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Firaxis Employees Tronster Hartley and Dominic Cerquetti were selected from thousands of applicants to serve as two of the Conference Associates at this year’s GDC. After last year’s show, Tronster gave us an introduction to the CA program and its role in keeping GDC running smoothly. We asked him to recap this year’s experiences for us.
Tronster: Every year I attend GDC, it feels like I learn more about what’s important at the conference and I have less time to soak it up. I was a conference associate again this year, but this time with fellow Firaxian, Dom Cerquetti. I’m in the middle of this photo, and Dom’s to your left (the guy on the right is Firaxis producer David McDonough.)
The game developer’s rant and game developer’s challenge entertained and served up wisdom. The talk on Mass Effect 2’s game play & UI changes from its predecessor is a talk I intend on watching again when it goes up on GDC Vault. On the Expo floor I was delighted to see multiple vendors who have AAA game support for Actionscript 3. While I missed the demos in the Epic area, I had some great conversations (and food) in their lounge.
The plethora of nightlife had a little bit of something for everyone. Two notable parties I will remember from this year were the dance action Mega64 had going at Valve’s party, and watching Leagues of Legends played by the developers at Riot’s party.
In retrospect, all of the events paled in comparison to three of them involving Sid. First was Sid taking a tour of the CA Lounge and meeting many of us. The second was watching Sid’s keynote talk – that picture above was taken there. Dom is in his green CA shirt, hamming it up with the camera.
It was great to see Sid take the main stage and share his thoughts on what he’s learned to make great games. And finally I was happy to see Sid return again to wide eyed CAs in the CA Lounge with his wife Susan, so she could also get a tour of the behind-the-scenes operation that Tim Brengle and Ian MacKenzie have made into the world’s best conference volunteer program.
Dom Cerquetti: Dom here, I’m an audio/system programmer here at Firaxis. This was my first year as a CA, and since two of my biggest passions are running videogame-related events and game programming, GDC is a perfect intersection of my main interests.
My experience at GDC this year was phenomenal. The conference is a place where normally-secretive game companies and employees reveal what seem like trade-secret insights into the way they operate. You simply won’t find this much concentrated, relevant info anywhere else. The sessions are really eye-opening.
The Expo floor is an excellent place to catch up with your middleware vendors and get extremely rare face-to-face time with the support people you normally only talk to via email. The Expo is also the spot to catch the independent games festival and to see the latest previews of new AAA games.
If you’re interested in breaking into the game industry, try to make it out to GDC and network with as many people as you possibly can. It’s just too valuable of an opportunity to pass up! Also consider attending local IGDA meetings – our local chapter in Baltimore is thriving and a great place to meet local developers and students.
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