Post-Post GDC Wrapup

Hey look, I know, it's been a few weeks. Stuff has been very, very crazy. So I'm going to try to write most of what I remember from the Expo's last day. I will say that, upon looking back at the event, it would've been really nice for the Game Career Seminar to take place on maybe Wednesday instead of the last day of the Expo, but I can see the logisitics as to why they put each session into their particular places. Maybe if they gave an extra day to the expo opening (Seminars Sun-Monday, Expo opens Tuesday, GCS on Wednesday, etc) it would work out so that the people working the Expo floor aren't fucking floored by the end of the first day, and those of us who had enough money to scrape together to stick around for the Expo passes get an extra couple days to use whatever knowledge that we've picked up from the GCS to talk to folks. Dunno, I might just be hashing the little nuts and bolts.

Shaun and I hit up most of the seminars about getting into the gaming industry for several reasons. Obviously, we're both looking to brush up our portfolios to do this sort of thing, and myself I wanted to see just how well Bradley University has done starting up their "game design" specialty for Interactive Media. Call me crazy, but I know that the next set of freshmen probably has a shit-ton of people who want to do game design (and it's easy to get hooked in by the title), but considering what I'd actually taken of the specialization, I didn't have very high hopes.

Well.....

I was right.

From our first seminar to the very last, one thing was explicitly mentioned over everything else. The gaming industry is not looking for a swiss army knife, they're looking for a scalpel. And lemme explain that further by saying that they're looking for someone that's really good at one thing (be it, say, 3D Modeling) and can do enough of the rest to know how their portion integrates into the whole game. I could go through and list out all of the things I find that Bradley needs to improve upon, but hell, this post is supposed to be about GDC, not my alma mater. (if I can call it that yet.)

The first speaker was Christian Allen, and he talked about how to network in the gaming industry. His was a great session to start off with - humorous, witty, and full of great realistic knowledge about how to actually talk to people in the gaming industry. TL;DR, yes, we can all be very much introverts and forums are a GREAT way to talk to people. It was also chock-full of how to introduce yourself and design your portfolio. Take time to know who you're talking to. It does wonders for communication, especially when everyone's work is so world-known.

The second speaker I took notes for was a professor from ETC @ Carnegie-Mellon. His discussion, from what I remember, what about creating that first independent game and trying to market it. This one was done from the aspect of still being in school. I kinda wanted to actually try to find the guy later and talk with him - their curriculum sounds a hell of a lot better (and more refined) than what we've just started with at Bradley (I know it takes awhile for people to get on the bandwagon, but god, we need to pick up the pace ASAP. Yet another reason why I hate bureaucracy - I'm sure that it has a hand in keeping curriculum bogged down so much.)

The third one was an artists' panel about how to tailor a portfolio (a site in most cases) towards your major, your specialty, etc. I walked away from this one with a HOST of ideas on what to do for changing up my site, and the knowledge that the amazing scenery and design from L4D was designed by one of the guys who put together the conceptual art for the very same trilogy that made me want to do 3D modeling in the first place - Jeremy Bennet. I nearly died when I figured this out. It's a weird full circle - the video game company that I would kill to work for, has a guy who inspired my career choice. Small, freakishly small world.

The last one I have any notes for is a presentation done by Jeff Ward: "20 lessons" a set of guidelines and general bits of wisdom that he's learned from going from his first big job - working at bethesda - to now running part of a start-up indie company. Such simple tasks as "Getting involved" and general common sense issues that can come up as a part of the process of creating a video game. One of my favorites (and something I keep reminding people about) is one he titled "Solve Actual Problems." You might have found a way to streamline something, that's absolutely freaking great. Is it necessary or vital to what you're doing? No? THEN STOP WORKING ON IT.

All and all, got a lot of good ideas to leave with. The trip back home was, sadly, uneventful and nowhere near as nice. I suppose in retrospect it's nicer now with the weather improving, but we went from 62 degrees in San Francisco....to 29 degrees on the tarmac outside of the Peoria Airport. That and it took about a half hour to get our luggage. In a terminal that's one eighth the size of any of the other airports that we were in. Also, after being in so many different airports for this trip, I've got to say that I'm utterly disgusted with O'Hare. Considering that it's an international airport, it's highly disorganized (compared to San Fran, Dallas/Ft. Worth), and no free wi-fi. Why. Honestly. Is IL that much in debt? I guess so.