YoIt’s Game Developers Conference week, which means one of two things for those who work in the industry: either you’re lounging in some hotel bar in San Francisco spending $10 a beer; or they are at home, avoiding Twitter to lower the Fomo. GDC has long been the nexus of the games industry, a place where indie developers sign and bankroll their games, coders, artists, and sound designers share the techniques of their trade, and juicy development stories get heard. in the halls of the convention center.
But GDC has long been seen by some as increasingly elitist. To its credit, it partners with many different organizations to offer scholarships and sponsorships to underrepresented developers, but a regular ticket is $1,521 and an all-access pass is $2,204. Then there’s the cost of attending, which is even more prohibitive thanks to San Francisco’s ever-rising prices. Some developers who previously attended GDC every year now say they can’t justify the expense.
“For most of the world, it was never affordable, but their voices were always out of sight,” says indie developer and advocate Rami Ismail, who won’t be attending this year’s event. “Rising prices and the economic downturn have also made it relatively unaffordable for European developers…GDC has become unaffordable even for those who ‘should’ be able to afford it.”
And as Ismail points out, post-Covid, many people now feel that meeting and collaborating without being in the same physical space is possible, and that even when physically together is preferable, it comes with immense costs. “Many people simply visit San Francisco instead of buying GDC tickets, as the hotels and restaurants offer plenty of networking opportunity during the event,” says Ismail. “But the rise of smaller, more focused events around the world is really putting pressure on the ‘one big event’ idea.”
Developers from different backgrounds have long told me that GDC has been vital, especially early in their careers, precisely when people can least afford it. Around 2012, I met a group of young British game creators who banded together and slept like sardines in sleeping bags on the floor of a small hotel room.
If the organizers want to preserve GDC’s reputation as the “de facto nervous system” of the games industry, as Ismail puts it, then it might be time for a change. The Bay Area is the tech hub of the world, home to many studios, but its decades-long stint as the unofficial home of the North American gaming industry may be over. These days, it could be argued that the less ruinously expensive city of Montreal has a better claim: It’s home to Ubisoft, Warner Bros Games, and EA. And some of the accessibility measures introduced during the pandemic, like livestreamed panels and virtual networking sessions, would benefit thousands of people if made permanent.
“For many independent developers, GDC is where they made the connections to finance their first projects, or where they met future collaborators. As the event becomes more inaccessible, that ability to connect is hampered,” says Ismail. “But many still believe that visiting GDC is a necessary step to build a career as an independent game developer or entrepreneur. In that way, it becomes a slowly unraveling but self-fulfilling prophecy.”
what to play
A blast from the past came to Apple Arcade last week in the form of Osmosis+, an old-time classic from the App Store that was first released in 2009. You’re a single-celled organism floating in a microscopic spacescape, you can suck in anything smaller than you, and all you have to do is follow the message at the beginning of each level, like: “Become huge.” What I like about Osmos is that it masquerades as a relaxing game, but it’s actually subtly threatening: you must absorb or be absorbed. It has an unexpected advantage, for a game about round, unspecified blobs.
Available in: iPhone, iPad via Apple Arcade
Approximate playing time: 2-3 hours
what to read
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A rewarding GDC story so far: cart lifea lauded life game about struggling street vendors that drew much praise in 2010 and then disappeared from the internet, has been resurrected. Wired’s story about how this happened is very good.
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Paradox has released a first trailer for a life simulation game called life for you: It’s The Sims, but less funny. No one has really challenged EA’s life-sim giant in the 20+ years of its existence. How come such a successful genre hasn’t had new entrants until now? How have the last 20 years changed what really want of a life simulation game, since living a pleasant life in a nice house is actually an increasingly distant dream for most people under 45?
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Netflix is working on your own cloud gaming technology. He has 55 games in development and envisions subscribers being able to play them anywhere they watch Netflix. There are two main differences between the streaming giant’s approach to gaming and Google’s failed attempt to enter this world: First, Netflix is interested in quality games and developers, picking up great and interesting titles like Into the Breach, Immortality and Twelve Minutes. ; and second, he is taking things very calmly. Few of his subscribers are interacting with his games right now, but I expect things to look very different in a few years.
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A YouTuber spent more than $22,000 to buy all Wii U and 3DS games from the nintendo webshop last week, before it was closed forever. He raised the money through endorsements and is donating the entire collection to the Video Game History Foundation.
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after actor Lance Reddick died last week, game developers and gamers alike have paid some touching tributes to his work on games and his love for them. Bungie’s Blake Battle shared a story about playing a raid with Reddick, who voiced Commander Zavala in Destiny, and finding him “kind, sociable, and patient… The kind of guy you’d want to add to your friends list to play again at some point.” Kotaku reports that Reddick played the game the night before he died. In the game, players they have been gathering in The Tower around your character to pay their respects.
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In more encouraging signs that FIFA will do well in gaming after parting ways with EA, president Gianni Infantino has supposedly said which is an official brand rival of EA Sports FC “it will always be the best electronic game for any girl or boy”.
what to click
Cults, prophecies, and helpless villagers galore: Diablo 4 is back at its gothic best
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block of questions
Reader legal provides this week’s question:
“Recent favorite games (eg Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption 2, Forza Horizon 5, Spiderman, Hi-Fi Rush) force me to collect and collate screenshots. and virtual photos and videos, like I do when I’m on vacation. What games have made you happiest?
Being a photographer with no talent in games like I am in real life, I’m in awe of people who do magic with in-game photo modes (as photographer leo sang, whose work on Assassin’s Creed and elsewhere has been exhibited around the world). And they are so ok now – I interviewed people in the 2000s who had to do complex things with mods to achieve in-game photography, and now almost every big game has a full suite of camera options that let you freeze action, pose characters and find unexpected angles, resulting in a new flavor of photographic art. But I’m not an artist, so the games that inspire me to take screenshots are usually the ones I play with friends: Animal Crossing, Monster Hunter World, Grand Theft Auto Online. One notable exception is Breath of the Wild. My Switch storage is full of scenes and views I’ve captured over the year I’ve spent playing the game, trying to bottle some of the awesomeness I felt for later.
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