Introduction

Since 1988, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco is the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers around the world, focusing on learning, inspiration, and networking. The conference attracts around 12,000 professionals. The event includes an expo, networking events, awards shows such as the Independent Games Festival and the Game Developers Choice Awards, and a variety of tutorials, lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals on game-related topics covering programming, design, audio, production, business and management, and visual arts.

There is something about GDC that serves as an interesting touch point for the ebbs and flows of the videogames industry. Does GDC capture all of the diversity and interesting aspects of the global videogames industry? No, certainly not. While people from around the world attend GDC, it remains very US-centric. There are elements that escape coverage or attention and many developers can't afford to attend. In other cases, aspects are specifically not highlighted by choices made by the event's advisory board. But, there is something important about the pilgrimage that so many game developers make each year to Moscone Center in San Francisco. As such, it continues to serve as an interesting index, or insight, into the various shifts and swells that move the videogames industry.

It is because of this I use GDC as a marker of time's passing in the videogames industry, indeed as an annual event that sort of makes sense. But GDC isn't just about the passage of time. Each year at the event there is something(s) that captivates developers’ imaginations and is further brought out into the light. The event proves as an interesting and important metric by which to judge my own work on the games industry.