Blade Edge

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

It never ceases to amaze me. Over 12,000 game developers attend the conference each year and yet it’s crazy how many times you’ll bump into someone you know throughout the course of the week. I supposed the chances are higher when you’re all in such a close proximity, and not all 12,000+ people will be here until Wednesday, but still – it’s certainly hard to remember there are that many other people wandering around that you don’t know.

So today was a great first day. I mainly attended the IGDA chapter workshop from 1-6, which I’ll report on later once they post the official meeting notes to go with my own perceptions. Other than that I hung out in the Press Lounge and walked the convention center, then went to some parties/events later in the evening.

Along the way I ran into many people, most old, some new. Here’s a pictography.

Nick Smolney (Xbox Exclusive), Sande Chen (WomenInGames) and Coray Seifert (THQ|Kaos Studios) have a chat in the Press Lounge

Ben Serviss (Creoludus) chats it up with Eric Lamendola (Slingo, Inc.)

Bumped into Neil Kirby (Lucent) on his way to lunch

Ran into Steve “ferretman” Woodcock for the second time on my way out of the IGDA session

Bill Crosby (Rutgers U.) along with John Black and Chuck Kinzer (Columbia U.) talk afterwards about the Serious Games Summit

Robin, GDC’s official photographer, caught in the act

Mike Sweeney (Slingo, Inc.) and Ben Serviss talk shop with a fellow SGS attendee

DaveRM (GameDev.net) and Sande Chen are also engaged in conversation

Habib Loew, a student at DigiPen and an avid GDNet enthusiast, talks mobile gaming with Schematic’s Karthik Swamithian

Back to San Jose… back to Johny Rockets!! Clockwise from left: Kenneth Johnson, Nick Smolney, Jeff Ward, Ben Serviss, Coray Seifert, Roger Pederson, Mike Sweeney, Karthik Swamithian, Eric Lamendola

Eric and Kenny chat with latecomer Kristoffer Schalchter (Nickelodeon)

Mark DeLoura (Sony), well known for the Gems series of books, stopped by JR as well to grab a bite to eat

Dave Weinstein (Microsoft), speaker extraordinaire, caught in his natural habitat. Or… maybe just habit

Wade Tinney and Josh Welber from Large Animal Games were kind enough to give me a lift back to my hotel in their taxi. Thanks guys!

Damn that’s a lot of people! There were also a few I didn’t manage to get on camera yet, like Rudy Geronimo and Jason Della ROcca from the IGDA, John Fiel, Dustin Clingman (tho technically he’s in this shot)… it was great being able to catch up with all these guys (and gals) on the very first day of the conference. Looking forward to further discussions and meetings tomorrow!