Last week, I attended my first Game Developers Convention (GDC). It was also, with the exception of IndieCade, my first game developers’ convention of any kind. GDC is… it’s big.
Worldcon? Tiny in comparison. Like 6,000 people go to Worldcon. 28,000 people attended GDC last year. That’s about the population of Shaker Heights, Ohio. A few hundred less than Kent, Ohio.
Only 10,000 people went to Pennsic last year. Y’all… this con was more than two Pennsics!! That brings it home to me more than the cities.
So that’s the first point and my first impression– I was not prepared for how huge this event was.
I made my step-count goals every damn day.
Imposter Syndrome: Radioactive Bonus Level Unlocked.
I’ve been a developer for years. I can proudly say I have sold a game! Okay it was interactive fiction. Okay I mostly do web stuff. Okay my degree isn’t in computer science okay… I have imposter syndrome. Now I was in a convention center full of people who MADE THINGS THEY ADVERTISE BEFORE MOVIES.
And okay sure lots of people more like me. Actually, if I had a shot of whisky for every person who said “I’m a developer… well, not really… I mean… mostly web dev…” I’d have been steadily drunk all week and not nearly so self-conscious.
People warned me there would be few women to men. As usual, this was wrong. I continue to contend that we simply fail to count women. I had half a mind to take random photos of the expo floor and cut up sections of the convention for a genuine statistical analysis of numbers of female-presenting verses male-presenting verses non-comforming… but who had time??
Point is: They was ladies aplenty, and lines at the ladies’ rooms, sorry to disappoint. Though most of the restrooms were non-gendered.
I’m not saying it was a perfect representative of the population… and I could have stood to see more ethnic diversity too… but it was far from the Bro-magheddon I was warned about.
The only slightly trying thing was how many people approached our booth, looked from Brian to me and said, “So he’s the programmer and you do the art?”
Thanks, I was feeling insecure about how little I’ve done on the game compared to my husband. No, I do not art.
The Women In Gaming Mixer was… also huge. And well beswagged with eager companies looking to recruit and zomg the food. Humbling, extraordinary women all over the dang place! Super welcoming and encouraging.
What I wish I had known prior to GDC: Do not go get breakfast, lunch, nor dinner. You will be able to graze gratis wherever you end up. If worse comes to worse, Unreal has cookies and popcorn on the Expo floor.
I took four pages of notes on things to improve or fix in Tinselfly and otherwise the only thing I had written that entire week was a two-sentence diary entry acknowledging I had arrived at the conference and wondering how I should edit this one story, which I have yet to get to editing.
I spent my lunch breaks yesterday and the day before working on Tinselfly. I’m new-obsessed. It’s going to take a while for me to balance my writing work back in. I hope I can. I have two stories I feel are ready to send out to market, plus 18 out in the slush piles now. Balancing writer-guilt with programmer-guilt and the looming deadline of NEXT YEAR WE LAUNCH THE GAME.
… I’m only just realizing how very much this will negatively impact time for other projects for the next year. Next two years, even. We’ll likely spend 2020 bug-fixing and promotion-touring.
So… the state of the writer is… dazzled. But determined. I will revise one story and get it out to market this month! Or you may all pelt me with small stuffed animals.
