GDC/SAN FRANCISCO

From April 19-22, I attended my first "work conference" called GDC or the Game Developers Conference. Approximately 20,000 nerdonauts who all work in or around video games descend on San Francisco for lectures, info sessions and job fairs for three full days of gaming goodness. I took part in the following sessions:

***Building a Successful Production Process
***A Future Wide Open - Unleashing the Creative Community
***Production: Basics & Beyond
***The Future of Story in Game Design
***Bioshock: Audio Post Mortem
***The Future of Animation is Games
***An Agile Retrospective
***Music in Video Games: Surpassing the Scope of Film Scores
***Building a Better Design Doc

I also spent the weekend with my good friends ADAM & JEN, having never been to San Francisco, I took the opportunity to stay a few days and see everything I could including: Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, Coit Tower, the Presidio, Chinatown, the Palace of Fine Arts, Haight & Ashbury, Union Square, the Transamerica building, Lombard Street, Marin County and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a lot of fun and even though the weather was absolute crap, I still got a good idea of what the city is like. I also ate at some amazing places throughout this adventure, in fact it's fair to say that I never had a disappointing meal once. I hit: LULU, LE CHARM, NEW DELHI, COLIBRI, POMELO, HOUSE OF NANKING, FOG CITY DINER and FIREFLY! Great eats all around but Best in Show goes to House of Nanking for being the best Chinese Food ever. A big shout out to Adam & Jen for being such gracious hosts and for carting me around the city to show me the goods.

So now that it's all said and done, what do I think of GDC and San Fran? Well GDC is a great experience, good information sharing and gathering, plus it's great to see some old colleagues from jobs past. One the downside, sometimes I felt that the lectures were too high level and never really got into the meat of topics. Also if you are ever at GDC and see a lecture called "The Future of Animation is Games" stay away, it's a trap. The only lecture I walked out of for being a total waste of time.


As for the city, it's great to see all the sites you always hear about or remember from film & television especially Alcatraz which was my favourite but the city itself seems a bit right down, like everything needs a coat of paint and some handywork. There's a lot of cool history and the neighborhoods (like A&J's Noe Valley) are pretty nice, self contained little sweet spots that you could honestly spend all your time in. The views are spectacular, the people friendly enough and honestly, HOUSE OF NANKING is the best Chinese Food I've ever had, serious, Josh and Adam told me so but I didn't trust them... they were right, it's the bomb! I couldn't believe it... so good.

Now there's two reasons to return to the Streets of San Francisco, Adam & Jen and that kick ass Chinese Food. I'll be back and next time, Michelle is coming with me!

PICS FROM GDC HERE
PICS FROM SAN FRANCISCO HERE