Me, July 2018: I should apply for GDC scholarship so that I can complain to my friends because I never get chosen for things.
Game Industry Conference, September 2018: You are accepted for GDC Scholarship
Me: Oh. Cool.

So yes, I went to GDC this year. Thanks to the organisation by “Fundacja Indie Games Polska”, sponsorship from Google for Startups and co-organizing from Game Industry Conference, I was able to stay in a hostel in San-Francisco and get a GDC Conference + Summits pass, entirely for free. It would be unthinkable for me to go otherwise, but alleviating these costs really helped me to go.

In this post, I’ll try to go through the highlights of the trip and my first experience at the GDC and things that a lot of smaller developers can relate / look at the conferences.

The City of San Francisco

The first day in the city felt like paradise. I went to see the Fisherman’s wharf through Chinatown and then to the Golden Gate bridge. The sun was blazing hot (I left a feet of snow back home!), the city is located on a lot of hills and the architecture is rather unique. The parks are beautiful and the animals you meet is not something that I could encounter in the Northern/Eastern Europe. I saw the parrots on the tree! During one of the days I went to the Aquarium: without a doubt, it was a life-changing experience since I’ve never seen something like that. Schools of fish / crabs / medusas / sharks / rays swimming freely and you can observe how they behave.

Next days was more of a wake-up call because I ended up exploring a city center. There are a lot of homeless / mentally ill people. Sometimes it felt like a boring dystopia. Some citizens of San Francisco actually crowd-funded the campaign to avoid building the homeless shelter in their area. I have been warned about the homeless problem before going, but I’ve thought that I’ve seen it all, after travelling through Eastern Europe and living in a country that survived the collapse of Soviet Union and went through relatively noticeable economic decline at one point afterwards. Boy, was I wrong. There are homeless people at almost every corner of the business district; you can’t walk a block without encountering a homeless person. I’ve seen open drug use near the Moscone Center and a lot of syringe needles on some streets. The highlight was the poster of a robotics conference with a bunch of homeless people sleeping near it.

In the end, I think the city is full of contrasts: there are both really good and really bad places to be at. Despite the issues, I’d recommend visiting the city at least once. The variety of food is also not something to be missed due to the multiculturalism of San-Francisco.

The GDC itself

So the whole event is not as hectic as it might seem. The first two days, the expo hall is closed, so you mostly go to the talks or roam around and try to get to know people. The expo opens up on Wednesday and you get one more venue to explore, full of different publisher / engine / game booths. It’s an interesting experience by itself because you can meet like-minded people, see the games that you already know and say hi to the people you’ve seen before. On Friday, the expo is open only for half a day, but talks occur until the evening. Tuesday and Wednesday felt like the busiest days, while Friday felt like “we’re all tired day.” Still, every day was really cool.

The talks

I went to a few talks, but not many. Mostly to the ones whose authors I admire and want to know better (so I can catch them post-talk). Other than that, you can actually watch everything at GDC Vault afterwards so it’s better to spend time talking to people.

Nonetheless, some cool talks that I enjoyed in no particular order (look them up in the vault):

• 2014 vs 2018: The Shape of Financial Success Before and After the Indiepocalypse by Jason Rohrer
• The Zero Marketing Experiment on Steam: Launching a Game Without Telling Anyone by Patrick Seibert
• ‘Cultist Simulator’: Designing an Experimental Game for Commercial Success by Alexis Kennedy
• 1,500 Slot Machines walk into a bar by Alex Schwartz and Ziba Scott

The parties

A lot of socializing actually happens after Moscone Center closes. Every evening, there are multiple parties going on. Without suggesting anything specific: don’t go to the big ones with open entry and no limit. Loud music is also a hard pass for me. I wanted to socialize with the peers and get to know people better. There are also daily events that are targeted at a specific gamedev professions. Without disclosing too much: I went to 5 private events and every one of them has been worth it. The public meeting (Marketer coffee) was also very good because these types of meetups define the roles and expectations of people you want to see there.

To find the relevant parties:

1. Use the GDC party list.
2. Write a letter to your partners / platforms / tools that you use and ask if they are planning something. You might not get invited, but you’ll establish a closer personal contact which seems like a win to me.
3. Join GDC discord and watch what people are saying, there are some sudden meetups happening in Yerba Buena gardens all the time.

The socializing itself and is the event worth it?

First of all, I don’t think that you are going to die / be unsuccessful if you don’t go. There were discussions whether hosting the event in SF promotes accessibility (due to high prices / US entry visa), but if the organizers actually live there, it makes sense: you wouldn’t go to another city just to host something. Or you would, but it’s much more inconvenient.

Next, and I’m speaking for myself, in cases of events like these you never get a direct value back. Getting to know people is a long-time thing. Very few people in your life will e-mail you and ask: “I need this job done for me, I’m paying you X” or “you know what, I’ve randomly saw your game on twitter and I want to publish it” or “Can you suggest me someone who can do X?” – it takes time to know you and you can’t handle relationships as one-time business transactions.

So in a way, the event is a catalyst: if you are a successful developer, it’s easier for you to find like-minded people (or rather get meetings with them and get their replies) and meet with the platform holders. Your opportunities multiply. If you are not there yet – people will be polite but a lot of time you can see when they want to excuse themselves from the conversation, but the ones that stay can genuinely lead to meaningful connections. I felt like I’m on the line: from one side, I’m developing games for 3+ years already, on the other side I’ve never had a hit yet. Despite this, I could connect with people in equal situations and actually (hopefully) make this a beginning of future friendships.

Now, whether you need this particular catalyst is another question: in the end, I met some cool US developers and met with some platform holders which is a good time investment to me. I knew why I was going there and I tried to book the meetings I wanted 4 months in advance. But often you don’t necessarily need to afford to go to US for that: if you are starting out and are in Europe, Game Industry Conference in Poland is definitely a good start because it features both experienced and beginner developers while having a lower cost of entry (I might be biased here, but I was planning to go in any case before I was accepted for the scholarship; my other friends who went were really happy about it too). In a way it was easier for me to connect with people there because the pool of different people wasn’t as huge. Nordic in Sweden and GameOn in Lithuania could also be a good start. Basically, if you don’t have a hit or you don’t have a plan of what you are going to do there, look for the events closer to your home. Basically: KNOW WHY YOU ARE GOING THERE. Otherwise it will just be a cool vacation. YMMV.

Costs:
Plane Ticket to SF and back: ~$900, but I had to do a non-same-ticket transfer which was a huge stress
Expenses while staying (lunches, transport, a few small gifts for friends):  ~$500
Travel Insurance: ~$70

In the end it was roughly around $1500. A very significant sum of money for me, but not life-altering.

In short: I’m going to do it again, but only after I make a successful game and can afford the full trip with the ticket. But with GDC (and all conferences in particular), every event is a step in the ladder towards the next one, you get to know people and enjoy their company, then your social circles expand and you meet more people and find new friends / gain more experience / become more aware of what’s going on in the industry. To me, going to conferences because of that is absolutely worth it.