Sarah Lundberg - GDC Experience 2015

Another year at GDC and it was definitely a different experience. Last year I went, the career booth was bustling, and there were multiple art reviews that kept me busy for the three days I was there. This year was vastly different. The Expo floor was still really busy with lots of new things to see, T-shirts to grab and people to meet. The career booth however, was quite a dud. For the few companies that were there, most weren't hiring artists of any sort, or weren't hiring at all but instead promoting their newest game. It took me about a day to go through the career booth before I just headed over to the expo floor. For the companies I did see in the career booth, the majority gave me advice about how to better layout my textures. When visiting Wargaming, they really were impressed with my environments however, since they are a company that primarily makes tanks, planes, and helicopters, they were really interested in tearing apart my Huey, which was necessary. I learned from the alumni that I ran into from Ringling, that 90% of the time, people never got internships or jobs from the career center but instead from people they met around GDC and at parties were you could spend more one on one time with them. So, realizing that the career booth was not worth much of my time, I decided to go on the expo floor the majority of the time.

EXPO FLOOR

Getting to try out the oculus was super cool and definitely worth trying out. The wait outside Epic for getting to try two different 15 minute games (one was Valkyries were you fly around shooting enemy planes in space, the other was based on The Hobbit, where you get to met Smaug and I am guessing retrieve the Arkenstone and escape the mine) was long, but worth the experience. I ended up having time to only try out the Valkyrie game. You start out in this airplane hanger, and once putting on the oculus and earphones, was able to take control and fly around. Since it is virtual, you could move around and literally everywhere you looked, you could see things. The experience of the game was a little dizzying though and as a first time player, was a challenge to understand the controls. I can definitely see the oculus getting momentum (as it did grow from last year) and eventually getting into mainstream games.

Another part about the Expo that was cool this year was this giant rope swinging game. You were able to play with up to three people and your job was to time your swinging movements as you dump dirt (?) or poo into a robots mouth. The more scoops that were consumed the farther you flew in the solar system. It was an odd game but super fun (and a way to escape from all the standing and walking!). I ended up playing with Kevin and Picco and we actually did a really terrible job (only getting to the moon). I dunno if I learned anything from this experience, but it was again taking movement and player experience to a different level which I liked to see at GDC.

Another part about the Expo floor which was really interesting gameplay wise, was getting to try out Fable Legends. The game was so beautiful and moved well playing wise and overall struck me as a game that was different and something I really liked to see. They were doing a tournament where people playing different characters had to best the game designer, who placed obstacles in their path in hopes of killing all the players. This place was packed every time I walked by and while I waited for a chance to play, I ended up getting to meet one of the lead animators who worked on the game. She was so awesome and sweet and coming from Lionhead Studios in England, gave me a lot of good information as a senior about to hit the market.

Overall the expo floor was amazing, getting to see new games coming out, getting to see multiple game studios using the oculus, and excited to see overall development in some of my favorite games such as Terraria. Overall I am glad I spent more time there than I did last year.

NOTES FROM ROUNDTABLE TALK:

GDC Roundtable: IGDA Blacks in the Game Industry (but really about handicap)

Tome House Weston - Speaker

- Give programs to students - to see if it suits students needs

- Getting Older - Font needs to be bigger (not just about subtitles), physical limitations - Experimental games

- We need to address accessibility to everyone. We need to address as fast as possible - limited number of games that can handle (applevis.com)

- audiogames.net - address people who are blind and still interested in games

- Is there an option to put resources in the same location? - for consumers to be viewed

- Look into other resources (speech - saving game history forever (?)) - what attracts people is friction online (movement)

- Blind people want to play games but can't

- Larger companies - Popcap have research departments

- Valve/EA - who are these people driving the force behind research?

- 1/10 men are color blind

- Starting to talk about "issues with color blind" and others. No one is against it but what is the right way to handle it

-Industry is at such an early stage it hasn't handled accessibility issues yet. 

- User research angle (center design)

- More represent of disabled in games

- Encountered barriers in game play, impacts their experiences

- The point is to prioritize - most bang for buck - development followed by accessibility (?)

- Q/A With disabilities testers - make it speciality to allow more jobs open for disabled people

- Really comes down to the issue of money - Charity and non-profit could contribute more to helping people overcome disadvantage in games (ex: kids with leukemia aren't going to be as healthy and qualified, so adjusting games to fit is key)

- We can't address everyone with all different types of disabilities

These were some quick notes I jotted down from the different speakers at the roundtable. As a student already developing disability issues with my hand (though my hand continues to get better), it was really amazing getting to hear from lots of different people with their own opinions on how to address the issues of other consumers desiring to play games without the option of doing so. There were also some key people there, even a guy from Blizzard attended who wanted to promote that some of the bigger companies are aware of the issues with accessibility and are already starting to work towards a goal. 

CRYSTAL DYNAMICS - STUDENT MEET AND GREET

Originally, I actually wasn't supposed to go to this talk. I missed the deadline for submissions when it was posted to our emails. However, rooming with Picco who was invited to a private luncheon during the meet and greet with another company, gave me the option of attending. I was super thrilled because getting to meet the people who worked on the amazing game Tomb Raider was a treat. I got to meet people like Matt, who was hired last year through the same meet and greet. He amongst other artists there reviewed my portfolio and overall loved my work. They all gave us a similar response (all Ringling students). To create an amazing prop that has a storytelling aspect without any poly count or texture restrictions. I am unsure of what I am doing for my second project, but this could be a potential project for the future that targets their company. Learning wise, one of the big pointers they saw in my work was the way I set up my textures. They noticed that they weren't properly laid out and weren't tile-able enough. So, currently I am addressing some of the bigger offenders in my senior thesis.

PARTIES + MEETING OTHER PROFESSIONALS

The rest of my time where I met most of my contacts (I met someone from Bethesda at the Polycount party, recruiters from a starter-up company at the Epic party, and someone from Google at a Sony party that was targeted for programmers). I also got to get into the Insomniac party (makers of Sunset Overdrive) where I met someone who worked for Dreamworks on Kung Fu Panda and get my portfolio reviewed by a lead environment artist at Insomniac. Overall, spent loads of time meeting others and though I had a better time career booth wise last year, felt I met more important people in the industry during this trip to GDC.

Overall, a great experience at GDC. Though I missed out on some amazing talks (they even had one from Laika who talked about the creation of the Boxtrolls one of my favorite movies from 2014) and having the career booth being a dud this year, I still would recommend GDC to any student at Ringling. Getting to step away from our small school is Sarasota and broadening the horizon of opportunity really helps.