Tudy Gallahan - GDC Day-by-Day and Summary

Post date: Mar 15, 2015 10:19:38 PM

                GDC was…. Eventful, to say the least! I arrived on Sunday in order to scope out San Francisco and the Moscone center, and I think it was worth it, seeing as a lot of people said that their time at GDC felt rushed. Mine felt like it lasted forever, and the awful pain in my legs (I think I definitely pulled a muscle?... Anyways) is definite proof of that. All I can say is thank God spring break took place right after because I probably would’ve died in class the next week.

                I guess as an overall address of how the conference was… Was INCREDIBLY eye-opening. There were so many myths about the game industry that I’d been fostering for pretty much my whole life that got abolished at GDC. Good, and Bad. For example, the myth that you HAVE to work triple A or you have to work at a good company to get hired at a notable place to even think of entering the game industry. Wrong. I mean, anyone could tell you that’s not true, right? However, without much solid proof, it was hard to believe. But most people I talked to all expressed that you don’t necessarily have to join up with a big company (InfinityWard, Blizzard etc) to have a future. I met and casually chatted with employees of Riot, Blizzard, Obsidian, and more, all from different disciplines, about how they started doing freelance, or programmed their own games after school, or were brought up in a startup. Also- a lot of people’s stories involved… repetitive failures. Which is incredibly inspiring to me, seeing as I fail at things all the time. Learning how to cope with those failures is an important tool, and seems to have brought success to a lot of kind people who gave me the time of day. I hope that one day I can return the favor for other people entering the game industry, if I do end up getting a position in it.

                …Which is my Segway into explaining a developmental change that occurred to me after walking around the GDC career fair. After having my portfolio reviewed by High Voltage, and briefly “glanced” over by Gree and Nexon employees, most of the response I got was “we’re not looking for someone like you…” or “we don’t need a stylized artist right now,” which can really bum you out, especially if you’re scared to death about staying strong with your choice to be a stylized artist. However, the marketing director of BluBox Games reviewed my portfolio and said he’d love to get me in contact with his art director and thought that I’d be a perfect fit in the company’s “style”. What is BluBox proficient at?... Stylized Mobile games. They employ artists and animators from Pixar and Dreamworks just to get that ideal high-end cartoony style that Mr. Vasconcellos (the Director of Marketing) told me about. That’s when it hit me: if I wanted in on the game industry, my likely path was through either Mobile or Independent development. That way, I could do the style of art I loved to do, and not have to cater to a company’s specific (and sometimes random) needs. And who knows, on the side, I could potentially explore other mediums and options for whatever style I want to pursue next. In conclusion, I felt like the review (and potential job offer!) with BluBox opened a lot of doors for me, leaving the doors at other triple A studios only “half closed”.

                Another key thing that I learned is to make connections with people regardless of which company they’re from. A lot of the people I became good friends with and connected with on LinkedIn… Were from companies I would’ve never been interested in in the first place, based on the work they create. When I was sitting in the Playstation Lounge on Thursday Afternoon, I had just finished talking to a plethora of Blizzard Headhunters, a few Riot Employees, and some talented peers. I decided to try playing Order, which I failed at miserably, when someone sitting on the couch perpendicular to mine pointed out my Wildstar Online shirt. They asked me if I was an “ex-carbine” dev, which happens to be one of my favorite studios because of the game they produce. I said no, more like “I wish”. We then went on to talk about Wildstar as a game and I figured out that we played on the same server. Eventually, we introduced ourselves (late into the conversation), and it turns out the guy I was talking to was a programmer at Obsidian. Obsidian is a studio I enjoy the games of, but don’t think I fit the style of. After talking, he said he’d gladly introduce me to the recruiting officer and mentioned that there might be some projects in the future that call for a specific style. This, to me, was freaking awesome to hear. It also proved that just making friends with people based on interest and proving that you’re a cool person to hang out/work with can present you with tons of opportunities. Fishing directly for them may not always be the right way to go about it, especially in places like parties or lounges. I think it’s important to work on relaxing and showing you’re a good person to work with as well as having a good resume or portfolio. References count!

Pin Points of Each Day:

Monday

• ·         Woke up at 6am bright and early

• ·         Amazed by the crazy view from our hotel lounge

• ·         Got badges

• ·         Played a bunch of games at the Xbox Lounge, met some devs, may or may not of sold my soul to some games pending release (too much fun)

• ·         Went to the Indie Megabooth, met some cool people, then hung out at Mild Rumpus (small gathering of indie developers with innovative game designs) and networked with some peers and the devs of “Night in the Woods”- an awesome sidescroller indie game with fantastic writing.

• ·         Went to a GDC newbie party hosted by Peter Lovell, Talen Acquistion head at Jagex studios. Met a lot of cool and interesting peers, as well as a programmer with similar interests as mine. We’ve been talking about maybe creating a small game together. More news soon. +++Networking achievement get!

• ·         Spent the rest of the evening at Japantown, took a TON of reference photo. The architecture there is incredible. As well as the food.

• • Just look at that View!!

• • • Dat Badge

• • • • Xbox Lounge!

• • • • • Ori! Awesome game with a great art style!

• • • • • • Japantown... Great architecture.

Tuesday

• ·         Woke up slightly later today (too much fun yesterday) at 9am.

• ·         Still amazed by the view from our Hotel

• ·         Went to a special exhibition at the Cartoon Art Museum for “Song of the Sea”, a movie created by Cartoon Saloon, which is an animation studio based in Ireland that I have admired for a long time. (Both of their major films have  been nominated for academy awards) They had original artworks, concept sketches, and more on display. Was incredibly inspiring.

• ·         Saw the Video Game Museum (massive collection of old Atari games)

• • Cartoon Museum! 

• • • Bigger shot of the display of The Cartoon Saloon exhibit.

• • • • Look at all of these old... things.

• • • • • This is relevant to my thesis, right?...

Wednesday

• ·         CAREER CENTER OPENED!

• ·         Met up with Nexon, Gree, Glu, High Voltage, Sony, BluBox, Blizzard Headhunters, and more recruiters.

• ·         EXPO CENTER OPENED!!

• ·         Hung out at the Ringling Booth. Watched the GDC reel several times. Song got stuck in head. Cursed forever.

• ·         After touring the Career and Expo center for a while, went to the Polycount and Marmoset meetup. Met a freelance character Artist who worked on some Ratchet and Clank characters and got to see them… Also learned that Insomniac is STILL working on ratchet and clank games, but with mainly freelance work. Hooray! Also met a lot of talented peers and nice people. Talked with some other people who entered the Blizzard Art Contest and didn’t win. There were a lot of entries, apparently.

• ·         Went home briefly and then made my way to the LGBT Meetup Party hosted by some Riot Employees. Very chill, but at an extremely sketchy gay bar. Met a lot of nice people but nobody incredibly notable as I left after about an hour.

• ·         Went to the big kahuna- the EPIC GAMES party. Stayed there until 1am, which was a big mistake. 

Expo! Sony's setup!

THE FUTURE OF GAMING.

Dats me!

Epic Party - Crazy long line...

Blizzard Employees get the coolest business cards, of course...

Thursday

• ·         Woke up and got to the Career Center Late, but it was ok.

• ·         Got a Portfolio Review from a senior 3D artist at Blizzard – told me to work on small detail in my textures. Otherwise, said my art is super Overwatch style and that if I work on making my diffuse more complex with PBR I could be all set for creating artwork for that game.

• ·         Met Greg Kinneman, awesome programmer from Obsidian. More on the experience up top.

• ·         Met some nice guys from Rockstar, talked about Wildstar with one of their Lead 3D artists. Apparently he really likes the style of the game as well. And also, apparently Wildstar is a common ground for me and a lot of really talented people…

• ·         Hung out at the Ringling Booth for a while before heading over to the independent games booth, then spotted an ex-Carbine dev on the way out. He loved that I was really into  the game so he introduced me to Mike Donatelli, the current Product Director at Carbine Studios, which is, as I’ve mentioned, one of my favorite studios. They all looked at my portfolio, and even though they weren’t artists, all commented that it looks like the style of things that they see in their studio. I was freaking overjoyed.

Friday

• ·         Wind-down day, spent the entire day walking around the Expo center and testing various new products.

• ·         Got to try out the Unreal Demo for EVE: Valkyrie with the oculus D2. Definitely think this is the new future of games. Was in a cockpit and got to look around, cracks formed and engine smoked when I was dying (which is what I did a lot)

• ·         Tested a VR with 3D audio. Whole point of the game was to focus on points in order to advance forward and discover new things in the environment. Had a lot of fun with this one because the environment was incredibly stylized, got the name of the studio that created the game and followed them on LinkedIn.

• ·         Tested some facebook games, learned more about a small independent company that makes a game similar to Farmville. Further inspired to pursue the mobile industry.

Bye, San Fran...

Knowing me, more things will probably occur to me as the week goes on, so I will continue to update this with relevant information in the future. Thanks for reading!