Blade Edge

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ah, so today was the first time in my GDC history that I managed to sleep in late. My roomate left his cell phone on vibrate, and although I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I did something with my phone just before going to sleep last nite, it obviously wasn’t setting the alarm like I thought it was. We woke up at 9:30 and I got this Twighlight Zone feeling because I couldn’t comprehend how we had both managed to sleep right through two alarms.

So I got to the convention center around 10:20, and now I’m just schmutzing around in the Press Lounge. I have no clue what I want to do today, none of the tutorials are of any interest to me. I may check out the MS Dev Day just to see if I can snare me some cool swag. Last year they gave out the portfolios, the year before were the backpacks and both are awesome. So we’ll see. I’ll prob do some tutorial hoppage and hang out at the IGDA member lounge now that it’s all set up.

Oh well. I guess I might as well get off my ass and make myself useful or something 😛 Still can’t believe I slept in late, haha. It’s always something…

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I took out most of the crap, added my Red Storm badge holder, and the result issss

Yes, for the first time in GDC history we have socks. Socks, people! I’m so wearing them tomorrow. Wish I had shorts to wear with them but alas… ok yea so maybe it’s for the better but whatever 😛 So that’s the haul until Wednesday, when the real crap grab begins!

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It never ceases to amaze me. Over 12,000 game developers attend the conference each year and yet it’s crazy how many times you’ll bump into someone you know throughout the course of the week. I supposed the chances are higher when you’re all in such a close proximity, and not all 12,000+ people will be here until Wednesday, but still – it’s certainly hard to remember there are that many other people wandering around that you don’t know.

So today was a great first day. I mainly attended the IGDA chapter workshop from 1-6, which I’ll report on later once they post the official meeting notes to go with my own perceptions. Other than that I hung out in the Press Lounge and walked the convention center, then went to some parties/events later in the evening.

Along the way I ran into many people, most old, some new. Here’s a pictography.

Nick Smolney (Xbox Exclusive), Sande Chen (WomenInGames) and Coray Seifert (THQ|Kaos Studios) have a chat in the Press Lounge

Ben Serviss (Creoludus) chats it up with Eric Lamendola (Slingo, Inc.)

Bumped into Neil Kirby (Lucent) on his way to lunch

Ran into Steve “ferretman” Woodcock for the second time on my way out of the IGDA session

Bill Crosby (Rutgers U.) along with John Black and Chuck Kinzer (Columbia U.) talk afterwards about the Serious Games Summit

Robin, GDC’s official photographer, caught in the act

Mike Sweeney (Slingo, Inc.) and Ben Serviss talk shop with a fellow SGS attendee

DaveRM (GameDev.net) and Sande Chen are also engaged in conversation

Habib Loew, a student at DigiPen and an avid GDNet enthusiast, talks mobile gaming with Schematic’s Karthik Swamithian

Back to San Jose… back to Johny Rockets!! Clockwise from left: Kenneth Johnson, Nick Smolney, Jeff Ward, Ben Serviss, Coray Seifert, Roger Pederson, Mike Sweeney, Karthik Swamithian, Eric Lamendola

Eric and Kenny chat with latecomer Kristoffer Schalchter (Nickelodeon)

Mark DeLoura (Sony), well known for the Gems series of books, stopped by JR as well to grab a bite to eat

Dave Weinstein (Microsoft), speaker extraordinaire, caught in his natural habitat. Or… maybe just habit

Wade Tinney and Josh Welber from Large Animal Games were kind enough to give me a lift back to my hotel in their taxi. Thanks guys!

Damn that’s a lot of people! There were also a few I didn’t manage to get on camera yet, like Rudy Geronimo and Jason Della ROcca from the IGDA, John Fiel, Dustin Clingman (tho technically he’s in this shot)… it was great being able to catch up with all these guys (and gals) on the very first day of the conference. Looking forward to further discussions and meetings tomorrow!

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I forgot to mention that GDC is moving back to San Fran next year. The convention center was booked solid this year, which is why we’re back in San Jose. Personally, I prefer SJ over SF. True, SF offers more to do outside the conference, but seriously – don’t we come out for the conference in the first place? Sure it’s a bonus to be in SF but it’s hard to keep focus on the conference when you’re tantilized by the SF area and nightlife. People have no reason to come to SJ other than the conference, which to me makes it all the better and more focused. But that’s just me…

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So it’s all set. We’re meeting up in the Press Lounge tomorrow at 9am. Tonight we sat down to eat at the Denny’s up the street from the hotel and talk over what we want to do for the conference coverage this year. I’m going to be writing up a Preview Report tonight that will go up first thing tomorrow morning that will detail our coverage for the coming week and kick things off for us.

So sit back and enjoy the show!!

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Damn I can’t beleive I’ll be in Cali in just three days time. Isn’t it amazing how these things seem to rush up all of the sudden? Two weeks ago it felt like a month away, five days ago it felt like a week away, and now it feels like tomorrow!

So I’m pretty much locked and loaded. My schedule is nailed down, although I’ll probably end up picking up a few product interviews during the Expo. Based on my postmortem from last year I’ve created the IGF coverage page now, so that plugs a big gaping hole I identified in my coverage last year. Picked up my BES biz cards from Kinko’s on Tuesday, using the same GDNet ones from yesteryear and GI is shipping me some new ones – hope they arrive in time, haha. Experience is everything and so I feel more prepared for this conference than ever. As with last year, I’m looking to use the full range of reporting resources to share my experience at the conference. That means linking from my blog to my articles to my gallery pics to news items and to off-site material.

I spent a bit today looking at Gamasutra’s coverage of last year’s conference. I had never viewed their coverage before but it had come up for a short while among us covering this year that Gamasutra was planning a live coverage of the event this year. I’m interested to see how well they pull it off, since that’s pretty much the only advantage they have over us as far as I’m concerned. Their photo gallery had like a measly 30 pics in it, which is about as many as I post per day, not to mention my fellow staffers. They gave good reports on sessions but the coverage was really scattered whereas we have people, like Kelly Murdock with Visual Art, dedicated to a single track or two. I think also that the inclusion of the blogs in last year’s coverage really sparked things up – I know I had a lot of fun and it was great to be able to seperate the official reporting of sessions and events and the personal reporting of parties and every-day conference activities, unlike previous years where it was all jumbled together and so you had to pick through to get to the actual conference material.

So despite Gamasutra’s live coverage attempt, we’re still the #1 spot for GDC coverage, and we’re looking to make this year’s all the better! Our coverage will officially kick off on Monday morning, 7am PST as we ready for the first day of tutorials. But of course I’ll be there early Sunday afternoon, so my coverage begins then. I plan on taking the light rail over to the convention center to check out the changes to the convention center prior to the conference, so expect the pics to start rolling in later that afternoon After that all the staffers are meeting up to wrap up our GDC planning – expect a first-ever GDC Preview report Monday morning detailing our plans for the entire week to kick us off.

This is probably the last you’ll hear of me until Sunday, so see you all when I get to Cali! Get pumped!