will any of yall be there???
i WISH, I really wish I could attend %|
The flight ticket and the entrence fee are however way beyond my current budgetary means…
That would be cool! And… awkward… * imagines everyone staring at the 14 year old *.
From what I’ve read aboud GDC they won’t be staring at you, they’ll ask you a few questions, or start a conversation, (most) people attending GDC are really friendly and professional.
My first thaught if I went to GDC and saw a 14 year old would be “yaay, another wizzkid, lets see what he’s up to.”
Of course I have a tendency to alway be interested in what other people do when attending a conference… weird isn’t it?
I still think it would be awkward. “Who here has some games they would like to show us.” (Me Thinking, “Crap, I’ve never finished a game…”) * everyone but me raises hand *
this will be my third year. my employer foots the $900 fee, but i would prolly come up with the cash if i had to pay my own way. so far, the experience has been completely fantastic. if any of yall will be there, we should meet up 
here are my notes from last year, enjoy:
another GDC has come and gone. it was the same cel phone party as ever - half the attendees were chattering away at any given moment. the unspoken theme this year seemed to be more emotion, less HUD, less licensing. last year it was all about content, content, content - unless you went to the john carmack lecture - then it was about not content…and aliens.
it was gosh darn crowded this year - lines for restrooms, barely enough room to move around in the convention center…ick.
as usual the lectures were great. predictions for future games are bigger bigger bigger. more of everything. based on the current development model, profits are growing more elusive. in the face of more more more - development cost is predicted to excede sales in the very near future - ouch. in a presentation by E. Daniel Arey of Naughty Dog studios, many of the top folks in the industry agree that current development models for AAA titles are become cost prohibitive. the consequence of continuing along this path will mean greater conservatism and less risk ie. games will suck. most seem to agree something has to change. there was more talk about emergent gameplay - like GTA - as a way of dealing with the need for more content. Peter Molyneux demo’d Black and White 2 - it’s now a sort of god game/RTS hybrid with a physics engine - looks neat. Will Wright demo’d SPORE - his new evolution sim that spans from microbe scale to universe - the content is intended to be entirely user generated (after the initial launch), and the resource system is procedural - no textures, animations, etc. - it is all generated on the fly - cool. there was plenty of buzz about “casual games” - like those produced by http://www.popcap.com. apparently it is becoming more and more common for developers to excape the stress and long hours at high profile companies - to form or join smaller companies producing “casual games” - like astropop, bejeweled, etc.
Ed Hooks spoke about eyes and photoreal human characters. basically he says that mocap does not make up for the fact that the eyes aren’t right. gaze behavior is a branch of research that deals with where humans look and when. there are all sorts of gaze behaviors that simply are not accounted for in animated CG humans. Ed is always quality.
Keita Takahashi talked about the development of Katamari Damacy. He started at Namco as an artist and somehow ended up game designer. he is sort of a cult hero at this point and many lined up for autographs after the hour.
http://www.katamaridamacy.com
scott bilas talked about making games with Flash. he basically concludes that simple stuff is possible now, but that flash is a inefficient renderer, so the limitations are substantial. you can read his paper online http://www.drizzle.com/~scottb/gdc/flash-paper.htm
the Experimental Gameplay Workshop was good as usual. the normally 3-but-turned-into-4 hour session started with ilovebees - the alternate reality marketing game that coincided with the Halo 2 launch. Chris Hecker presented the results of the Indie Game Jam http://www.indiegamejam.com/ this year’s theme was people interacting - EA donated all the content from the Sims 1 - they concluded that people interacting is a difficult topic. then we saw ragdoll kung fu http://www.ragdollkungfu.com - a PC fighting game that uses only mouse input to control the limbs of a ragdoll character - holy crap that looks fun! 4 students from CMU’s entertainment technology center were up next to show some of their experimental gameplay ideas http://www.experimentalgameplay.com/. the NERO system was shown next http://www.nerogame.org. these folks showed learning game AI - you basically train bots and they remember - cool. the Journey to Wild Devine was demonstrated - a game that uses a biofeedback peripheral - you basically meditate to play the game - the subtlety of control was amazing - all through blood pressure/heart rate/galvanic skin response/etc. - this was by far the most jaw dropping demo. the seesion was concluded with Jon Blow showing BRAID - an experiment with various time controls during gameplay - the graphics and game were rudimentary, but the gameplay was interesting.
Well, I willn’t be attending but 1 or 2 years ago when I was 12, I went to the Montreal conference (my dad took me), and it was really quite fun. There were a bunch of people presenting their stuff, and showing how they did certain things.
Blender_rox, I suggest you go, It doesn’t matter if you made a game, or if you’re a complete expert, or you’re justing starting out, everyone is so helpful. Although I felt a bit akward that some people were speaking in french and I can barely speak french at all.
That would be a great suggestion, if I had money. 
Woah BiSkiT, what company do you work for? Hehe, to have your boss foot the $900 fee.
Well… the presentations leak out after awhile in video form sometime later anyways. 
For example I saw all of Will Wright’s presentation on spore. He’s truly become one of the most innovative designers in the game industry. Lol, I couldn’t believe it when I heard, everything was generated on the fly. Textures/animations/models, etc :o wow.
Jason Lin
blender_rox, You wouldn’t be alone. I am also 14, and also never fully completed a game. But unfortunatley, I will not be attending. 
( Closest emoticon to crying I could find on the emoticon bar )
man, I wish I could go…for a week or so I was trying to figure out ways to afford a trip like that, but the fee’s for the conference itself are just astronomical.