Game Dev: Meeting Notes

09/21/15

Brie is giving some announcements. Pixel art talk postponed for now, doing GDC talk instead.

Secretary talks today.

Tucson Indiedev Group doing a Unity workshop at CoLab workspace this Thursday at 7 p.m. Details about where/when coming soon.

Jeremy announcement. Thanks everyone for coming to game night. It was awesome. Secretary elections not happening now, but speech happening. Tonight sending out form to fill out secretary positions.

I gave speech: Already taking notes. Student should get role though, because I graduated about three years ago. *thumbs up*

There was applause. I appreciated it.

Plug for UA Video Game Developer's Club (join it!).

Patric hooking up his computer into TV for GDC talk. Pixel talk will be this Monday. Pixel art workshop will be next weekend (not this weekend).

Patric starting talk for GDC.

What is GDC?

Game developers conference. Great place to meet game dev folks. Can meet a lot of big names in game development. There's a lot of good talks on game design, art, and coding. There's also good hands-on demos. Lots of good SWAG.

GDC 2016: We're Going

Anyone in the club can go. You're in the club if you're on the listserv. We'll be going via car. 16-hour drive to San Fransico about. Will split it into two days.

GDC is happening during spring break, so no worries about missing school. Will be there for GDC Monday-Friday. Leave Friday night. Get back in Tucson on Saturday.

Hotel/Travel Costs

Travel costs estimated to be about $450 per person. That's parking, hotel, gas, rental, emergencies.

Pass cost list shown.

Indie Games Summit Pass ($325). Pass to all indie-game talks.

Summits, Tutorials & Bootcamps Pass ($795). Lots of good in-depth tutorials and introductions to stuff.

Main Conference Pass ($995). Gets into talks that are a part of the main conference. This includes a lot of things. One year Ken Levine gave a talk on game narrative.

All Access Pass ($1495). Everything.

There are other passes but they are not recommended.

These costs will probably be cut by 10% as we'll buy group passes for the club.

How pay?

We will have financial aid for people unable to afford passes.

Last year we could fund 5 people. We might do better this year.

You can get a free All-Access Pass if you can successfully volunteer to be a Conference Associate! Customer-support role. Apply as a customer service person, not a game dev person.

Questions so far?

Fundraising? Yes, we have plans for at least 3 different fund-raisers. Hoping to knock off a lot of costs.

$450 for travel plus pass costs? Yes, but we're working on funding.

Who here has been to GDC? Who has a good experience? One person met Warren Spectre! Got to thank him for making Deus Ex. IGF awards were really cool. Could go to an alley where the indie developers and their games were setup, and could ask them just general questions.

Lucas Pope once just kept winning awards for Papers, Please.

List of talks and stuff brought up from GDC/IGF sites. GDC Vault. There's a pay wall for some content (got to get the super expensive pass), but there's a bunch of free videos.

Talks were really cool. Guild Wars 2 talk on AI was really interesting.

General advice on passes. Main conference pass is recommended. The days where there's no talks to go to there's plenty of things to do on the Expo floor.

There's no enforcement of traveling with the group. Trains, planes, and automobiles. Whatever floats your boat.

Don't get student pass. Worthless. Cool stuff has really long lines.

Side-note: if you haven't tried modern VR, you need to experience it.

Google-cardboards get thrown at you at GDC.

Question on what the Oculus Rift is. Headset for VR that hooks into computer/console.

Someone came in late and got a quick summary of the whole talk. Good summary.

GDC also has a career-fair and stuff. There's also a lot of partying going on around the event. It's a great place to network and possibly get a job/internship.

Anymore questions?

Email Patric with anymore questions (written on board).

Secretary Speech 2

Miranda: Hoping to become secretary during this club. Take notes and keep the club updated. Miranda really, really likes this club. This is a club where she really feels she belongs. Wanted to get involved last semester, but everyone else was more qualified.

Rory: Vote for Miranda, Rory is not a student.

End of meeting.

Final note: next week is pixel art. GDC is a great opportunity to bond with others in the club.