Three Unique Observations - GDC ‘16

Post date: Mar 23, 2016 7:58:58 PM

Three Unique Observations - GDC ‘16

Sterling Quinn

As I traveled to and around GDC, I took notes on everything I experienced along my trip. From the eleven pages of notes garnered, I created the following three UO’s for GDC. Please enjoy!

Observation 1: Your alternative lifestyle is shit, SF.

Good christ, what the hell happened to this city!? Four years ago, I attended a pre-college program at Academy of Art University in downtown SF. I lived a couple buildings off of Union Square for about six weeks traveling freely in and around the city and it was never like this.

Firstly, the homeless. Good god, the homeless. It was a common sight to see homeless people casually shooting up heroin at all times of the day right on the sidewalk. This (I’m sure among MANY other things) would lead to the common sight of disgruntled people wandering aimlessly in the middle of the main streets waving their hands and shouting at everything that moved or didn’t. Also loudly banging on the back of cars driving by and my own on occasion. Classy move guys, you pull that with every car you meet?

Everywhere I went downtown, I wafted the same constant smell: A perfect smoothie blend of piss and weed. I asked an Uber driver what the deal was and apparently SF uses tax money to pay for all the homeless food and clothing free of charge. This, of course, leads to homelessness being a livable way of life and not something to particularly avoid.

I saw a few men who laid out a bunch of tattered DVD cases and random assortments of purses and clothing right on the sidewalk of Market Street that I am certain were not procured through proper channels. Just, you know, right there on one of the central avenues of the city. Right in the downtown area.

The light just turned green. Good luck.

Next, when driving around SF, every intersection is a new adventure. This is neither a good nor safe thing.

I have seen first-time Sim City players with more roadway finesse. Someone really, REALLY, BORDERLINE SEXUALLY, loves the SHIT out of the One Way sign.

Okay, SF’s city planning is laid out in a typical city grid fashion… consisting almost entirely of One Way streets. That’s a challenge level, not a city design!

When an Uber driver avoids whole streets (excluding Lombard) due to rule clusterfucks, you have a very serious problem. If you’re an Uber driver in SF, you’re getting five stars, hot-damn!

Bill Cosby was right about one thing, “The hills of San Francisco are probably the worst hills in the world to build a city around, in, or on!"

It seems that SF is trying so hard to be the premiere, alternative, liberal, hipster-city it is widely known for that it’s infrastructure is imploding.

*Sigh..* I need to escape from this city.. *Cue the music*

Observation 2: Attending GDC isn’t needed to attend GDC.

The convention is divided into three buildings: The Showroom, the Talk Hall, and the Career Suite, which has no wi-fi. (What dumbs arranged that one?)

The Showroom is basically a gimmick-of-the-month-centered E3. This time everyone and their mother is toting the latest hit VG-tech drug: VR.

Because major publishers don’t want to be left behind the Nintendo Wii gimmick train twice, the main contenders are Microsoft, ($3000 apiece) Sony, ($500 apiece) patient zero Oculus, ($600) and Google with a piece of cardboard. ($15 apiece)

I was a bit surprised to see Google shelling out for a medium-sized booth at the event. Like, they were really putting the time and munnies into showing off this thing. Frankly, it is the best contender for VR in the commercial space that isn’t a faddy gimmick for three reasons: It is (shockingly) VERY reasonably priced, the tech is free, and phones are only going to get more and more powerful. Ideally, I’d love to see a world where you can stream PS4 or XBone1 titles to your phone and play with a controller hooked up a-la Athena-style.

The only real issues I see are the battery and the required wireless connection, but you could just tape a $30 USB battery pack from Best Buy to the front, clip up the cord, and it would still be smaller than the competition. (Also, it would make you look like a badass 80’s hacking god. I hear it goes well with time traveling DeLoreans…) For wi-fi, besides avoiding the career floor.. ...hope you’re near a Starbucks..?

Still, a major downswing keeping the entire VR idea back is that you can’t see where you are in actual space. I bumped into more people and things than a steel ball in a pinball machine. At this point, I’m just waiting for the first news story saying someone died stupidly because they were using VR.

However, all of this information could easily be gathered by simply looking up each VR contender online. Also, the show floor updates are fully covered by the press making actually going there to look at things pointless unless you’re Richie Rich.

So, if not the Showroom, how about the Talk Hall? Again, covered online. Hell, GDC archives all of the footage of the talks themselves in a thing called The GDC Vault. The bad news about the vault is they keep a lot of it all locked up unless you pay for the service. This leaves you with two options: 1) Shell out yet more munnies to get on Vault-Tec’s VIP list or 2) Simply look them up on Gamasutra.

Lastly the career center, the reason I came to GDC at all, was akin to a Vegas slot machine. It’s just more of your typical fake, over-enthusiastic greetings followed by, “Make sure to apply online!” and maybe shelling out a business card or two. Even what I considered to be my most promising leads simply amounted to this.

Honestly though, since Disneyland, it was the greatest real-life waiting-in-line simulator I have ever experienced. Definitely more immersive than VR, no ride payoff though. Needs more wi-fi and water. 2/10 - IGN.

Observation 3: Awkward laughter and plastic beer cups.

My best times at GDC were not because of anything related to Ringling but rather due to jobs and experiences I had gotten on my own dime. Most notably, from my previous summer job at iD Tech and that is only because I was lucky enough to run into former co-workers at the Zynga after-party. (At the old Sega building from the 90’s! Oh-ho!)

Bringing clarity to the phase, “Oh how the mighty hath fallen” since the 90’s.

This is about where I had a second-wind realization about the strength-in-numbers rule. I found it real odd that people I’d consider proper adults suddenly wanted to connect with us and learn who we were, business cards and all. Lucky for us, maybe it wasn’t readily apparent we were all just a bunch of broke, jobless college students. It’s also when I realized that GDC is absolutely no fun alone. I was more successful in gaining leads around others than any time I had to go at it alone. The strength-in-numbers rule is way more prevalent than it ever should be at GDC. It’s funny how not one GDC guide, Ringling or otherwise, mentioned this at all.

Lastly, here are some GDC tips I wrote while reflecting on the flight back:

Quinn's Grand Rules For GDC:

- DO NOT go alone. At this event, the rule of strength in numbers is in full effect. Months in advance, lock down and confirm four other people to your party and plan a route of the events and venues that satisfies everyone's goals and needs. This will make you and your cohorts appear to be a dev team and will astronomically increase your appeared respectability and thus, the likelihood that people will come up to you rather than the awkward other way around.

- The odds are in your favor that security at non-invite only after parties aren’t gonna check whether or not you were actually invited. I got into the WB Games after party simply by saying confidentially to the gatekeeper, "Oh, we were invited." The strength in numbers rule is in full effect here too: You and your cohorts will look like a dev team that was invited word of mouth. And what, are they really gonna turn away five people in a group? (The odds say probably not)

- Take food breaks early and often. There is a Walgreens on nearly every block. Find one and stick to it. Walgreens in SF are not your typical Walgreens. They have anything and everything you'll possibly need during your stay. (Including daily fresh Onigiri! Though hustle, that stuff vanishes quick!) Abuse them frequently.

- DO NOT drive a car in SF. In fact, don't use anything that will require you to navigate around the city streets except your legs and the Uber app. Besides traveling to GDC alone, this is the worst possible thing you can do. SF's city planning is laid out in a gridded system consisting almost entirely of One Way streets. Unless you want to spend 2+ hours trying to make a left turn wondering where it all went wrong, Uber EVERYWHERE.

If you want, feel free leave a comment! Would be nice to interact with some of you guys since we’ve been working next to each other for the past four years. Remember: Don’t be a dick ‘cause that’s just wack, yo!