GDC was great as always. I had a wonderful time hanging out with friends from the game industry. I spent a goodly amount of time with new comrade Jason Shirley (MS Localization in Ireland), Caesar, Guy and the rest of the Microsoft folks, as well as the Remedy and Lionhead crews. Seeing and talking with composers Sam Hulick, Tom Salta and Richard Jacques (among many others) was fantastic as always. Don Bodin and I hung out pretty much the whole trip and had a great time doing it. And I made a new scotch and kilt friend in Rafael Lopez over at Technicolor.
Once again the Sky Lounge and the W bar were the defacto hubs for evening networking. I ran into a couple of good friends randomly at the W including Drew Angelhoff (XNA) and Scott Dodson.The tone this year was a little subdued but overall 2009 was a good one for GDC. Highlights for me included Kris Mellroth's great dissection of his work on Fable 2 and Tom Salta's Choir tutorial. Other notable lectures included John Rodd's dissertation on getting the most out of your orchestra sessions to get that big Hollywood sound.
The most interesting development that seemed to grab everyone's attention was Onlive. If you haven't checked out their site I would recommend a look see. If it lives up to it's promise this really could be a game changer for the industry.
I attended the GANG awards and was happy to see so many friends win awards. Also at the awards I had a chance to meet Ed Lima at long last. Nice guy and a veteran for sure.
Time to start planning for E3... :)
Cheers!
