Gdc 2013

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    • I figured I'd start another thread about GDC, instead of continuing to de-rail the other thread.

      GDC pricing:
      gdconf.com/attend/passes.html

      I will going to go GDC in 2013, but i'm still not entirely sure if it's worth it to spend the money on the top teir full GDC pass. It looks like the early bird price is only about $1500, assuming it stays the same as the last GDC.

      I personally have to take into account that I will be paying for my own trip entirely out of pocket, so that means a week in a hotel, and because of my location i'll need to fly down there, all in addition to the pass price.

      Anyone else have thoughts on this? Also, I know a few others on here are planning to go, so we could potentially plan to meet up if anyones up for it. I think they offer group rates on the pass prices as well. 8)

      I'm reposting Rez's comments from the other thread because they made me want to get the full pass, rather than the $195 base expo pass. :D

      I completely missed this reply! Sorry!

      GDC is like 2+ hours away from San Jose, depending on traffic. It would be a brutal commute; 101-N gets ugly.

      There are basically three levels of passes. Student passes and expo passes will get you on the floor talking to companies and seeing new tech. It's a lot of fun to wander the floor and chat with companies (all of which are hiring) as well as looking at new software and hardware that's coming out.

      The next level up is the main conference pass and the summit passes. Both of these passes allow you to walk the floor, but these passes get you into the lectures. GDC is split into two sections: the first two days are tutorials and summits. The second three days is the main conference.

      The summits are targeted, specialized, mini-conferences. There's one for social/mobile games, one for indie games, and many others. I'm part of the AI Game Programmers Guild (gameai.com) and we put on the AI Summit every year. Last GDC, I did an 8-minute rant on background AI and was on a panel of AI experts talking about why we even need AI in games. The year before that, I did a postmortem on The Sims Medieval AI.

      The main conference has the majority of the lecture content and is more generalized. There are tracks for each discipline (engineering, art, design, production, etc) with lectures all day for each one. Most lectures are about an hour and are usually (but not always) given by someone who works in the industry. It's usually about they solved some particularly interesting problem. Last GDC, my main conference lecture was about developing debug visualization tools. There are also round table discussions, which is basically a somewhat guided conversation between about 30+ game developers on a number of different subjects. I go to the AI Roundtables every year.

      The final level is the Full GDC pass, which lets you do all of those things. That's the $2000 pass.

      Each pass has a different price range. I would say it's worth getting an expo pass, but if you can swing it, you really should go for a main conference pass. It's WELL worth it and you'll learn amazing game development secrets from people like us who have been there. The thing you really can't put a price on is the networking. "Hey Joe, I saw your talk on network bandwidth optimization and had a question...."

      GDC fuels my passion for another year of game development. I leave every year feeling energized and invigorated, full of ideas and wonder. I've met some of my very best friends at GDC (like Mr. Mike), learned new techniques that I directly applied to my work, and grew my career. These were all a direct result of me going to GDC.

      Do whatever it takes to go this year. Trust me.

      -Rez
    • I will be going to GDC, likely for the full week if I can find a slot to speak. If I do speak, it'll be during the AI Summit since EA denied my main conference proposal. I know Mike submitted a talk proposal but I don't know what the status is. I'm guessing he'll be there as well, since he has nearly every year I've known him.

      Regarding hotels and flights, Mike is probably a better person to ask, which is amusing. I live here, so I've never had to stay in a hotel. ;) Going in a single room is definitely the way to go if people are okay with it.

      -Rez
    • Don't forget you can also volunteer - I'm not sure what the hours are but for anyone on a super tight budget it is probably the best way to go.

      Hotels - I've stayed in lots of different places - nice to crappy - and for that I'd say that planning in advance and booking on the Internet with a close eye on reviews is the way to go.

      Last year I stayed at the Metropolis, a nice hotel on the border of the infamous Tenderlion - but I'm not uncomfortable in downtown areas so it wasn't a problem for me. The hotel itself was inexpensive, walking distance to the convention center, and a good place to stay IMO. Splitting it with a friend would be pretty affordable.
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot
    • Originally posted by mrmike
      Don't forget you can also volunteer - I'm not sure what the hours are but for anyone on a super tight budget it is probably the best way to go.


      I have a lot of friends who have volunteered. You end up working a number of shifts (I forget how many but I'll try to find out) but you get an all access pass for it. All of my friends who have done it have had good experiences, though it's hard to get in. There's a lot of demand without a lot of supply. It's absolutely worth going for though. :)

      -Rez
    • I am thinking about going. I'm in a similar situation to you, Kl1X; I am going to have to pay for flight, hotel room, and a pass. That being said, it is also a great excuse to visit San Francisco (which I've always wanted to see).

      That full pass is a hard bill to swallow. However, considering how much I'm going to have to spend on the rest of the trip (e.g. flight, food, and hotel), getting the expo pass seems like a waste of money. What I mean is that it seems to make sense to spend money on the important part of the trip (e.g. the conference) to get the most out of the money spent. To me, it sort of seems like the expression "go big or go home" applies here. I don't think I explained myself very well here, but I hope you understand what I mean. I'm thinking about the main conference pass though.

      Just for clarification: Rez, do you mean to strongly recommend the main conference pass or the full pass?

      Also, since I'm still in my last semester of graduate school, I'm very short on time to be dedicating to coding at the moment. I'm basically going to be working on coding full time starting in December. With only three months of working full-time on improving my coding (before GDC), do you think I'd still get enough out of GDC to make it worth while? I'm leaning toward just going anyways and hoping so.
    • Originally posted by geshi
      Just for clarification: Rez, do you mean to strongly recommend the main conference pass or the full pass?

      I would go for the main conference pass. The vast majority of the content happens during those three days. The summits are hyper-focused on specific problems so they're not really worth going to unless you're a specialist in that area. The AI Summit, for example, is aimed towards professional AI programmers and generally features advanced content.

      There are also tutorials that occur during that time but I have no idea if they're any good. I've never been to one (I spend my time at the AI summit).

      So yeah, go for the main conference pass.


      Also, since I'm still in my last semester of graduate school, I'm very short on time to be dedicating to coding at the moment. I'm basically going to be working on coding full time starting in December. With only three months of working full-time on improving my coding (before GDC), do you think I'd still get enough out of GDC to make it worth while? I'm leaning toward just going anyways and hoping so.

      Yes, though it also depends on your purpose. Lectures are usually high-level concepts, architecture, and process. It's rare that a lecture will walk you through a bunch of code, so it almost doesn't matter what level you're at. If you're interested in a subject, you will likely get something out of it.

      A huge part of GDC is just being immersed in the culture. Seeing passionate people talk about things that they're proud of, meeting someone while sitting down for lunch and realizing that they work for your dream company, running into old friends you only see once a year, going to parties and meeting other developers, asking a programmer who worked on one of your favorite games how they solved a particular problem, wandering the expo floor and seeing the latest games & tech, and surrounding yourself with thousands of like-minded people.

      GDC is my favorite time of year.

      -Rez
    • Originally posted by rezination
      Yes, though it also depends on your purpose. Lectures are usually high-level concepts, architecture, and process. It's rare that a lecture will walk you through a bunch of code, so it almost doesn't matter what level you're at. If you're interested in a subject, you will likely get something out of it.

      A huge part of GDC is just being immersed in the culture. Seeing passionate people talk about things that they're proud of, meeting someone while sitting down for lunch and realizing that they work for your dream company, running into old friends you only see once a year, going to parties and meeting other developers, asking a programmer who worked on one of your favorite games how they solved a particular problem, wandering the expo floor and seeing the latest games & tech, and surrounding yourself with thousands of like-minded people.

      Awesome! This was pretty much the response I was hoping for. :) I'm almost certain I will be going out to GDC in March. I was kind of expecting that most talks would be high-level concepts as you said, but I wanted to make sure.

      Thanks Rez!
    • Hey guys,

      I am in the same position as you and want to attend GDC. The thing is that I study in the UK and in overall am in Europe, so getting to US for GDC is a overly expensive for.

      So my question is is it worth going to GDC Europe instead or would you advice me to attend the one in US? I am still a student, so I really cannot afford to spend to much on this.

      Regards,

      Stefan
    • I honestly don't know, I've never been to GDC Europe. It will certainly be a lot smaller than the main GDC here in San Francisco and I have no idea what kind of content there will be. I'm sure most of the European-based companies will be at GDC Europe so if you're looking for a job or internship, that's definitely the way to go. You'll probably have better luck finding a job at GDC Europe than you would here, since getting a work visa is a major hassle.

      -Rez
    • I've never met anyone who regretted getting a main pass. Honestly, if you're going to spend the money to fly out here and stay in a hotel, you might as well spend your money on the full pass. It's not really worth the trip for just expo crawling, in my opinion. The expo is awesome, but it's really secondary to the content.

      Other people may have different opinions, though.

      -Rez
    • I think it would be hard in Egypt right now, didn't the country just go through a revolution?
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    • Originally posted by mholley519
      I think it would be hard in Egypt right now, didn't the country just go through a revolution?



      Yup! but that's not the prob Egy lack Programmers/Technology etc , it's hard to be a programmer here though , most of Egypt programmers are self taught , as I did myself!

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Abanoub ().

    • Nice man, keep it up, I am self taught as well
      PC - Custom Built
      CPU: 3rd Gen. Intel i7 3770 3.4Ghz
      GPU: ATI Radeon HD 7959 3GB
      RAM: 16GB

      Laptop - Alienware M17x
      CPU: 3rd Gen. Intel i7 - Ivy Bridge
      GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M - 2GB GDDR5
      RAM: 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 @ 1600mhz