Against my own advice, I submitted an eleventh hour proposal for the 2012 GDC. I’ve fallen in love with San Francisco, but I’m in two minds about going next year, it seems to have too much of E3 about it. The simple beauty of a conference for games people, about games, feels washed out and faded away.
“While we can’t comment on why individual submissions were declined due to the high volume of submissions received, be aware that it can often be due to multiple reasons — many of which have nothing to do with the professionalism or quality of the talk proposed.”
The more time I spend around inspirational people, the more I realise that it is never acceptable to refuse reasons for a decision. Usually, the reasons are things you’d rather not hear – criticisms too close to the bone, complaints too painful but fair – but they are things you need to hear anyway, to have a decent chance of moving forwards as a person.
CMP / Think Services is in the unenviable position that they own the only global event that speaks for mankind’s total relationship with computer games. I’m sure it seemed like a good commercial play at the time – but how fair is it that they now must shoulder the total face-time of every step forwards in the art and science of game development? Tough crowd, if you ask me.
Or is there some other (non judgemental) forum for face-to-face game design that I’ve missed?