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Regarding Conference Associates
It’s a beautiful day here in sunny downtown San Francisco. The real question is, why the heck am I still here to enjoy it, when my flight was supposed to be last night???
Due to the hurricane-like conditions currently buffeting the Northeast, the New York/New Jersey area airports were all shut down yesterday, causing mass confusion, cancellations, and yours truly to be stuck out on the Left Coast for an extra two days.
Well shoot.
Weather apocalypse aside, this years show was absolutely incredible. Lots of fantastic sessions, inspiring talks, and informative lectures. And as you can see from the above picture (dig that green CA shirt?), I finally got to have a proper chat with John Romero! Very cool guy by the way. We had a very interesting conversation about how Facebook and other social platforms could be leading the way to a non-gimmicky gaming revolution… but this isn’t really the place to get into that.
What I DO want to explain to everybody is the Conference Associate program I mentioned in my last post, because it’s something every aspiring game developer (and I find it hard to believe there aren’t at least a few reading this blog) should be interested in. Basically, CA’s are the team of volunteers that run the Game Developers Conference. You know, like the staff volunteers at your local gaming and anime conventions. Except not really, because — and this is fact, not opinion — there is no team on this planet, hired, volunteer, or otherwise, as elite as the GDC Conference Associates.
I could go on for pages and pages about how amazing the CAs are, how former and current CAs dominate every game development competition and awards festival, how many of us are ensconced in top positions at AAA companies, but I’m just going to stick to the basic facts: Apply, show up, put in about 20 hours of work, get an All Access badge ($2400 value) for free. That’s it.
Ok well… maybe its not QUITE as simple as it sounds. That application I mentioned? That whole thing about it being an elite group? There were about 400 CA slots this year… and over 1,600 applicants vying for them. Over 75% of those positions went to returning veterans, meaning fewer than 100 new applicants were accepted to this special group this year. Says something about the ones chosen though, doesn’t it (and it means you really shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t get accepted)? And really, its the people you’ll be working with that make it an incredible experience, almost more than the legendary developers you’ll be getting to rub elbows with. Hey, I said “almost”.
For more information about volunteering, check out this section of the official GDC site. There’s no information about next year yet of course, but its enough to get you started.
Oh, and I almost forgot one of the coolest perks of being a CA: Awesome schwag, and lots of it! This year, we had a few extra special items being given away at our annual CA prize drawing; a small statuette signed by Shigeru Miyamoto; a Macbook Pro; and 12 generously donated Google Phones… one of which I was selected to receive! The only caveat? Google requested that anyone lucky enough to win a phone who didn’t actually intend to use it for development purposes take a pass and let it go to someone who would. I bowed out graciously, much to the annoyance of one of my friends, but I’m fairly satisfied with my consolation prize:
Awesome!
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