GDC Europe & ECTS 2002 Summary

by Jason Della Rocca

By all counts, GDC Europe was a great success. This was GDC's second showing in London and attendance was bursting at the seems with 700+ industry folk making it to Earl's Court for the conference. While much improved over last year, ECTS still seemed to be struggling to find its identity - especially with the public-focused PlayStation Experience alongside. But, as usual, many were on hand to network and cut deals. A recent gamesindustry.biz article describes ECTS in greater detail...

Academic Invasion

The IGDA kicked things off at GDC Europe with the Academic Day. We hosted over seventy academics, researchers and developers to discuss topics such as games and learning, games research and game development curriculum. Overall, this was a valuable event for discussing these important topics, however, there was a sense that not many professional game developers attended. Unlike our similar event in America, where pro attendance was about 30% of the total, the Euros still seem to be more hesitant to get involved at the academic level. Things are certainly improving, however... Check out our academia outreach page for further details on the Academic Day.

Tied into our academic initiatives, we were happy to welcome our 25 GDC Europe Student Sponsorship recipients. Sadly, I did not get much time to chat with them, but they certainly seemed to be enjoying the conference.

GDC Quality

For the most part, the various sessions I was able to attend were all of top notch quality. For example:

Mark Cerny's keynote lecture on his "Method" was quite inspiring, if not overly idealistic - too bad all developers and publishers couldn't operate in the manner Mark describes.
The session on usability testing within Halo was superb and I encourage everyone to check out the short list of publications from MS's Playtest group.
Harvey Smith's session on systemic level design was top notch (an earlier version of this talk is available in video format from Gamasutra).
"Choosing the Best Game Ever" was the closing panel of the conference and simply the most amusing and witty session I've ever attended. Brilliant! Oh, in case you're wondering, Mario 64 won.

I personally moderated a session on pitching and getting publishing deals. This panel was well attended, and heard from several industry heavies on how to increase your chances of signing a deal (eg, stay relevant to consumers, focus on gameplay, look for a champion at both the publisher and platform holder, etc).

The Getaway

In conclusion, GDC Europe was great and ECTS allowed us to connect with the development community (and sign up new members!). Yet, after a long exhausting week in London it was nice to escape back across the pond...

Here are some shots I took during the two events (all names are from left to right):

Room full of academics at the opening of the IGDA Academic Day.

One of the few developers on hand to chat with the academics, Charles Cecil (Revolution) talks with Jon Purdy (Hull University).

A batch of the GDCE Student Sponsorship recipients.

Jonny Dobson (VIS Interactive) and Mike Drummelsmith (Matrox) chat during the DirectX end-of-day reception.

GDC Director Alan Yu chilling with Greg Kerwin (Gama Network).

Mark Cerny (Cerny Games) and Sam Coates (Sony Soho) enjoy post-GDCE dinner. No one knows why Sam looks so guilty...

John Vechey (PopCap) signs his life, err... signs up for an IGDA membership.

R.J. Mical (Fathammer), Rebekah (Harvey's wife) and Harvey Smith (Ion Storm Austin) enjoy the velvet room at the post-GDCE Sony reception.

The annual ECTS Awards mid-presentation...

Bandits, with its Matrox-driven triple screen action, was one of the snappier games at the show.

Very cool! Arcade based ping pong game with a camera to track the motion of your paddle.

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