GDC Observations (Jasleen Rehsi)

Post date: Apr 06, 2019 5:1:27 AM

Observation 1: Talking to students from SCAD and visiting showcase booths from other art schools offered perspective on how other colleges approach their curriculum and what competition we as students are up against. It was interesting to see how their coursework is geared towards specialization, leading to much larger teams for thesis. At the same time, it seemed like their projects were more geared towards gameplay, but more often fell short on visual sophistication. Generally speaking, booths at Alt-Ctrl and GDC play had very clear crowd numbers based on the visual appeal and amount of interactivity in their space, regardless of content.

Observation 2: From attending the alumni mixer to different talks held by industry professionals, I feel more aware of how large the competition pool is, yet how niche the industry actually is. Nearly every nametag I read on a passing glance was from a studio or company I recognized, which added relevancy to the career pool and also made the idea of working for a relatively known studio more plausible. I met a few faces that I knew only by name, such as the first industry professional I ever interviewed, my internship recruitment coordinator, and an intern I am to be working with over the summer, and everyone somehow knows everyone based on some of the conversations I’ve had. This reinforced the importance of maintaining good relationships with peers and professionals. On the plus side as well, having a few prior connections or conversations with people from GDC was definitely a confidence booster at the event, so I'd definitely reach out to more people in the future to meet up on the Expo floor.

Observation 3: Attended a pitch demonstration from five independent developers seeking backers to finish their projects. It was a small venue with three professional judges, where each presenter was given five minutes to sell their pitch with supporting art, video, and graphics. It felt like our thesis pitch presentations taken to a much higher level, and the same presentation concerns existed with conveying information efficiently and purposefully. The biggest takeaway from this was the excellent criticism from the judges, addressing issues like production timing, localization, market price, market appeal, creative spelling and immediate recognition, which were subjects rarely addressed in our own curriculum. Getting a taste of some of those higher level concerns provided some insight on game production, and the harsh critique on visuals and clarity made it easy to learn from others’ mistakes. Even at a professional level, some presenters lacked professionalism when receiving critique, which was quite embarrassing.

Observation 4: Attending the burnout talk was packed, as it seems a pretty common problem afflicting artists. Combining attributes and testimonials to clarify what burnout is and how damaging it can be was clarifying to see. In the end run, the industry professionals seemed to emphasize the importance of working in an environment you enjoy with people you get along with, at least if ever trying to justify taking a lower salary or a bigger sacrifice. Kind of a side note, but when asked who were introverts or not, the entire room raised their hand, which is interesting as kind of a statistic.

I need to learn how to plan in advance. I kept missing talks and mixers that would have been beneficial (being 21 would have alleviated some of that), and a lot of the talks I wanted to attend were specific to the conference pass and up. The less attended talks felt more intimate, however, and it became easier to talk with other people under those circumstances. I talked with a programmer, and it seemed like in general the artist pool was fairly small in comparison to the management side and programmers swarming around the expo floor. There was also a huge proportion of men throughout the event, which affirmed some old curiosities about the current gender balance in the industry.