Game Developers Conference 2015

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > Game Developers Conference 2015

«‹›6 »

Smythe: Oct 12, 2003

dunkman is gdc when u give me a invite to get ultra drunk or is trha anotehr thing im realy stupid

# ? Mar 5, 2015 08:21

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# ? May 7, 2024 00:13

Beast of Bourbon: Sep 25, 2013; Pillbug

Smythe posted:

dunkman is gdc when u give me a invite to get ultra drunk or is trha anotehr thing im realy stupid

no, e3 in LA. any time i do a thing in LA i will hook u up. mid june is the timeframe for this next one. same place as last time, but this time i will actually meet you.

# ? Mar 5, 2015 08:58

BONGHITZ: Jan 1, 1970

I saw a fat guy

# ? Mar 5, 2015 09:05

Beast of Bourbon: Sep 25, 2013; Pillbug

and you didn't say hi?

say hi next time

# ? Mar 5, 2015 09:12

maniacdevnull: Apr 18, 2007; FOUR CUBIC FRAMES
DISPROVES SOFT G GOD
YOU ARE EDUCATED STUPID

Beast of Bourbon posted:

and you didn't say hi?

say hi next time

maybe smile more as well?

# ? Mar 5, 2015 13:34

Beast of Bourbon: Sep 25, 2013; Pillbug

booth babes spotted at Qualcomm. if I scan my badge I can win a $500 visa gift card!

edit: academy of art also

gamanoid "the only Russian video channel" has girls in school girl outfits

Beast of Bourbon fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 5, 2015

# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:06

fritz: Jul 26, 2003

Beast of Bourbon posted:

booth babes spotted at Qualcomm. if I scan my badge I can win a $500 visa gift card!

edit: academy of art also

gamanoid "the only Russian video channel" has girls in school girl outfits

Beast of Bourbon posted:

booth babes spotted at Qualcomm. if I scan my badge I can win a $500 visa gift card!

edit: academy of art also

gamanoid "the only Russian video channel" has girls in school girl outfits

I'm a little surprised at how many ad networks there are, and why does chile have a booth here.

# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:26

BONGHITZ: Jan 1, 1970

Italy has a booth also

# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:35

Beast of Bourbon: Sep 25, 2013; Pillbug

Malaysia Has a big pavilion

# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:39

EMILY BLUNTS: Jan 1, 2005

Beast of Bourbon posted:

Malaysia Has a big pavilion

is this picture an accurate cross section? bald guy, fat guy, bored woman?

# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:53

Fabricated: Apr 9, 2007; Living the Dream

i kinda hate the name sandboxr

# ? Mar 5, 2015 20:58

qirex: Feb 15, 2001

the academy of art is the worst

# ? Mar 5, 2015 21:25

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

EMILY BLUNTS posted:

is this picture an accurate cross section? bald guy, fat guy, bored woman?

this is every tech related tradeshow so probably

# ? Mar 5, 2015 21:34

BONGHITZ: Jan 1, 1970

did anyone get laid?

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:41

GameCube: Nov 21, 2006

crossposting

So, maybe a bit of a rant, but I'm a game developer, engineer, and a minority who is currently in attendance at GDC. I've been in the industry for a few years working for several indie studios as well as AAAs and have helped ship many successful games. I cannot give any more information and this is obviously a throwaway account as it would most likely lead to the reveal of my identity, which sucks as if it wouldn't sandbag my career I should be proud to say who I am. Unfortunately I work in an industry currently controlled by fear. Mentioning I'm a minority in a predominately white field already scarily narrows it down enough. It's been awhile since I've been back at GDC due to various work related circumstances, but I was excited to come back, but this time felt...different, in a bad way. I've been reading a lot of posts and tweets about GDC, especially from people who aren't even here and wanted to clear up some things as well as offer my own opinion about what it's been like.

I saw a lot more panels about "diversity" and more "soft topics" than I remember. A panel by Zoe Quinn about Comedy games, a panel on anti-harrassment, a panel on getting more women in edutainment games, etc. However, there were still just as many panels about Unity shaders, proper procedural level design algorithms, and how to run an effective office space as a producer. As GDC is what it is, there's no danger of these panels fully taking over the conference so, give em a break. GDC is comprised of several tracks, programming, art, etc. Until the day an SJW creates a feminist programming language and that somehow becomes the dominant programming language for games, I think we'll be okay.

I saw a lot more people with dyed hair than I remember. All the colors of the rainbow, in every shade, brightness setting, and hue. Of course being in a creative field, there were always the occasional weird and crazy wacky fashion styled people, but they were always artists, at the top of their field, and they earned that right to dress and look however the hell they wanted to, and I respected them for it. However, I doubt majority of the multi colored hair crew has gotten past making crappy html web link based decision making "adventures".

I met a lot less skilled developers, just in general, or maybe I'm just getting older and more experienced. As game development becomes more accessible, and cheaper, the barrier to entry is lowered quite a bit. You have Unity going free yesterday, Unreal going free the day before, as well as Game Maker just being completely free. Remember back in the day when we had to write our own engines or use actual game development libraries in C++, C, C#, etc.? Remember a few years ago when we had Torque, XNA, SDL, Cocos2D, or just straight raw OpenGL and GLUT? You have people making games in Flash now or GML making millions of dollars. It's a good and a bad thing. Easier to make games and make something fun and amazing in less time? Great! I don't have to put in any effort to make garbage and say I'm a game developer? gently caress off. I'm not knocking Game Maker, HTML, Flash, or Unity developers, but I can say the bottom line is it's certainly attracted quite a lot of riff raff.

I saw Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn, sitting in the VIP area at the IGF/Choice Awards also reserved for such people such as Hironobu Sakaguchi who received a lifetime achievement award for Final Fantasy, John Romero one of the creators of Doom, and several other successful developers both AAA and Indie alike. What have they done to deserve to be there? What have they done for our industry besides ultimately hurt it? What the gently caress have YOU guys made? As someone who's crunched and scraped and could never meet such people as a game dev nobody essentially sitting in the audience like a scrub, it made me sick.

I saw Mega64 in attendance at the awards, as they usually have been at past GDCs and got my hopes up as they were instantly dashed away when Hey Ash Whatcha Playin came up instead during interludes in between categories slightly jabbing and poking fun at Gamergate and all of this crap. I remember Mega64 always creating fun videos about the nominees about how ridiculous or interesting the mechanics. Whatever happened to making fun of that culture in good fun like this and this. Were they forced to toe the line?

I saw droves of circles of hipster indie devs in the park, craft beer bars, and even booking full hotels that were filled with them. A lot of which are judges and jurors on the IGF panel. Now, before you get mad, this is a small industry, and always has, always will be (hopefully). All of this stuff has happened before with judges and juries in games or between developers both big and small, everyone just knows each other, they've worked together, they've played together. However, there was always an aura of professional-ism about being brothers in arms in the trenches shipping games together. I do not get that aura from this crowd. It feels more of "I like you and we think the same way as weird quirky guys because WERE QUIRKY! We'll all support you and be friends." type of deal. There's money, press, and fame involved in all of this and in the end the games industry is still a business. On a purely objective standpoint, that can't be right...

I saw Wild Rumpus, a group embracing "organic-ly grown games", whatever the gently caress that means, run by Venus Patrol, a well known video game website based in Portland. They had a booth on the first floor of west hall showing off indie games. Some of them were actually pretty great such as Night in the Woods, which looks amazing and obviously looks like something that took a lot of time and effort to do both on a design and technical level. Then they also had really small weird games done by developers who obviously had some kind of moral/social agenda. They also had a party that included all of the Indie Dev "elite". It looked like the most hipster thing ever.

I saw a lot of hugging, A LOT of hugging between indie devs. Literal physical hugboxing. That is all.

I saw gender neutral bathrooms, that was weird and a bit unnecessary. I used one, but I wouldn't consider myself gender neutral, I just really needed to take a poo poo. The janitorial staff went to clean them and looked incredibly confused. That was amusing.

As much as I'd honestly like to leave, this industry is far from done though. As crazy as all of this sounds, majority of the power still lies in the guys in suits meeting in back rooms of hotel conference rooms making million/thousand dollar publisher deals not these unskilled, unable to ship on a deadline or anything at all, tweet way too much, hang out in the park barefoot nobodies. My biggest concern is that they're...too loud, both audibly in person and on the internet. They are slowly becoming "representative" of our industry. That said, anyone else here at/go to GDC? What did you notice?

To mods, you can delete this if you think it adds no value to this subreddit, I've been here and gone through a lot this GDC and needed to get it out.

TL;DR: GDC was weird. I miss Mega64 running around with Hideo Kojima sneaking around the convention center. Neon blue/pink/orange hair is loving stupid. Unskilled cringy idiots are getting way too much attention.
note You guys have no idea how good it feels to hear from other devs on here. I thought I was just going insane. I'm tired of being ruled by fear. In the meantime let's all make some cool poo poo and hopefully discourage the SJWs via skill. You have no idea how bad I wanted to go up to Sarkeesian pretending I have no idea who she is asking, "Hey! What engine do you use?" And then see as she struggles to explain what she does as I put forth I have no idea what she's talking about as I'm just here to make games. Alas, I am a coward, I am sorry. Thanks for such a great conversation.

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:43

GameCube: Nov 21, 2006

these hipster indie devs don't even know c++.

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:43

Space-Pope: Aug 13, 2003; by zen death robot

ew gross hugging having human contacy is gross

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:49

fritz: Jul 26, 2003

Space-Pope posted:

ew gross hugging having human contacy is gross

a literal physical hugbox irl

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:53

Breakfast All Day: Oct 21, 2004

its about ethics in video game conference fraternalism

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:57

fritz: Jul 26, 2003

there was also a big sign when you walked in talking about the anti-harassment policy (and i think there's similar language on the badges), which good for them and i hope it has / had teeth

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:58

Breakfast All Day: Oct 21, 2004

hi, hi there, yes i just moved into the neighborhood. under megamans law im required to inform you i am a convicted video game developer

# ? Mar 7, 2015 06:59

Smythe: Oct 12, 2003

Breakfast All Day posted:

hi, hi there, yes i just moved into the neighborhood. under megamans law im required to inform you i am a convicted video game developer

hehe

# ? Mar 7, 2015 07:22

HAIL eSATA-n: Apr 7, 2007

Breakfast All Day posted:

hi, hi there, yes i just moved into the neighborhood. under megamans law im required to inform you i am a convicted video game developer

lol

# ? Mar 7, 2015 07:23

Space-Pope: Aug 13, 2003; by zen death robot

loving gross assholes showing genuine infection. pfeh. bet those vapid cunts don't even date nice guys like me

# ? Mar 7, 2015 07:44

razorscooter: Nov 5, 2008

As a Millennial I posted:

I saw gender neutral bathrooms, that was weird and a bit unnecessary. I used one, but I wouldn't consider myself gender neutral, I just really needed to take a poo poo. The janitorial staff went to clean them and looked incredibly confused. That was amusing.

does

does the writer think that you can't identify as male or female and use a gender neutral bathroom

also lol at the rest of that

e:

Breakfast All Day posted:

hi, hi there, yes i just moved into the neighborhood. under megamans law im required to inform you i am a convicted video game developer

razorscooter fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Mar 7, 2015

# ? Mar 7, 2015 07:57

Su-Su-Sudoko: Oct 25, 2007; what stands in the way becomes the way

Breakfast All Day posted:

hi, hi there, yes i just moved into the neighborhood. under megamans law im required to inform you i am a convicted video game developer

# ? Mar 7, 2015 12:42

kitten emergency: Jan 13, 2008; get meow this wack-ass crystal prison

Breakfast All Day posted:

hi, hi there, yes i just moved into the neighborhood. under megamans law im required to inform you i am a convicted video game developer

# ? Mar 7, 2015 14:08

fritz: Jul 26, 2003

razorscooter posted:

does the writer think that you can't identify as male or female and use a gender neutral bathroom

the 'gender neutral bathroom' stuff was just a temporary sign under the permanent traditional bathroom signs saying that they were open to people of all genders (being a cisman, I used the one that was also signed 'men' because im not a creeper)

# ? Mar 7, 2015 18:40

BONGHITZ: Jan 1, 1970

# ? Mar 7, 2015 20:40

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

As a Millennial I posted:

these hipster indie devs don't even know c++.

he realizes that people don't play engines they play games right

i mean, that poo poo is hard and a specialized skill set but at the end of the day people are playing a game, not running an opengl visualization

# ? Mar 7, 2015 23:48

DONT THREAD ON ME: Oct 1, 2002; by Nyc_Tattoo; Floss Finder

As a Millennial I posted:

crossposting

So, maybe a bit of a rant, but I'm a game developer, engineer, and a minority who is currently in attendance at GDC. I've been in the industry for a few years working for several indie studios as well as AAAs and have helped ship many successful games. I cannot give any more information and this is obviously a throwaway account as it would most likely lead to the reveal of my identity, which sucks as if it wouldn't sandbag my career I should be proud to say who I am. Unfortunately I work in an industry currently controlled by fear. Mentioning I'm a minority in a predominately white field already scarily narrows it down enough. It's been awhile since I've been back at GDC due to various work related circumstances, but I was excited to come back, but this time felt...different, in a bad way. I've been reading a lot of posts and tweets about GDC, especially from people who aren't even here and wanted to clear up some things as well as offer my own opinion about what it's been like.

I saw a lot more panels about "diversity" and more "soft topics" than I remember. A panel by Zoe Quinn about Comedy games, a panel on anti-harrassment, a panel on getting more women in edutainment games, etc. However, there were still just as many panels about Unity shaders, proper procedural level design algorithms, and how to run an effective office space as a producer. As GDC is what it is, there's no danger of these panels fully taking over the conference so, give em a break. GDC is comprised of several tracks, programming, art, etc. Until the day an SJW creates a feminist programming language and that somehow becomes the dominant programming language for games, I think we'll be okay.

I saw a lot more people with dyed hair than I remember. All the colors of the rainbow, in every shade, brightness setting, and hue. Of course being in a creative field, there were always the occasional weird and crazy wacky fashion styled people, but they were always artists, at the top of their field, and they earned that right to dress and look however the hell they wanted to, and I respected them for it. However, I doubt majority of the multi colored hair crew has gotten past making crappy html web link based decision making "adventures".

I met a lot less skilled developers, just in general, or maybe I'm just getting older and more experienced. As game development becomes more accessible, and cheaper, the barrier to entry is lowered quite a bit. You have Unity going free yesterday, Unreal going free the day before, as well as Game Maker just being completely free. Remember back in the day when we had to write our own engines or use actual game development libraries in C++, C, C#, etc.? Remember a few years ago when we had Torque, XNA, SDL, Cocos2D, or just straight raw OpenGL and GLUT? You have people making games in Flash now or GML making millions of dollars. It's a good and a bad thing. Easier to make games and make something fun and amazing in less time? Great! I don't have to put in any effort to make garbage and say I'm a game developer? gently caress off. I'm not knocking Game Maker, HTML, Flash, or Unity developers, but I can say the bottom line is it's certainly attracted quite a lot of riff raff.

I saw Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn, sitting in the VIP area at the IGF/Choice Awards also reserved for such people such as Hironobu Sakaguchi who received a lifetime achievement award for Final Fantasy, John Romero one of the creators of Doom, and several other successful developers both AAA and Indie alike. What have they done to deserve to be there? What have they done for our industry besides ultimately hurt it? What the gently caress have YOU guys made? As someone who's crunched and scraped and could never meet such people as a game dev nobody essentially sitting in the audience like a scrub, it made me sick.

I saw Mega64 in attendance at the awards, as they usually have been at past GDCs and got my hopes up as they were instantly dashed away when Hey Ash Whatcha Playin came up instead during interludes in between categories slightly jabbing and poking fun at Gamergate and all of this crap. I remember Mega64 always creating fun videos about the nominees about how ridiculous or interesting the mechanics. Whatever happened to making fun of that culture in good fun like this and this. Were they forced to toe the line?

I saw droves of circles of hipster indie devs in the park, craft beer bars, and even booking full hotels that were filled with them. A lot of which are judges and jurors on the IGF panel. Now, before you get mad, this is a small industry, and always has, always will be (hopefully). All of this stuff has happened before with judges and juries in games or between developers both big and small, everyone just knows each other, they've worked together, they've played together. However, there was always an aura of professional-ism about being brothers in arms in the trenches shipping games together. I do not get that aura from this crowd. It feels more of "I like you and we think the same way as weird quirky guys because WERE QUIRKY! We'll all support you and be friends." type of deal. There's money, press, and fame involved in all of this and in the end the games industry is still a business. On a purely objective standpoint, that can't be right...

I saw Wild Rumpus, a group embracing "organic-ly grown games", whatever the gently caress that means, run by Venus Patrol, a well known video game website based in Portland. They had a booth on the first floor of west hall showing off indie games. Some of them were actually pretty great such as Night in the Woods, which looks amazing and obviously looks like something that took a lot of time and effort to do both on a design and technical level. Then they also had really small weird games done by developers who obviously had some kind of moral/social agenda. They also had a party that included all of the Indie Dev "elite". It looked like the most hipster thing ever.

I saw a lot of hugging, A LOT of hugging between indie devs. Literal physical hugboxing. That is all.

I saw gender neutral bathrooms, that was weird and a bit unnecessary. I used one, but I wouldn't consider myself gender neutral, I just really needed to take a poo poo. The janitorial staff went to clean them and looked incredibly confused. That was amusing.

As much as I'd honestly like to leave, this industry is far from done though. As crazy as all of this sounds, majority of the power still lies in the guys in suits meeting in back rooms of hotel conference rooms making million/thousand dollar publisher deals not these unskilled, unable to ship on a deadline or anything at all, tweet way too much, hang out in the park barefoot nobodies. My biggest concern is that they're...too loud, both audibly in person and on the internet. They are slowly becoming "representative" of our industry. That said, anyone else here at/go to GDC? What did you notice?

To mods, you can delete this if you think it adds no value to this subreddit, I've been here and gone through a lot this GDC and needed to get it out.

TL;DR: GDC was weird. I miss Mega64 running around with Hideo Kojima sneaking around the convention center. Neon blue/pink/orange hair is loving stupid. Unskilled cringy idiots are getting way too much attention.
note You guys have no idea how good it feels to hear from other devs on here. I thought I was just going insane. I'm tired of being ruled by fear. In the meantime let's all make some cool poo poo and hopefully discourage the SJWs via skill. You have no idea how bad I wanted to go up to Sarkeesian pretending I have no idea who she is asking, "Hey! What engine do you use?" And then see as she struggles to explain what she does as I put forth I have no idea what she's talking about as I'm just here to make games. Alas, I am a coward, I am sorry. Thanks for such a great conversation.