The Game Developer Conference (GDC) has been a haven for developers who inspire to become game developers. The conference contains a few keynotes from big wigs in the industry who are there to tell you about the industry, how it works and what to expect as a developer.
The name alone, game DEVELOPER conference, should put this into perspective. Having been to the event in the past, let us tell you: it's a geek fest of a higher level. You do not pay the price of admission to walk in the door just to be ooooh'ed an aaaaaah'ed over the next generation of gaming. You go their for knowledge and growth.
You ooh and you aaah over development libraries, source code to help you write 5.2 surround sound, upcoming hardware improvements for mice, keyboards and joystics. You learn a bit about the Immersion API for implementing vibration in your game and chat with AMD and Intel to see how they're going to improve your AI and physics power in the near future. You're there to learn the latest in motion sensing technologies, render stations for graphic artists and a floor of engineers willing to help convince you to use DirectX, Maya, OpenGL and other forms of development power.
Curiously, this year it has become "what is Sony releasing this year?" and press events from Microsoft about the Xbox 360 and a few hot game titles on the horizon. How exactly will Sony's Playstation Home assist developers in furthering their goals? It won't. it's all hype.
Now we can look forward to bloggers, news reporters and journalists hitting the floor to get the inside scoop for the next big announcement. The only journalists that should be here are those that cover game development, gamasutra and Game Developer Magazine for instance.
The hype for these press events were not nearly the size of last years E3...yet. But, what of the future of the GDC? Next year, will we see double the participation? The year later, triple?
It will be a sad day when the GDC becomes a bloggathon of madness. If E3 did anything, it was a magnet for journalists to show their power in game coverage and live streaming. The death of E3 may just cause the death of many other great events...
