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This is so much better than what GDC is today. All these talks are practical talks that will teach you how to do things. Even though they are 24 years old, many

This is so much better than what GDC is today. All these talks are practical talks that will teach you how to do things. Even though they are 24 years old, many of them are still relevant. GDC today is all about advocacy, business talks and developers behind big name titles sharing platitudes. My first GDC was in 2000, and I go every year, but in the last few years i don't bother with any of the talks, and just hang out with friends.

MattRix 3y ago
There are still lots of good tech and design talks, it’s just that as you get older and more experienced, your standards for what is interesting and worth your time get more strict.
- hesdeadjim 3y ago
  I agree. I've been going since 2010 and it's much harder to hear something new -- and I don't feel it's conference quality. The biggest challenge for an attendee is the roll of the dice if the talk you go to will be quality. This year, anything with the word "AI" in it was basically garbage talks with companies posturing and hand waving about how they will use LLMs/etc. My expectation when I go to GDC is that if I leave with three insights I wouldn't otherwise have had, it was worth the cost.
- quelsolaar 3y ago
  I really wish that was true.
georgeecollins 3y ago
The talks were good because we needed them. Just imagine what it was like in the '90s. There were almost no books written about game development and only one or two were any good. Everybody had Understanding Comics and maybe sometime Design of Everday Things because they were useful. In 1995 I read a bunch of post mortems and design docs from Activision and Infocom to learn what to do. And being more experienced I would realize even that was a little silly. The head of QA says we didn't test enough, the programmer (they didn't really always have leads) would say we need to re-engineer.. etc. Now there are lots of good books, classes. Enjoy!

MattRix 3y ago

There are still lots of good tech and design talks, it’s just that as you get older and more experienced, your standards for what is interesting and worth your time get more strict.

hesdeadjim 3y ago
I agree. I've been going since 2010 and it's much harder to hear something new -- and I don't feel it's conference quality. The biggest challenge for an attendee is the roll of the dice if the talk you go to will be quality. This year, anything with the word "AI" in it was basically garbage talks with companies posturing and hand waving about how they will use LLMs/etc. My expectation when I go to GDC is that if I leave with three insights I wouldn't otherwise have had, it was worth the cost.
quelsolaar 3y ago
I really wish that was true.

georgeecollins 3y ago

The talks were good because we needed them. Just imagine what it was like in the '90s. There were almost no books written about game development and only one or two were any good. Everybody had Understanding Comics and maybe sometime Design of Everday Things because they were useful. In 1995 I read a bunch of post mortems and design docs from Activision and Infocom to learn what to do. And being more experienced I would realize even that was a little silly. The head of QA says we didn't test enough, the programmer (they didn't really always have leads) would say we need to re-engineer.. etc. Now there are lots of good books, classes. Enjoy!