Game Developers Conference 2015

Registration is now open for the 2015 Game Developers Conference (GDC) www.gdconf.com. It's always exciting, it's one of the first conferences of the year for digital content creators.

Every year the line between film and gaming gets more blurred. Gaming has become a great medium for storytelling and the new devices are starting to rival film in quality.

Conferences overall seem to be in decline. It's so expensive for companies to attend, that many of the larger companies can put on their own event to show off their new products. Especially with services like livestream they can live broadcast. So they aren't seeing the return on the investment at some of these conferences. So I understand why they are cutting back.

I find it sad. There's an excitement and energy of a conference that you don't quite get with the streaming events. I always meet people that I never would have otherwise, and get really motivated and excited to get back to work. Those things have a  value that is hard to quantify. Some of the larger companies put a lot of work into their presentation, which is really just another way of storytelling. Even if it's not a product that I would initially be interested in, if the presentation is good, it will grab my attention.

Fortunately, the conferences around content creation still seem to be doing ok. Not as big as in the past, but still fairly well attended. It does give a person a feel for the industry, especially in the job fair areas.

Even though it's a little early for closing out this year, its fun the start thinking about next year. It's looking to be an exciting year.

Oh, one more thing about conferences, the Swag!