GDC is back. The #GDC2024 event is the first we would consider to be at the attendance levels we saw just before the pandemic. Attendees had beautiful weather, a bustling expo hall, and tons of great people to meet and talk shop across Yerba Buena Gardens and beyond.
Mondays are normally lighter warm-up days for the conference, but we experienced quite a busy start with West Hall filled with Community and Biz Dev sessions. Tuesday increased this same activity with Wednesday and Thursday turning up the bustle from hall to hall as the expo floor opened up. Friday is generally a wrap-up day and our flight out of town. Regardless of which days you attended, it is clear to us that GDC is back to its prominent days pre-pandemic.
Even though the conference had a lot of activity and discussions of all sorts, the dominant discussion above all was the poor state of the industry. Everyone we talked to was concerned either about the layoffs or the inability to get funding to hire folks for new projects. It was a depressing talking point for everyone. The industry’s passion won’t be dampened though, as we participated in just as many discussions on how the industry can pull itself up from its bootstraps and move forward.
Thanks to MeetToMatch, Unity, PocketGamer.biz, Xsolla, IGDA Foundation, NVIDIA, and so many more for meeting with us, and of course, Game Developers Conference for their support. Without these great connections and associated industry events, we wouldn’t be able to support the Events for Gamers calendar to the degree that you see it.
Until next year’s GDC 2024, see you at PAX East, Insomnia Gaming Festival, and Dstars to wrap up the month of March.
