The GDC Vibes Report
The secret to dead feet? Two margaritas, apparently.
Another GDC in the books. This was my first since the pandemic, and as always GDC has been a great place to see old friends, make new ones, and get an idea for where the industry is headed over the next year.
Compared to my last GDC in 2019, this was what I'd call a "down year." 2019 was all about ascendance. Esports was on the rise. Google was getting into core games with Stadia. We were gonna be rich forever!
2024 was, uh, not that.
Funding is hard to come by. Job opportunities are scarce. We're in The Dark Times right now. Possibly the darkest I've seen in a career that includes both 2008 and the dot com bust. I saw a lot of tired faces, and since there wasn't an entire wing of the convention center dedicated to hiring this year, a lot of aged ones. (Me included.)
But I also saw resilience amid the apocalypse. Doing the agency/consulting thing, I'm fortunate to be able to meet a lot of different developers at conventions like this, and if I had to count the number of people who said something like "regardless of whether we find [external funding] or not, this game is coming out," I'd run out of fingers. Even in an environment where VCs and publishers are pulling back, there are studios out there trying to make it work.
What drew me to the industry when I got my start were the people that were on fire with ideas they just had to share with other people, trying to do something creative, to share stories, to entertain others. That's still out there, even now.
It's still really hard right now. If you're looking for work or trying to raise money, righteous determination doesn't solve your problems. My sanguine bullshit doesn't feed your family. There are still executives out there that would rather fire 1,000 people than see their share prices dip. I don't know if all these lost jobs are coming back.
This industry isn't the people that fund it. It's so much more than that. We all deserve better than where we are now. But we're down, not out.