GDC is an amazing experience for anyone interested in the gaming industry. With a week full of bootcamps, tutorials, sessions, an industry expo and career expo, there was much to do in little time. It would be an overwhelming week, if you did not spend time planning on what you wanted to attend and see. The bootcamp gave me the insight of where to start with a portfolio, where specific sessions that focused on certain games showed me valuable techniques and inspired me further. The career expo was extremely helpful, where I got to ask one on one questions with studio HR and team leaders. No matter where you turned at GDC, everything you saw, either inspired you or taught you valuable information about the industry.
After close consultation with their partners in the game development industry and community around the world, the organizers made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March.
The organizers fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. They will be working with their partners to finalize the details and will share more information about plans in the coming weeks. For more information, please visit their Frequently Asked Questions page.
The College of Creative Arts' Department of Emerging Technology in Business + Design (ETBD, formerly AIMS) awards a scholarship to one of its students to visit the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco each year. The scholarship funding will reimburse some of the expenses made for traveling to and from the conference, purchasing a GDC pass, and staying in San Francisco during the days of the conference. To apply for the scholarship, please fill out the form below. As the ETBD GDC Scholarship is highly competitive, we recommend students who need financial support to attend the GDC to also consider other scholarship opportunities such as the program, the , , and the .
Here are the questions we typically get from students concerning the GDC. Please read all of these carefully if you are going to the conference. We will organize an online meeting with all students that are going to the GDC before the conference, so you will get the contact information for the students that are going with you.
The conference itself does not have an age requirement, but a lot of the networking events require you to be 21 or older. If you are younger, expect that you will miss out on a lot of networking opportunities. You are much better off watching the talks online for free. Visit the ;to get an idea of what is available.
Not really, but there is no point in going if you have not made many games yet and you do not have a portfolio to show for it. This is a conference for video game professionals, and you will have a hard time connecting to people if you have no experience making commercial quality games.
You will receive an email with more information about the assignments you have to do before the conference. The assignments will never interfere with the GDC schedule, but prepare to take notes during the conference.
Registration for the course is done through Dr. De Schutter, who will force add you. You will sign a few legal documents when registering for the course, but during the conference you get to pick the events you will attend.
We will have one mandatory meeting in San Francisco at the very beginning of the conference, but all meetings after that are optional.
If you are registered for IMS285 and you complete the writing assignment and all its other criteria, you will get the credit. We recommend that you are at the conference for at least three days so you have enough material to finish the writing assignment. You do not have to be at the GDC for the entire week if your budget does not allow you to.
It does not. We will provide you with a letter that proves you will attend the conference, and that kindly asks your professors to accommodate you. Professors are not required to do so, and their course will always have priority. You should therefore expect having to make up for going to the GDC.
You have several options, as shown on the .
The conference is split in half, with two days of summits and three days of main conference and expo. If you want to attend the conference during the full five days, consider these three passes:
All three of these are included in the other two passes listed above. A Summits pass is a good idea, but your Wednesday and Thursday will not present many interesting things to do.
If the options above are out of your price range, the GDC has other activities going on almost every day. For example, you could get only the Conference pass and go to the game accessibility on Monday (a separate event with its own passes). Check to find opportunities like these.
Similarly, you could get the indie specialty pass and simply do other GDC-related activities on Wednesday through Friday. You can always meet game developers on the public spaces of the conference.
Passes that do not include a full week's worth of content:
The GDC has a and several . We highly recommend all of these programs as they come with additional perks and networking opportunities.
Last but not least, the ETBD department offers a that helps to cover the costs of one student to attend the GDC.
The that helps to cover the costs of one student to attend the GDC. However, aside from the ETBD GDC scholarship, students can apply for the program, the , and . We highly recommend all of these programs, as they come with additional perks and networking opportunities.
The dress code at the GDC is very casual. It does not hurt to dress up a little bit, but there is no reason to wear anything that is very formal, such as a suit. You will see people at the conference in all sorts of attire. Just wear clean, comfortable clothes that are not potentially offensive to someone. It is always a good idea to dress in layers so you can adjust your clothing for different temperatures.
You want a clean document that excels at conveying what you can bring to a company. List the games you have made, and add your specific contribution to each game. For example:
List all relevant work experience, your academic achievements, your relevant hobbies, etc. Try to indicate a measure of success wherever you can. Indicate how many downloads your game generated, or which awards it won.
Finally, add a link to a digital portfolio at the beginning of your resume, in the area where you list your contact information. Make sure the digital portfolio is easy to navigate, that it emphasizes your best work, and that it will make an impact in a short amount of time.
We have had good experiences with in the past for business cards, and they have some nice templates you could use.
Make sure that the business card allows someone to contact you. If it would help them remember you, that is even better. A picture or cool graphic could help. We recommend cards that fit a regular wallet well. Avoid anything with folds or pop-outs.
Finding game developers is very easy. As soon as you are at the conference or one of its evening events, you will literally be surrounded by hundreds of them.
Your next step is to talk to people. It can be scary to "network" if you are not used to doing it, so we recommend that you Google some online. If you are an person, it is a good idea to add that to your search query as well.
Don't overthink your opening. There are hundreds of ways to start a conversation with someone. Introducing yourself is an easy way to do it. Asking someone to play a game you made is another one. Commenting on their shirt, the event, a speaker, the weather, etc. are all good ways. It honestly does not matter much what you say or how you say it. Just pretend that you have known the person that you just met for years, and start with a little bit of small talk.
As soon as you have made the introduction, ask them open questions (i.e., questions that start with 'why', 'how', 'what', 'describe', 'tell me about', or 'what do you think about' and that require people to share an opinion or a meaningful story.) For example:
If the person seems to be unwilling to talk with you, you can always try to follow up with a closed question before trying with an open question again. For example:
Remember that your goal is to build up a professional relationship. You are looking to establish a sense of camaraderie, communality or kinship between you and your conversation partner. From there, you can work towards building trust and collaborations.
Once you feel that the conversation is over, exchange some form of contact information, whether it is a business card, Twitter handle, or an email address. There is no point in playing the networking game if you are not going to stay in touch.
After the conference, go through all the business cards you accumulated and send a nice, short email to the people you would like to know better. Some lines you could put in there are:
Professionalism is the key word.
San Francisco is by no means a very safe city so here are a few things to keep in mind:
The conference itself is quite safe, and the same can be said of the evening events we have gone to in the past. For example, the Venus Patrol and Wild Rumpus party have a safe spaces policy. The parties do tend to be crowded, but there are often places where you can sit down or hang out as a group, too.
GDC does not always have online components, but sometimes there are online events. During the pandemic the entire conference was online. Going to an online conference is a little different from attending an offline one, so here are our recommendations on how to prepare.
Yes, you can: