What am I doing at GDC?

Ok there is just so much going on right now, that I am not going to be able to write any more until the conference is over, but I am taking notes on most everything I am doing.  Look for some pretty exhaustive coverage once the conference is over and I get a chance to reflect and write.

Arrival at GDC ’08

I arrived in San Francisco this evening and ran through rainy streets to grab my conference materials. I didn’t realize that the IGDA (International Game Developer Association) party was tonight… so much for relaxing and getting ready for the conference. I ran into Brenda and Ian tonight and it was great to see them again. They both want me to come join them in Academia. Though I think I’d enjoy teaching, I don’t think I’d want to begin to navigate the political landscape involved that I hear so many gripes about.

What is GDC?

Note: This blog post falls under multiple categories, and while one of those is “Main Content”, I don’t plan to split it up into multiple descriptions. I kept it pretty basic though.

GDC is the Game Developers Conference. It is the main annual industry event for game developers. There are many other conferences devoted to games, and there are other “chapters” of this conference that happen in other places around the world (Austin, Europe, and Tokyo), however I recognize this as the most important one for the Western World. It is a five day conference, but the main conference and expo happen during the last three days of it. The first two days are for full day instructional tutorials. I have never been to them because they almost double the cost of attending the conference and generally don’t seem like they would “double” the overall experience. There are also smaller parallel conferences that happen at the same time for the sub-industries: mobile games, casual games, and serious games.

Growing Anticipation For GDC ’08

The Game Developer Conference (GDC) starts in a few days now, and I have been doing a lot to get ready for it. I made business cards, contacted everyone I know that I think might be there too, and have been working on content for my blog. My goals for this year’s convention in order of priority are as follows:

1. Find out what is going on with the game development landscape.
2. Be inspired and regain some excitement about my
   career and making games.
3. Reconnect with friends and colleagues that I already know.
4. Learn about new directions and techniques in programming,
   as well as information about becoming a consultant.
5. Explore job opportunities
6. Network and meet new people

I am paying my own way for GDC this year, so it allows me more room with regards for how I spend my time here. I decided to go in November while I was still working at Mad Doc, even though they were not going to sponsor me beyond three days of vacation time. These were my original goals, and though my income has changed, my underlying reasons for going had not.

Demystifying how a computer works.

“After you press power, before you open up Word.”

This is a relatively short coverage of how a computer works intended to be understood by someone that knows what a computer is and how to use basic applications. The goal here is to explain to someone that uses a computer what all is going down inside that magical box on their desk.

consulting – follow up

Another product of my meeting with Eric was learning about a neat little program called RSS bandit<link>. Up until now I had been reading my customized news and RSS feeds on my “My Yahoo!” page. This program is a lot more versatile and lays everything out like an outlook inbox making news a lot easier to skim though.

To Consult Or Not To Consult?

I went to meet with my friend Eric today to learn about his experience with consulting. We used to work together at Cyberlore. When Cyberlore shut down, many of my former coworkers moved away because there were not any other game companies in Western Massachusetts. Eric however, managed to stay behind and set himself up doing consulting work.

New Computer!

I ordered the parts for my new computer today. My last one (name: orion) got sick and died. I tried for weeks to save it, but after several recovery attempts and system wipes, and eventually replacing both motherboard and hard-drive I gave up and started using my laptop (pauline) as my main machine.

Here are the specs for my new machine (ookie):
Motherboard:
>>ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP
Processor:
>>Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Memory:
>>GeIL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800
Power Supply:
>>OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W

I hope they get here soon. I am really excited about this new 8400 processor. It’s supposed to be slightly faster than the 6850, cost quite a bit less, and run cooler using the 45nm technology.

Why I don’t like “dummy” books.

“They begin with the presumption that people are stupid and that this is the best book to explain things to them as if they have no background on the subject. Neither of these things are true.”

News: first content post

I published my first piece of content yesterday on source control.  It was a lot of fun thinking up different ways to explain it to people with different backgrounds.  I have a bunch of good ideas about other things to write about.  Next I’d like to take a step back, and try to explain how computer hardware works as if I were explaining it to one of my friends that does not really know much about what I do.