complete with pictures, play-by-play commentary, and goofy video footage. And then... well... GDC happened. It was great, for a bazillion different reasons, but it also sucked the life out of us. Which is why it's been almost a week and we're just posting about it now.
First things first: Here's a picture of our mini-booth in the IGF area of the expo floor. (Thanks to Heather for taking a picture... she was the only one who remembered!) Having a space like this where we could meet people and stash the swag we'd picked up around the show is a godsend. I shudder to think how we're ever going to survive next year without it. (Guess we'll just have to make another game worthy of being nominated...)
Our intern Nick spent the most time at the booth, showing off Cow Race to the curious passers-by and shooting the breeze with whoever came up to him. Seriously, the kid's a born schmoozer (and the rest of us were very appreciative!)
On Wednesday night, the IGF and Game Developers Choice awards kicked off with some Sam & Max machinima shorts that we made special for the event. [readmore] Here's one of them (all fuzzy and You-Tubey until we have time to convert it to the right format ourselves). The other two can be viewed here and here.
You can download prettier QuickTime versions of all three IGF shorts from these links:
We didn't win the awards we were up for, but the ceremony was still a lot of fun (especially some of the speeches given by the IGF winners). The best part must have been the Mega64 skits that played during the Game Developer's Choice awards, this one in particular.
One of the other highs of the show was seeing the Game Developer with Sam & Max on the cover pretty much everywhere we went. We brought a stack back to the office so everyone would be able to take a copy for themselves and one to send home to Mom.
I got to go to several panels, the best of which was the very last lecture on Friday afternoon, given by gaming academic Ernest Adams. It was about storytelling and "perceived difficulty" in games, and a lot of what he talked about made me think of Sam & Max. Hopefully he will post his lecture slides on his website because I'd be interested to hear what our fans -- especially those who think the Sam & Max games are too easy -- think about his theories regarding what makes a game seem difficult, and how that relates to what makes a game fun.
Thanks to our IGF nomination and the generosity of the folks at GDC, we got a bunch of passes for the show, which meant a bunch of people could attend. Here's what some of them thought of the event.
Graham: Best moment: The Microsoft lecture where the speaker suggested a self-spell-correcting programming editor, quickly followed by an agonized "NOOOOOOOO" from an audience member and lots of laughter.
Jake: Worst moment: Finding out I had eaten dinner one table away from Miyamoto an hour after I went home.
Charlie: I enjoyed to opportunity to talk with co-workers from the past. It was like a class reunion. The GDC is one of the only ways that this is possible. Also, the programming sessions that I attended broadened the scope of my interests. I've been reminded of relevant programming subjects. For example, threading support for quad-core CPUs.
(Ahh, programmers.)
Daniel: This was my first time going to GDC with a Classic Pass with a bunch of people I knew. Seeing familiar faces makes everything much more fun from the quick chat between sessions to cheering Sam and Max and Bone on in the awards show. Another great thing was having the privilege of going to GDC lectures for the first time. Even though some were more on the "let us show you our software features so you buy it" side of things, most of them were about industry professionals with solid experience sharing their knowledge with the rest of the community. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and enjoy some time with good people and I am happy that there is a place that nurtures the community that we are all a part of. That said, I probably will not take 3 days off for GDC again. I also saw a frog near the lake. It was green.
Dave G: After Kevin and I spoke on Monday, one of the IGDA scholarship winners came over and told me that they were all getting together to show their projects to each other. So I went. A couple of the games were really interesting, and for the rest of the week I felt like I’d seen something really cool that everybody else missed. Oh, and lots of people were excited about episodic development and wanted to talk about it, which was also kind of neat.
Marco: I attended a Technical Artists roundtable discussion in hopes that it would solidify a definition of the position in the industry. I learned that no two people in that room did the same set of tasks and that there is no solid definition of what a technical artist is. It’s pretty much whatever.
Greg: Going to GDC this year reminded me of what I loved about attending college. I liked picking courses that appealed to me at the moment. I liked bringing coffee into the sessions and then spotting a buddy across the room and joining them to watch. I enjoyed sharing my knowledge by participating in a round-table. I also enjoyed learning from the sessions I went to. And best of all -- even better than college –- I loved having no homework!
So, that's a wrap on GDC. Now it's time to start thinking about Comic-Con...
This discussion has been closed.