San Francisco, CA-Part 2

Day 2 of my week in San Francisco begins at a summit called GamesBeat 2009.  This is a small (250) group of game industry folks that are coming together on a variety of topics.

These include: venture-capital funding of games, emerging technologies, future of mainstream gaming...I could go on and on.  This is the first time that this particular summit has taken place.  I think it's a worthwhile experience.  This gathering is typical of what's happened to the Game Developers Conference.  Since everyone in the industry is in town...everyone tries to hold just about every kind of meeting/gathering possible.  

There are no fewer than 10 sub-conferences going on at the same time as the overall GDC.   I couldn't even list all the parties, dinners and "open house" type of things going on.  I'm getting tired just thinking about it ; )

I will say this - I had a chance to look at a new online game called FreeRealms.  This comes from Sony.  It's really designed to be a FAMILY GAME.  

Think of a World of Warcraft type of game, but something that everyone in the family can play together.  I think it's a really, really interesting project.  It should appeal to "tweens" in a major way. I'm going to try it out when I get back home.  Let me know if you're interested in this and I'll send you more info.

The weather here has been FANTASTIC.  The conference has been held on the new UCSF Mission Bay campus:

I grew up here in the San Francisco Bay Area and it's always fun to come back.  I'm quite nostalgic about the weather.  Having just experienced a brutal winter in New England, this is great.  In fact, during the conference today - a fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building.  We were forced to stand outside in wonderful weather.  What a treat!

The actual GDC starts tomorrow!  Bring on the meetings!