Game Developer's Conference

This week, I'm in beautiful San Francisco, California.  I'm here to attend the annual Game Developers Conference.  This is the largest annual gathering of people involved in making videogames.  This year's attendance should be around 20,000.  The conference is a combination of seminars, presentations, meetings and the typical trade show expo area.

The exterior of the SF Moscone Center - this was the 25th anniversary of the conference

Next door to the convention was the Apple press conference for the iPad 2

The show itself was amazing.  The expo floor was packed with attendees - it appears that the economy must be getting better, with the increased attendance.  Here's a quick 360-degree view of the center of the show:

We saw Google show up for the first time at GDC.  They are trying to get game developers to support Android phones and tablets:

Nintendo was there - showing off their latest handheld gaming system.  Labeled the "3DS", it can display 3D images without using the glasses that you normally wear at movie theaters.  Granted, the screen is only about 3 inches...but it will be interesting to see how the public responds:

The booth for my company looked good.  It cost me a bunch of money for 1,500 square feet, but it was a good way to show our technology and meet with a large number of game developers:

We showed an amazing game system that lets you play on five screens at once ; )

This was the side of our booth - a giant display with a racing game image

Another booth, near ours, had a showcase of the latest "independent games" - these are developed by small teams, mostly coming from universities.  Awards are given for the most creative.  The teams may even be offered jobs at one of the larger gaming companies.

Lots of folks were interested in the latest games...

My day is spent in press interviews with reporters from the gaming magazines & websites.  In addition, I'm meeting with several game developer teams.  We're talking about the latest technology available from my company, and how we can work together to bring that technology into the next generation of games. At times, this is a really, really fun job.

I finish the show tomorrow and get to return home to my family!