Overwhelming much?

So it's day two of three of the Expo part of the con and oh my god...there's just so much to do. We're not even full-passes to the Conference and it's nuts. I thought it was pretty insane when I went to Gen Con with my father back in 2008, but that pales in comparison to this. (Probably simply because this is completely my whole interest where as D&D was dad's). There were booths for Google, for Blizzard, ActiVision, Bethesda, Ubisoft, PlayStation....I don't think I could name them all, even if I tried (and I know there were a few even missing!)

Our first day was mind-numbing. Literally walking into the hall, the line from 13th Warrior that was used in Least I Could Do came back to me in fragments. I really need to actually watch this movie sometime:

'Lo, there do I see

The line of my people

Back to the beginning...

'Lo, they do call me.

They bid me take my place among them

In the halls of Valhalla

Where the brave

May live

Forever.

Yes, I know. Super geek.

We spent most of the time trying to get over the classic outsider worry. If you're unfamiliar with this it is, simply put:

OH MY GOD I'M NOT WORTHY OF DOING THIS AS A CAREER, I'M NOT READY AHHHHHHHHH WHAT DO I DO?

Or something very similar. That night was the Indie Game Developer's Awards and the Game Developers Awards, which we ran to immediately. Minecraft cleared house, as well as Red Dead Redemption and Amnesia. I'm happy to see Minecraft win a lot of awards. After all, 10million dollas in revenue for a beta that's been out for a short amount of time is...well, something amazing. Being their first game EVER....it's fucking insane. I somehow managed to with the use of twitter get Shaun and I into a FunCom industry release party, where we spun our heels and saw Jeb from Minecraft. (we were still getting over that nervousness talking to people, so we didn't go up and say hi.)

Today we went and hooked up with an old alumni for lunch. After that we managed to hit up VALVe's booth for a presentation about what to do that will impress game companies. Robin Walker (btw...is he Aussie? British? Very nice accent, regardless) talked to groups of about twenty of us at a time about what to do. They don't want a portfolio. They don't want a resume. They want stuff that you've done, be it game modifications, indie games, developed items for games, or whatever, and the community feedback for these items. If they're popular, if they're designed well, then fuck, why haven't they hired you yet? I think these are good things to keep in mind. Hell, it also validates my want to re-design my Polycount items. I kinda hope that they do another contest for community entries again, I'd love to try to design a sniper set. Maybe even hats. The day at the Expo ended with us talking up the folks at TellTale games about much of the same items. It's nice to have my work reaffirmed that it's going in the right direction.

Tomorrow is the Game Career Seminar, so it's another bright and early hell for us. Thank the various Caffeinated Supreme Beings for the Starbucks in the hotel!