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Game Developers Conference 2003: Summary & Pictorial

by Jason Della Rocca

This year's Game Developers Conference was a great success for the IGDA! Seems like we're just getting busier and busier each year, with more cool stuff going on. With many of the committee's now leveraging GDC for project work, it is admittedly tough to keep up with everything.

GDC posted record attendance numbers which, despite the ongoing challenges of the game development community, proves the importance of the conference as a key event to set your bearings for the coming year, and gain new knowledge, contacts, etc. Overall, there was a good vibe at GDC with a real sense of community and desire to push the industry forward.

Like last year, the IGDA had a ton of stuff going on at GDC from the dedicated track of IGDA sessions, our heavily trafficked booth with the now tradition of hosting a gameLab game, and the Game Developers Choice Awards to the Academic Summit. The "group gatherings", which were started last year, also proved popular as did our VIP lunch (for volunteers, partners, studios, etc) and our always lively Annual Meeting.

Below, I quickly summarize some of the IGDA's activities (along with nice pictures). In complement, these other sites have compiled a great amount of GDC coverage:

Also, the IGDA website is hosting the summaries from the various GDC roundtable sessions. Each summary also includes links to the full roundtable report and a link to ongoing discussion in the online forums. And, finally check out the "personal diary" reports from the GDC Scholarship recipients.

 

The IGDA Academic Summit

This year's Academic Summit saw some dramatic changes over last GDC. While the first Summit was a great success, too much of the time was spent listening to the "sage on stage". Feedback on the first Summit was to introduce more opportunity for group interaction. So, with that, the Education Committee focused this Summit almost entirely on group interaction, putting the attendees to work! All told, there was upwards of 150-200 academics, developers and students who attended the Summit over the two first days of GDC. Of note, there were more developers in the room over last year...

The first of the Academic Summit started off with a "state of the union" address from Committee co-chair Warren Spector and Frans Mayra, the president of the newly formed Digital Games Research Association. They set stage for a panel of luminaries discussing the future of industry/academy relations. These two sessions served as inspiration for the day's working sessions, where groups were tasked with listing challenges, issues and barriers the impeded collaboration, etc. This was followed by high-level solution generation for each of the problem areas. Day-1 closed with a keynote lecture from Gerard Jones, adding some perspective to importance of what we're doing.

The second day got underway with an update and progress report from the IGDA's Education Committee. This was followed by a speedy run through of 14 rapid-fire case studies. These case studies of actual successful collaborations, research and curriculum served as inspiration for Day-2's working sessions on detail solution implementation. Each group crunched on one problem/solution combination and presented their results to the audience - a truly enlightening experience. Day-2 closed with a lively summation from Ernest Adams.

All of the materials from the group sessions, cases studies and other bits are being made available from the Academic Events page. Also, on the academic front, we were happy to welcome our new batch of GDC Scholarship recipients. Finally, a special thanks to the Academy of Art College, who helped to sponsor the Academic Summit.


Warren Spector (Ion Storm) and Frans Mayra (DiGRA) open the Academic Summit with a "state of the union" address.


Noah Falstein (The Inspiracy), Warren Spector (Ion Storm) and Bob Bates (Legend Entertainment) chat during the informal reception at the end of the Summit's first day.


Kiyoshi Shin (Tokyo chapter coordinator), Kiyotaka Fujie (University of Tokyo) and Eric Zimmerman (gameLab) discuss cultural differences in games...


Jesper Juul (IT University of Copenhagen) in deep discussion with Warren Spector (Ion Storm) on player agency and emergence.

 

Game Developers Choice Awards

The 3nd Annual Game Developers Choice Awards were simply amazing! Starting off with the IGF ceremony, things got off with a great tone of community togetherness. The acceptance of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Yokoi family was a real emotional moment, bringing many developers to tears. Year after year, I am amazed at the response we get over the Choice Awards and how they provide us with a true sense of pride and honor. Countless members came up to me afterwards and said how proud they were to be IGDA members!

Also, this year the Choice Awards have garnered even more support and attention from consumer broadcast and online outlets. Both G4 and GameSpot, media sponsors of the Choice Awards, are promoting the awards, and using the Choice Awards logo to differentiate titles that are nominated or recognized with an award.

Sadly, I was so caught up in the craziness of the Awards that I didn't have a chance to take any pics. Check these links for Choice Awards coverage:

And, check the Choice Awards web site for the full list of nominees and recipients.

 

Conference Sessions & Expo

As always, there are simply too many interesting lectures/sessions to go to at any given moment! Overall, the quality of speakers and sessions was strong and diverse. The IGDA's track went very well, and dealt with some issues not normally seen in the other GDC tracks (eg, violence, women in game development, minorities, etc). Also, the Group Gatherings were a chance for like minded developers to get together for open discussion and networking. The IGDA's Annual Meeting was well attended and generated a ton of good feedback. During the Annual Meeting, we heard from the board of director nominees as they pleaded their case to be elected to the IGDA board.

In terms of IGDA sessions, of particular interest was the Business Committee's best practice roundtables. These sessions will provide the raw data needed to compile best practice reports for areas such as finance, HR and resource management.

The expo floor was somewhat larger than last year, and highly trafficked. There were no booth babes, which is a good trend and never seemed right for a developer conference. Like last year, the IGDA's booth was not actually on the show floor. Rather, we were positioned in the very busy upper lobby. Things were made even busier as developers came to play the in-booth game, Alphabet City, developed by gameLab.


GDC attendees lining up to play "Alphabet City", gameLab's new massively multiplayer "off-line" game.


Liz Wakefield and Rudy Geronimo field questions from the IGDA booth.


Jon Labrie, the CTO at Weta who worked on the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, delivered the general interest keynote.


IGDA directors, committee members, chapter coordinators, partners, studio reps, etc, enjoying the good food and conversation at the IGDA VIP Lunch, which was sponsored by Havok.


Kiyoshi Shin (Tokyo chapter coordinator), Tatsuya Kitamura (Tokyo Game Show), Kathy Schoback (Sega), Trevor Fencott (Goodmans LLP) and Gakuto Kobayashi (CESA) connect during the IGDA VIP Lunch.


The Experimental Gameplay Workshop packed to the seems. Impressive stuff!


The Choice Awards pavilion on the Expo floor.


RenderWare's had a highly trafficked booth...

 

Parties

While GDC is not necessarily known for great parties (unlike E3), there are several during the show. And, besides the big parties, there's always a chance to kick-back and catch up with old friends at the Fairmont lobby bar, etc. As much as we are all at GDC to learn, share knowledge and do business, it is just nice to unwind.


Alan Yu (GDC), David Weinstein (Redstorm), Laura Fryer (Xbox), Jennifer Olsen (Game Developer Magazine) and Graeme Devine (id Software) kick back at the Xbox party.


Tom Russo (G4 TV) pains to talk about his old rugby injuries...


Mark Leblanc (Visual Concepts) bored to sleep by Trent Oster (BioWare) during the Xbox party ;-)


Sheri Graner Ray (in red T) and others from the IGDA's Women in Game Development Committee have fun at Microsoft's "Celebrating Women" event.


A Rockstar Party: Paddy Burns and Johnny Dobson of Vis Interactive party in the Rockstar/Take-2 suite.


Jon Blow and Eric Zimmerman at the Speakers' Party. Jon visibly psyched after running the Experimental Gameplay Workshop.


Graeme Devine (id Software), Jason Della Rocca (IGDA) and Julien Merceron (Ubi Soft) speak French at the Speakers' Party.


Chris Melissinos (Sun), Bret Mogilefsky (Sony) and Tim Schafer (Double Fine) having a good time.


Guy (Strategy First), Gregan Dunn (Ideazon) and Jamie McNealy (Strategy First) unwind during Havok's post-GDC party.

 

...can't wait for next year!

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