Greg Costikyan’s Post

Funny you mentioned this because the other day I was speaking with a friend who was asking if I was going. Our discussion was that none of seminars are likely going to address the existential crisis facing the industry. Then I saw the lineup. Nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room because you can just as easily look elsewhere and talk about stupid sh*t that a large swath of the industry doesn't actually care about. Empty rooms abound. The IGDA lineup, while diverse, is just as ridiculous. To wit: "Action-Minded Strategies for Climate Stress Roundtable" I sh*t you not. And it's a whole hour, too. I won't be skipping my wax appointment. OK - fine, I am just ribbing them. As a lifetime IGDA member and once chapter lead, over the years I have always found that they tend to have something for everybody; no matter how ridonkulous it may appear at a glance. The flipside of this arg is that nobody wants to go to GDC to rehash the same old doom & gloom that we're ingesting on a daily basis in the news, social media, amongst ourselves etc. The real story is that a lot of industry people tend to suffer in silence because even voicing a hardship (layoff, closure etc) is somewhat detrimental to your recovery efforts.

I do a track in the India Developer conference called "uncomfortable conversations" that explicitly addresses this sort of thing. We haven't been asked to shut up yet, thankfully

I fell in love with the game industry because it was beyond the bleeding edge of media’s future. Now ground-breaking innovation and personalized interactive experiences are being created ourtside risk-adverse sequel-focused publishers … so GDC feels like the closing days of e3 … holding on to a world that exists less and less…

The whole setup of GDC feels extremely tone deaf. As one of those folks who has been out of work for over two years, watching Informa essentially raise prices by eliminating the Expo Pass was a major “fuck you” to those of us who have given so much to this business and have been left behind. From what I can tell the attendance numbers are going to be abysmal. I hope they don’t chalk that up to Trump’s inhumane treatment of foreign visitors to our country.

Nobody wants to acknowledge the dire circumstances and be branded as being negative. GDC has always been about unbridled positivity, even if it seems like speakers have blinders on. I don’t think that talks about the brutal realities of the industry will ever get their green light.

Not to try and invalidate your point but those talks definitely exist, maybe just not in the quantities they should

I was a top 50 speaker many moons ago for a talk about shutting down my studio. "Am I dead yet?" It was a great talk. I will submit something different for next year. "Yippee hooray! Games are amazing!" and see if that makes a difference.

GDC exists to sell access to GDC. You would have been the product to be sold. All the talks are always upbeat, because advertising is always upbeat. Never confuse GDC with the game industry; they are not the same.

Please please please make a substack, GC. I still blame post-COVID contraction for the situation. I guess there's more to it but what a horrid period that was. Its persistent effects have been devastating. The GDC, sorry, the "FOG", lost its soul quite a while ago. It's amazing how long something can live without one.

What was your talk going to be? Can always record it and chuck it on YouTube.