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GDC Losing Focus In E3's Wake?
In the wake of E3's breakup, developers and attendees going to the annual Game Developer's Conference this week are wondering out loud: is the event losing its focus? As GDC expands, what was once (even just a few years ago) a somewhat quiet and intimate affair is taking on the airs of the now-deceased videogame extravaganza. The key for the Conference this year, the first post-E3, is going to be to make sure that the community aspect of the event remains intact in the face of over 12,000 attendees. As conference director Jamil Moledina points out, "The main lesson from (the transition of E3) is that we have to stick to what we do best: providing learning and inspiration to independent developers." Here's hoping the coming week bears that out.
spend a grand or two after hotels and passes, see same old windbags talk about the same stale ideas, silently chuckle to self that everyone seems to claim expertise in what is probably their weakest area, make weak effort to pass out business cards and ignore the fact that conglomerates are sucking the life out of the business as surely as they did to the music business in the past ten years, silently cry at seeing the 15th copycat game of what was an original idea ten years ago, drink, sleep, repeat, go home
GDC has very little in common with E3 and the atmosphere is completely different. The main purpose of GDC is for developers to interact with other developers and publishers and for the talent to exchange ideas, and for recruiting purposes.
E3 was a tradeshow for the publishers to interact with the distributors and the media. The problem was that because that was where all the new product is unveiled, it was overrun with people who must have that sneak peak, yet are inconsequential to any potential business opportunites that are to be had. Distributors like Wal-Mart and Best Buy were complaining that they couldn't get business done because the place is just so damned packed with college students, bloggers, and low level game industry employees who weren't there on business.
Big publishers, mostly Sony and EA, looked at the millions they spend preparing for the show, the amount of manhours involved, and compared it to how little was actually accomplished and they said 'screw it'. They realized they could fly all the journalists, executives, and sales people first class to their own offices, wine and dine them, developing a one on one personal relationship rather than being in a flimsy cubicle at E3, yelling at one another because DDR is blasting full volume behind you and Paris Hilton is throwing t-shirts for a game she's endorsing, but can't remember the name.
The GDC was in many ways the direct opposite of the E3 and should always remain that way. In this day and age of instant information, are trade shows for videogames even necessary? I would say up until now the CES (previously) and the E3 was necessary, but now it's no longer important. If Sony, for example wants to announce the PS4 in five years, they won't be doing it at an "E3." Why spend all of that money when they can just call up and invite a few of the big news agencies, important bloggers, etc., to their corporate headquarters and then announce the big announcement in a controlled environment? It's not 1983, technology is not changing every five seconds like it was back then. Sure, there are new gadgets/cell phones/gizmos, but the "wow" factor of technology is not like it was in the 80's and early 90's.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Nintendo really needs to start talking about their 2007 plans because right now me and many other Wii owners are starting to wonder if we all paid 250 dollars for another GameCube. Last year Nintendo wouldn't stop talking about how they were going to revolutionize the console world with the Wii and ever since Christmas its like the company forgot they were competing in the console market.
The online stuff appears to be in shambles.
The Wii games so far have been underwelming. Zelda was good, and stuff like Wii Sport only last so long.
The 2007 release list for the Wii is about half to third the size of the 360 and PS3 lists.
Outside of two or three first party Nintendo games I can't think of anything due out for the Wii that isn't crappy PS2 ports or mediocre minigame stuff we already have enough of. We really need to hear from Nintendo about when exactly online games will be out and some news about non-Nintendo game support.
And that's different from any other conference in what way?
... ok, some security cons are different. But then, those tend to be not public.
It's pretty much the same for about any kind of conference I know, that's not limited to game development. You have the same in hardware, databases,
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.