February 24, 2008

GDC Postmortem 08

Game Developers Conference 08 was a blast and more exhausting than last year.  I went to as many lectures and events as I could, experienced my first Hip Hop adventure with Q-Tip at the Sony Block Party, met even more friends, and attended Video Games Live to wrap up the week. 

Mixing it up between Visual Art and Design Tracks I got all I wanted out of the conference proceedings and even was up every day to make my 9 am sessions.  Sony had PAIN at it’s expo booth.  The game drew some nice crowds and Idol Minds even got in trouble from the people running the Sony booth because, we were playing PAIN on multiple screens and drawing to much attention away from he other games.  lol. 

Microsoft's keynote announcements of an XNA Community, and it’s new exclusives rocked.  I am especially especially excited for Gears of War 2.  I even got on camera to say what I thought about Epic Game’s Gears of War for it’s documentary, though I was so nervous I bet they cut out my comments. 

Every night I was up late socializing.  I barely got any sleep all week.  My favorite party was Sony’s Block Party.  Q-Tip, who I would call the Dave Matthew of the Hip Hop world, performed.  The place was packed.  Ryan Schneider, the Marketing Director of Insomniac Games, and I got to hang out toward the end.  This was awesome because the Podcast he puts on for Insomniac Games is what inspired me to create my own Podcast. 

To wrap up the week I attended Video Games Live, which is an orchestral representation of music that has been composed for video games.  The event wasn’t sold out but the music brought back some good memories of the past games that I love.

Rain or shine, San Francisco continues to be a great venue for the event.  I am already looking forward to next year.  Now it is time for me to get some sleep.

Cheers!

:)