GDC2010: A Wonderful Blur, Part 3.
April 4, 2010 12:42 am Game DevelopmentFriday was a blur.
I wake up in no condition to walk amongst the general public. Talk at 9? Skippable. What is important today is talking to people about game design. I decide to sleep in as much as I can.
I get up around 10, hit the shower and head to the Moscone center for some food. Being a creature of habit, I end up at the exact same place as the day before (some small food vendor within the conference center). Looking at and listening to people is tough at this point. The world around me is happening but I have no influence over it. I’m buying a sandwich and tea, fishing for my wallet all without thinking. Just going through the motions, everything is fuzzy and fast.
Trying to get my head in order, I make my way over to the career booth I’ll be working. Early by 15 minutes. I introduce myself to the people there, trying to put on my best game face. My recruiting brethren are pretty excited a game designer is there. Apparently they get a lot of excited students who ask questions they aren’t comfortable answering.
I tell them I’m going to sit and eat my sandwich and tea, and that I haven’t had breakfast. They’re already getting slammed by people (or so I think) and I find a nice quiet place, a few booths down. I end up at a nearby booth that has some couches facing a main thoroughfare. I sit down and start chomping away, hoping that the hot earl gray will clear my head. I do some people watching and some thinking about what happened the night before and mentally preparing for the train I’m about to be hit by. A couple of guys next to me are working out an uninteresting audio business deal.
I can’t finish the sandwich. The vendor was out of turkey, so I went Italian. Not a bad choice, but too much mayo, onions and salty meat isn’t doing my stomach any favors. Too many strong flavors considering how much I drank the night before.
Sandwich in the garbage, tea slurped down, mouth burning a bit. Feeling a bit sick but I’ll make it though. Back to the booth where they are still talking to groups of students. I put my bag in the booth closest, which is a total mess of coats, lunches, art portfolios, resumes. Just all kinds of “stuff.” I set my bag onto the pile of human belongings and I’m stopped before I head to the front of the booth. I’m told to tell college students to talk to so and so whose name I forget as soon as I hear it and to direct people to a career pool database we have set up (a few laptops where people enter in info about themselves as potential hires). Oh God I hope I don’t screw this up.
To the front. I’m wearing my studio t-shirt with a hoodie over it. I unzip it a bit so I look a bit more official. I’m just sort of standing there as people go by. People walk by, look at me, slow down, then speed up and keep walking. Other folks from the recruiting teams are wearing flashy, branded jackets and gear. I look like a regular game designer at work. No one can tell I’m someone associated with the company. I can’t tell if I’m good with that or not.
Things start getting more interesting. People finally approach me. I engage in casual conversation and meet some really cool people. Lots of excited students, people who want to know how I got started, and so on.
One thing I notice over time. Students can’t help but talk about themselves. I can’t blame them. They’re trying to get noticed. They’re trying to make themselves stand out. They’re excited about the projects they worked on, making games with their friends, the classes they’ve taken, the future they might have.
Experienced people want to know about you. How did you get started? What hours do you work? How are the benefits? How is working for MS compared to other places you’ve been? Experienced folks aren’t afraid to interview you on the spot because they know they can get hired at multiple places, and they’re just trying to land at the best place they can.
With students, I let them talk about themselves. I try not to stop them, they just want to unload on someone, anyone in the game industry that will hear them out. However, there’s always that awkward pause. After they’ve run out of things to say and you don’t feel like there’s much else to say, they’re not sure where to go from here. You don’t want to leave them hanging, so you ask for a card. But all they have is a resume. Which you were told not to take because of the career database stations we have set up.
I took a few resumes anyway. I felt bad for them. They are very grateful, sign up for the career pool anyway, and they’re on their way.
Across the board, I end up giving everyone the same advice. “Make something.” It really doesn’t matter what it is, but make something cool that you are proud of. What I don’t say, which would break the hearts of so many people I talked to that day, is that a game design doc does not make you necessarily desirable. You see, every designer is expected to make documentation. However, every designer I know personally is also expected to use technology in some way to make something that goes into the game. Art assets. Scripting. Code. Sounds. Animation. Maya. Max. Photoshop. Z-Brush. C++. C#. Flash.
Execution of your idea is more important than the idea itself.
A co-worker shows up eventually. He’s worse off than I am. Apparently, last nights party did a number on him and he’s barely standing. We don’t even want to talk to each other in order to reserve our eardrums for the general public. He later informs me he’s not going to make the entire shift, and that he’s feeling pretty sick. Then a student comes by, starts talking to him, and it’s like my co-worker just got back from the gym. He’s shaking hands, energetic, eyes wide open. The student eventually leaves and its like the off-switch was hit on my co-worker. He goes back into his hangover trance, counting the seconds until his shift is over. Simply amazing and the students have no idea.
My shift ends. Was that it? I actually enjoyed talking to people at the booth but next time I will skip the heavy drinking the night before.
I skip another unimportant, filler talk and decide to go lay down. I sleep until 3ish, my next talk is at 4. I make it to my only important and last talk that day.
There’s one more day of GDC left, but folks are leaving. People want to get back and have their weekend at home, I can’t blame them. However, I came to San Fran to get the most out of GDC and to get a taste of what the city has to offer. Napping earlier in the day helped with the pain of the hangover, however I’m still in this weird trance state. I go back to sleep for bit.
My buddy Tom, an ex-Activision co-worker and awesome artist and his wife are in town. They’re staying at Tom’s sister’s place. The one I was yelling to about staying away from the W. Oh God, I hope she didn’t take that the wrong way. Maybe she forgot?
Tom and I link up around the convention center and decide to take the street car through some of the worst parts of town, down Market street. Things are going well until the street car operator misses a stop and people start yelling. One guy wants to go to the hospital and is getting really angry and sounds heavily medicated. Luckily, the next stop is ours and I remember that it’s times like this I rarely venture out of the comfort of the convention center.
We walk to Andalu, where Tom’s wife and sister are already a few glasses of wine in. The atmosphere is nice and its great seeing old friends who don’t care about video games. Tom’s sister, a design student herself (not in games) is interested in the whole recruiting thing I did for the day. I explain that I’m a designer, just doing some recruiting work for the company. Well, its not recruiting you see, it’s just talking to people about questions they might have about MS or game design…
The night goes on. We eat some bomb-ass polenta fries, short ribs, chicken done right, and a few other amazing dishes. This is the best food I’ve eaten in a week, and the best I’ve eaten in SF ever. This is why I came here, besides GDC. This is the first time I’ve though about SF not sucking in all the years I’ve come here.
We walk back to Tom’s sisters place and just chiiiiiill out. We end up trading stories about our childhoods. Tom’s sister and I have a lot in common since she was the youngest. They recount the times Tom tortured her, I tell them about a buddy of mine who would torture his sister. I reminisce about my older sisters and how they treated their 10 year younger brother.
We talk far into the morning, trading stories about growing up which I don’t get to do often and finally decide to watch some Netflix on a laptop sitting on a stool. Ahhh, the college life. I don’t miss it but it sure is fun to be around again.
They offer me a place to stay (on the couch) as the street cars are not running anymore. I could call a cab to get back to the hotel, but that would be annoying at this point. I take them up on the offer to sleep on the couch. Fully clothed. This is a skill I don’t use often but it sure comes in handy. I literally have no problem sleeping in the clothes I wore all day, even jeans. So long as I can get hot shower in the morning, I’m good. Tom’s sister is nice enough to get me a pillow and a blanket but I’m so tired I could be on the hard floor and it’d make almost zero difference.
Right before I pass out, I think about the fact that Tom and I need to be back at Moscone center in the morning and that his sister mentioned something about having a roommate. I end up having an interesting encounter with her the next morning.