Before I started working as a full-time game designer, the only game conference I’d ever heard of was the GDC: Game Developer’s Conference. Back then, it was held in San Jose. That was a cozy little place compared to the sprawl of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, where GDC is now held.
People often ask how to get a job in games, and I often tell them that conferences like GDC are a good introduction. You get to attend roundtables and tutorials and panel discussions with industry people who may later remember that you know Program X or have a great art portfolio or whatever. You also can learn various practical applications for things you were supposed to learn in school from people who are doing the kinds of stuff you want to do.
The downside is that conferences can be expensive. If you’re a starving student (or just plain starving), the fees are sometimes prohibitive and when you add in transportation, food and lodging…well, it can be more than a budget can bear.
Some of these conferences offer scholarships, or at least let volunteers sit in on sessions that occur when you’re not needed to actively do something. If I were broke, that’s how I’d look to attend these conferences. You still have to pay to get there, but once you’re there, a whole new world opens up before you!
Coming up soon are the Vancouver International Game Summit and the ION Game Conference. Fortunately for me, both conferences are in the Pacific Northwest. I may get to be on a design panel at the former, while I can run into various SOE folks including John Smedley as a keynote speaker at the latter.
I love looking at the speaker pages for these conferences. It helps me put faces to names that I’ve seen for years. It also is fun to see my friends as speakers. Friends, mind you, that I would not have made if not for attending my first conference nearly 10 years ago.
In any case, this is my advice to anyone who reads this blog hoping for that inside track towards a gaming job: find a game conference near you! And if you go to one that I’m at, please feel free to say hello! Like most of the folks I know in games, I am often funny in person and don’t bite.
Much.
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