STEVE MERETZKY: So I had just gotten laid off  from Infocom. 
My badge said "Steve Meretzky, Infocom".
So I crossed out "Infocom" and  wrote "Make me an offer".
And of course, Infocom was a  relatively legendary company.
And I was the only one there  from Infocom.
And it just happened three days  before.
And so everyone at the show was  sort of like all over me:
"Oh my God, what happened, tell me!"
WARREN SPECTOR: When I went to that first GDC
I had been in the computer game  business
for all of four months.
And I remember the very first  session I went to
was a guy named Joe Ybarra
who was a producer at  Electronic Arts.
I stood in the back of the room  and all I remember is thinking:
"I will never know as much as  this man does about making games
LOUIS CASTLE: My recollection was that
we had known that it was going  to happen. 
And a friend of a friend, I  think it was Tim Brengle, said:
"Hey if you guys want to come up..."
Because we'd been around for  a while a few years
We'd done a lot of games.
Of course at that time we were very very small,
we might have been a dozen people.
I said, "No, we can't come  all the way up to there."
But the very same year there  was that conference at the
Holiday Inn in Milpitas.
We went to that.
So I've been coming to the
Game Developers Conference  since the CGDC, way back then.
And I've only missed a couple.
JULIAN EGGEBRECHT: I think it  was the year
when we moved
 with our studio to the States.
INTERVIEWER: With Factor Five?
With Factor 5, right.
Which would have been 1996.
And it was down in the South Bay in a hotel.
So it was that period where
I do remember that
they already had sold.
I believe they had sold.
So that whole controversy had  just taken place and
it were the the first baby  steps to the whole thing
becoming really professional.
GORDON WALTON: So I decided to come and it was  glorious because
I got to meet all my - these  people who where peers
or even more experienced than I  was in making games.
And I had suddenly people I  could talk to about this
whereas before I was very  isolated.
Yes, I talked to my team...
But we were making all the  things up as we did them.
We didn't have anybody to talk  to about the problems.
We just had to figure them out.
NARRATOR: GDC is a mecca  for game developers worldwide.
For many years now, it has been  held in San Francisco,
at Moscone Center.
In 2019, there were 29,000  attendees.
Unofficially, there may be many  more.
In order to go back to the roots of GDC,
I need to travel a little  further south:
to San José, where everything  started.
The first GDC was held in April 1988
under the name "Computer Game  Developers Conference".
It was a gathering of a few dozen professionals
who had agreed to meet in the  home of Chris Crawford,
in the hills above  San José.
GORDON WALTON: I was a subscriber to Chris  Crawford's
Journal of Computer Game Design.
I don't know where I met Chris originally
but it must have been on one of my trips to California.
I had lived in Texas, I was building games
for Californian companies as an independent studio.
And in 1987, I think, or early 1988,
he came out with "Hey, I'm  going to do a get-together",
and I thought, that sounds really good,
because how I'd meet other game developers
I meet them in the waiting  rooms of Epyx or Activision
or EA.
And you'd happen to be there at  the same time as somebody else.
"Oh, I met Elaine Ditton!"
"Oh, I met Chris Crawford!"
"Oh I met these other people."
But we typically didn't know each other.
We might know each other's work because
we'd see the name on the game
and we go, OK I know that name.
But I never would meet those people because
we didn't have any  social groups.
And that's the other thing:
The deals that were being done: Nobody
- because we were all so  fragmented -
nobody knew.
There was no intrinsic knowledge of all that stuff.
So the companies had all the power
and we had none of the power.
NARRATOR: The founder of GDC is no longer  living here.
Still, I want to see the place where it all began.
But the address is hard to find.
INTERVIEWER: So, Chris, the year  is 1988 and
an accomplished game designer  named Chris Crawford
is deciding to do a little conference.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: I had started the Journal of Computer Game Design
as a way for game designers to  share their ideas in print
I only published one issue  every two months.
There was a certain amount of excitement
over the idea of sharing ideas 
on places like BIX and  CompuServe and some of the
services where people could post stuff at 300 baud.
Somebody else suggested that I  put together a meeting
so I thought it over and said,  "Okay!"
I put something in the journal saying,
"We are going to meet on this  day at my house."
"If you're interested, send me a letter"
"and I'll send you  instructions and a map."
The milestones you would see  along the way and exactly when
you make the turn. In fact, in the map it said:
"This is it, the moment of  truth."
"Take a 180 degree left U-turn  on a blind right curve."
GORDON WALTON: Yeah it was a challenge getting  up there. But he did send a map
and he sent directions and if  you kind of read them right
you could get there eventually.
But  it was a beautiful place.
Gave me a whole different view  of the Bay Area. 
It was a relaxed scene and  very interesting weekend.
I was blessed to be there, that's how I felt
We were sharing stories with each other.
So it was a very ... around  the campfire kind of idea.
Really all we talked about that first weekend was:
common problems, common  solutions.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: The only agenda was that we  would discuss
game design issues in the  morning and 
business issues in the afternoon.
That's how it went and it was all very exciting.
GORDON WALTON: Just talked for two days  straight to each other
about issues in the business and
where we saw the business going  and what the challenges were.
We realized we would be much more powerful,
we would be better at our jobs  if we were sharing information.
And that ethos from that first meeting is really
what infused all the future  GDCs.
All the GDCs were about  developers sharing information
with developers not worrying  about their companies so much.
Because the companies would  never want us to get together.
They'd never want us to share information.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: It was all very practical and  focused on on genuine issues
about how to build good games.
I felt very pleased with it and  I think everybody else was
really excited.
But I think that the most  powerful feeling,
what really struck me,
was the sense: "Hey, we're all  in this together."
GORDON WALTON: It was more than enlightening
it was it was like almost a lightning bolt hit:
"Hey, we ought to have ... we ought to be together!"
At the end of that weekend
pretty much the consensus was:  "We should do this"
"And we should do this often"
"And we should do it bigger!"
NARRATOR: After the successful premiere,
the Journal of Computer  Game Design
announces a second conference  for September 1988.
When you follow Sierra Road from San Jose uphill and downhill,
you'll come to Milpitas.
That's where the second CGDC is  held, in a hotel.
NOAH FALSTEIN: I knew Chris from
I knew him by  reputation
from very early on
because I owned an Atari 800  and I loved his
Eastern Front game.
It was absolutely one of the  best games that I had played
up to that point.
And we had met once or twice  but didn't know each other well.
So it really wasn't until literally 
the day after his conference,
there was another small games  get-together
somewhere on the peninsula.
And I went to hear Chris talk
and I ended up sitting next to  Brian Moriarty
who had been at that first  conference
and was a friend of Chris's.
And I learned that they had had this great conference.
I said "Oh I'm so sorry I missed it."
And they said "We agreed that  we would do one in a hotel,"
"later this year."
So I said "Well, put me on the list."
And that's pretty much how I  first heard about it.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: I had felt that because this  had to emphasize community
it couldn't be "Chris Crawford's conference".
I felt that the whole point  would be to bring in
a broad community
For board members I selected a  very diverse group of people.
There was an academic person,  a financial person,
a marketing person, a producer.
I was the only actual game  designer in the group.
In fact, later on it proved to be too diverse.
In fact, a few years later
people wanted to take it off in  directions
away from game design.
And that caused a real conflict  within the board.
WARREN SPECTOR: It was in a small hotel right  next to the highway
and we we didn't fill it for sure.
It was about 250 people at that first CGDC I attended.
NOAH FALSTEIN: I've heard different numbers  thrown around.
I remember 180.
And there's no easy way to tell  anymore, of course.
But certainly it was under 200.
It amazes me that the entire  conference would fit into
one of the less well attended
talks that they have at the  conference today.
BOB BATES: We all fit in one room.
Everybody knew each other and  it was wonderful,
because I lived on the East  Coast outside of Washington D.C.
Infocom was located up  in Cambridge.
A lot of the people were West Coast people.
We kind of knew who each other were by reputation.
But to get everybody together  who were working
on the same kinds of things, that was wonderful.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember how it felt to  be with your peers?
Scared, I think, is the way that I felt.
Because these are people,  especially the Infocom people,
are people who I'd  read about, played their games,
knew about for a long time
And...
the others at the conference  were people
whose games I had  played and so you're like: 
"What am I doing here?"
And so you sort of  creep around a little bit and
hope not to be noticed.
GORDON WALTON: The first real conference was  down in Milpitas.
I think there was maybe 150,  175 people there.
And it was like... it was  awesome.
We thought "Oh my God, look at  how many people there are!"
Of course we had no idea that  it was going to double and
double and double and double
until there were thousands of us.
NOAH FALSTEIN: It was very informal.
It was put on by just a few of
Chris's friends and connections.
And really the ...
the informality was part of what was so charming about it and
was at a lot of us miss.
Because it was certainly not  meant to make money.
It was very inexpensive.
WARREN SPECTOR: It was very small and it was  very intimate. Which was nice.
I remember going out to dinner with Richard Garriott
and Brian Fargo walked over.
And I was I was so star struck!
I could barely speak.
I had known Richard for a while  so he was just a guy.
But Brian Fargo was one of my heroes at the time!
CHRIS CRAWFORD: I had the idea that we have a dinner
on Saturday evening that  everybody attends
and dinner lecture and so forth.
The other big idea was the town hall
at the end of the conference.
Its primary function was for the community
to talk to the board about
what changes needed to be made.
But it had a secondary function of
allowing people to feel
that they were part of a community.
"See, we can all talk about this."
"We'd like to hear your opinions!"
"Let's form the community!"
INTERVIEWER: And your first GDC was the  second one?
STEVE MERETZKY: The third one.
LOUIS CASTLE: The first GDC I attended,
it was a Computer Game  Developers Conference,
I was just a bit star struck  because I got a chance to
hang out with the people who  made these games that I played.
I've always been a fan of games  so that was really fun.
I think Meretzky might have been there.
STEVE MERETZKY: Well, we had already met:
The first game that they did at  Westwood
was published by Infocom. It was a Battletech game.
LOUIS CASTLE: I was just like, "This is amazing!"
"I'm going to be able to hang out with legends!"
But also that there was a genuine effort to
to share information. It was very collegic.
And it stuck with me from the  very beginning that what
the Game Developers Conference  always wanted to be about
is about sharing information and
as much as possible growing the  art of making games, so that
we didn't end up with people  reinventing things all the time.
STEVE MERETZKY: It was really my first time  meeting
a lot of the major people in  the industry
including many people who are
really good friends of mine to this day.
People who were then legends  or are now legends.
People like Ken Williams and Roberta Williams
and Will Wright.
And so...
Out of, like, 300 people who  were attending that conference.
The level of attendeeship, of  luminaries per person was
extremely high.
CHRIS CRAWFORD (1989): Some people refuse to  acknowledge
this part of their psyche.
And so those creative impulses
come traveling down the whip.
And these people
block the impulses 
and stop it from  going down. 
they try to consciously control  the creative process.
These poor fools go through  life like this.
CHRIS CRAWFORD (2019): The whip was important as a  metaphor for the
mental process of creativity.
The idea was that creativity  starts deep in the subconscious
and the ideas work their way down 
the whip towards the very tip.
And when the creativity works, the whip cracks.
In fact Brenda Laurel was  right in front of it!
I had my toe marks! I stepped right into those!
It was perfectly rehearsed.
INTERVIEWER: So Brenda - one of  the original board members -
was frightened?
CHRIS CRAWFORD (2019): She really screamed.
Because it looked for all the world
like it cracked right in front of her nose.
CHRIS CRAWFORD (1989): And it can not be done by men 
out of touch with their instinctive self.
INTERVIEWER: The other memorable speech  was the Dragon Speech.
CHRIS CRAWFORD (2019): That is far and away the best  speech I have given in my life.
The games industry was changing.
And it was changing in ways
that made me obsolete.
The idea of the individualist as opposed to the team.
The grand dreamer as opposed to the marketing person.
All of those things that had
served me so well in the past
were becoming obsolete.
And I knew that my time was  coming.
I had been too lazy and too short-term in my thinking.
CHRIS CRAWFORD (1992): Yes, you frighten me! You hurt me!
I felt your claws ripping  through my soul!
CHRIS CRAWFORD (2019): I use the metaphor of the dragon
as a symbol of artistic perfection.
And I pull out the sword,
I say: "Come, dragon!"
"Yes, you  frighten me!"
"You hurt me!" And I said that
with real emotional intensity.
Because that is the real core of the artistic struggle:
You struggle for artistic greatness,
and you fail.
All you can do is strive and
have occasional glimpses of success.
That was what I was trying to communicate to that audience.
And then charging out was just  sort of a "stage thing".
CHRIS CRAWFORD (1992): "For us!"
"Charge!"
"Charge!"
INTERVIEWER: But still it was
North American or even U.S. centric...
GORDON WALTON: Very centric to  the U.S. because
the early computers were  mostly...
You know, there was a European  hobbyist market, too,
like we had in the U.S.
but they were on different  platforms like...
INTERVIEWER: Like Sinclair...
GORDON WALTON: You're right,  which we didn't have.
And I don't think we actually  started seeing
Europeans in any strength
until we were probably 8 or 10  years in.
And then even longer before we  saw the Asians.
Because the Asians weren't  making games
until really the early 90s.
From 1988 to 1994
the conference is growing fast.
Nearly every year, it needs a  new, bigger place.
But behind the scenes, a conflict is growing
between Chris Crawford and his  board members.
INTERVIEWER: Chris Crawford... 
selected board members he  thought would help this cause...
GORDON WALTON: They were very community minded.
INTERVIEWER: And for the first couple of  years
everything was very well,  in terms of success
but also in terms of keeping to  the original idea.
But what happened then?
GORDON WALTON: Well, I think the growth  happened.
Not only the growth of the  conference
but the growth of what the
responsibility of the board  members was.
They had to put in more time and energy into the show.
"Oh we need volunteers. Oh we  need..."
"We've gotta set..."
"We've got to do all this work  before the show starts."
So it was going from an easy  volunteer gig
into a "Oh, this is some actual  work" kind of job.
INTERVIEWER: "Which I am not being paid for."
You're doing it out the good of  your heart for the community.
And the community, like all  communities,
wasn't all that grateful.
And so they weren't getting a  lot of gratitude
from the community while they  were doing more and more work.
And I think that had an effect
on some of the people who were  on the board.
There came the time when the
board members wanted Chris  Crawford to leave.
I think it was probably  coincident with the fact that
You know...
An organization that ran shows
was knocking on their door and  throwing money at them.
And Chris, I'm pretty sure,  said...
"Hey, go f..." INTERVIEWER: "No way!"
INTERVIEWER: So suddenly Chris was to his  board peers...
GORDON WALTON: He's an obstacle.
NOAH FALSTEIN: I would say the time that it  really started
to feel more impersonal...
The first stage was when they  sold it off to
what was then Miller-Freeman.
And having it be run by a  company,
even though they were keeping it very similar.
That felt different.
GORDON WALTON: I don't think he  read the signs very well
among those guys.
And took it for granted...
So everyone he picked was  somebody who he had
a very personal relationship  with,
both personal and professional  relationship with.
And I think that he trusted all  of those guys to follow through
on what what the original  concept was.
NOAH FALSTEIN: It was a little bit like
bit like having a family spat
where there were people that you knew in your family
who were fighting with each  other.
And I tried not to take sides  too much
and to just be a low-key as  I could.
I think certainly most of us who knew the founders
were aware of what was going on.
I think a lot of us,
even the people that were in the know about what was happening,
didn't want to put themselves in the middle of the conflict
because it was a bit ugly, and
a lot of infighting and some  lawsuits involved.
Very disappointing because it  ruined some of that
sense of camaraderie that we'd  all had right at the beginning.
STEVE MERETZKY: And certainly it's so obvious  even to this day...
people who are not speaking to  each other and stuff.
GORDON WALTON: Chris is one of the most  intransigent people
you will ever meet.
He knows his mind. And when he  knows his mind, he is there.
They would have never changed  Chris's mind,
not anytime in the forseeable future.
It would have taken... Chris is a logical guy,
and you can probably get him  there.
But not quickly.
INTERVIEWER: The conference was sold for 3 million dollars.
Which doesn't seem like an  enormous amount of money...
STEVE MERETZKY: I'm sure, one of the great  bargains
since the Louisiana Purchase.
GORDON WALTON: I don't want to  make excuses,
but that was like six or eight  years of revenue for
for most of those people.
So it felt like it was real money.
But if you really do the math...
I've only talked to maybe three  or four of the board members.
and my takeaway was...
"This needed to happen."
"We didn't like the way we did it."
"But it needed to happen."
And it didn't...
I don't think it reflected well  on anybody involved in the end
because it looked like a money grab.
NOAH FALSTEIN: I think there were some poor  decisions made
on both sides.
It certainly could have been  handled better.
I've talked to people who helped sell off the conference.
and I know that some of them
have a regret that it was messy  the way it was.
Others have a regret that they
let it go for as little,
given how much money it is  making now.
If they had made a deal
where they got, you know, half  of 1 percent of the revenue
they probably would have had a  lot less at first
and a lot more by now.
GORDON WALTON: I think he was very shocked when they pushed him out.
Shocked and disappointed,  really.
Because it ended up destroying
his friendship with all those  people,
and over money.
I want to hear from Chris  Crawford himself how he felt
when his creation  was taken away from him,
and what his thoughts are today.
For decades, the GDC founder has been living in Medford, 
in California's northern  neighbor state, Oregon.
Like he did in San José, he  lives away from the city,
surrounded by nature.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: That one right there loves to  jump all over you:
"I love you so much!"
Chris Crawford lives here with  his wife Kathy
and several cats and dogs.
He spends his time planting  trees and
building an anti-coyote robot tank.
Also, he is giving game design  lectures via Skype.
I think that the most powerful  feeling,
what really struck me,
was the sense, "Hey, we're all  in this together!"
There are all these things that  we share,
that we're alike about.
But there also all these things  we're different about.
This was a time of very rapid  change in the industry,
in the community and for the  conference.
It was inevitable that every  aspect of the industry become
more businesslike and involve  more money.
And we were a bunch of amateurs.
We were... we did this for  idealistic reasons.
I had said from the very  beginning:
"We are volunteers, we are not here to get rich."
"This is not a startup."
But the money...
There is just too much money  coming in too fast.
And it corrupted people.
They just... all that money.
They just couldn't believe how much money they were handling.
And their eyes got very big
and that dominated all their thinking.
INTERVIEWER: And that was still the original  board.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: Well no. The board had...
Three people had resigned around 1990 or 91
And they'd been replaced by three others.
And we swore them to the idea: "This is volunteer work."
"You are not here to get rich or anything."
But it didn't matter.
All that money just...
INTERVIEWER: What money do we talk about?
CHRIS CRAWFORD: Well the last year I was there,
I think they had revenues of  about a million dollars.
Now, of course, we spent a lot but we still had
profits of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
INTERVIEWER: Despite giving free ice cream to everybody.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: Free ice cream, free Jolt Cola.
And we knew that was going to grow also...
This year, a million dollars.  Next year, two million?
You know, the sugar plum fairies dancing in their eyes.
INTERVIEWER: But only in their minds? You  were not tempted by that money?
I had made a lot of money with Balance of Power and so...
Maybe I didn't need it.
Actually I would very much liked to have that much money!
But I had already committed.
From the very beginning I'd been very clear:
"This is not for profit. We're not going to get rich."
"This is community service."
And I just never felt
any deviation from that.
INTERVIEWER: But Chris, then please  explain to me
why the GDC, or CGDC, 
was not a non-profit organization.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: Well that was... When we first set up 
and we were going to  incorporate,
I just assumed we would  incorporate as a non-profit.
However, the guy who was handling the finances,
the Treasurer, said: "Wait a minute!"
"If we do this non-profit"
"there are all sorts of laws  regarding..."
INTERVIEWER: ...against money laundering  and so on.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: Yeah. "And I'd have to fill out reports, file statements."
"It would be a lot of work for  me."
"It would be so much easier..."
"if we simply declared  ourselves 'for profit'"
"but just agreed never to make a profit."
And I thought that would...
I don't know...
He was the guy who would have to do the work.
And so I felt I owed it to him  to defer to his judgment.
That turned out to be a huge mistake.
At the time when when the real crunch came over all of this
they wanted to kick me out and
I suggested, "Look, why don't I buy you out."
And my feeling was: I'll take control of the conference,
I'll borrow some money, buy them out, 
take control of the conference
and then run it as a "not for  profit"
I'll convert. You can convert from "for" to "not for",
Based on the accounting numbers we had
I offered them a million  dollars.
When they refused
I said, "Okay, will you buy me  out for that?"
Basically just do the reverse.
Same numbers, same everything.
And they said: "No, we won't do that either."
"We just gonna kick you out  completely."
INTERVIEWER: For how much money was it sold?
CHRIS CRAWFORD: They sold it for 3 million  dollars.
INTERVIEWER: So it was a good decision not to take your offer!
CHRIS CRAWFORD: Yes, yes it was.
It was worth more.
But the...
INTERVIEWER: Did you get any money from those 3 millions?
CHRIS CRAWFORD: No. What happened... Well, yes I did get some.
What happened was: From the very beginning I said,
"All right. I offered you 1 million dollars."
"Among six people that's 166,000 dollars apiece."
Therefore when I started legal  action
I said, "I want a 166,000 dollars."
And they, of course, said no.
And my lawyer came to me and said:
"All right, look, what's your final position?"
And I said, "I will compromise with them."
"I will meet them halfway."
"I will accept half of 166,000."
INTERVIEWER: But still you got away with a  small
pouch of money. For being the creator of the whole thing.
Are you bitter about that today?
CHRIS CRAWFORD: That's been so long ago that...
If I was still bitter I would be a poisoned human being.
I have not forgiven the individuals
because they were deliberately  cruel.
At the very end, when I got up to leave, 
and at the door I stopped and  turned around and said:
"I am optimistic that we will be able to reach"
"a final agreement"
"that is both equitable and amicable."
I started to turn to walk away  and one of the board members,
I'll name him in this case, his  name is Tim Brengle,
said: "Equitable? Yes. Amicable? Never!"
They just wanted to hurt.
INTERVIEWER: And you were hurt.
Because you told me you even left your house
and moved out of the San José  area, here to Oregon.
CHRIS CRAWFORD: It was much worse than that.
I went into a deep depression.
The fundamental problem I faced  was:
These were my friends!
And they, they hated me!
What did I do to deserve so much hate?
And I tried to be nice to them
and they still were vicious.
And I just couldn't...
Is the world that evil? I refused to believe...
No. The world cannot be that evil!
Do I want to live in a world
where people whom you liked and trusted
can turn on you like that?
And...
Is this any kind of world to live in? 
And I was...
It took me two years before I was able to do any work again.
It was easily the worst time of my life.
Far and away. I've never had anything that bad happen to me.
And I still look back on it and  think:
"My God how could something that horrible happen" 
"to me?"
LOUIS CASTLE: I came shortly after the dust  had settled.
There definitely was a big  change from
when it was a non-for-profit  thing and then 
it became a for-profit  conference. 
And the, if you will, the  quality
the conference organization
and conference management went  up dramatically.
And it was necessary
because the industry was  growing, there was more people.
And frankly, the folks that were running it,
they had day jobs, they were  making games.
BOB BATES: The change was not...
transparent to me.
It was: "OK, here's where the conference is next year.
STEVE MERETZKY: The show obviously was getting  bigger
It would have sort of been  impossible for it
to continue to be run as a  volunteer operation.
INTERVIEWER: And by part-timers.
STEVE MERETZKY: Right. And that meant that
people would have had to be paid
to do stuff that people had been doing for free, and
that money would have had to  come from somewhere, et cetera.
LOUIS CASTLE: As much as there was all this  concern,
and I heard a lot of people's  concern,
I remember very distinctly the group of us that got together
being - even back then - genuinely concerned about
making sure that the spirit of  the conference
followed those original roots.
And to this day, it is quite an  unique conference,
There's nothing quite like it,
and I've been at hundreds of  conferences.
GORDON WALTON: Once we've kind of went over a thousand
and started getting close to  2000,
The conference had to be more  professional.
Because when you have that many  people,
you're no longer a tribe.
Right? You're a collection of  tribes.
It gets bigger.
And so the socialization of it
breaks down.
JULIAN EGGEBRECHT: We met quite a few of the  veterans
at the time both at Lucas as  well as at EA.
But then the next big "being star struck" event was, in '96
at that show.
And one of the really cool  things was,
because I was a huge fan of a  classic game called M.U.L.E.
by Dan Bunten, absolutely adored it.
At that time Dan already had become Danny Bunten.
And I met her, actually, that year.
I think she died two years later from cancer.
So I felt really, really  privileged in hindsight.
BOB BATES: Their focus is a little  different.
And they still are
very interested in the needs of the developers
and in a way that...
that the first group couldn't  really do.
Which is to say...
The conference now serves the  needs of
technical artists and audio  people and...
engine creators.
And it's a much broader set of offerings for more people.
The original conference was  focused much more just really...
INTERVIEWER: On the game design - of PC games, by the way.
Oh of course. The *C*GDC, not  video games!
JULIAN EGGEBRECHT: '97 or '98, that's definitely  when it felt that GDC grew up.
It really became something  professional
I remember doing, in front of of the convention center,
doing some promotional work in early 99.
because we had just launched Star Wars Rogue Squadron.
STEVE MERETZKY: It was just a gradual shift, year after year.
You know, of...
more and more people coming who I didn't know.
More and more people coming who were new
or not even in the industry but just hoping to break in.
There might have been a character shift
really right around the time of the name change.
NARRATOR: After the conference was sold to Miller-Freeman,
attendee numbers rose  steeply.
In 1999, GDC not only moved to  the San José Convention Center,
but also changed its name:
"Computer Game Developers  Conference" turned into
"Game Developers Conference"
to underscore the growing  importance of video games.
WARREN SPECTOR: The Game Developers Conference  certainly changed over time,
when it started to attract thousands of people.
Two, three, four, five thousand people.
Some of that intimacy went away.
But we we tried to stay focused
on our small group of friends.
And then we were all getting older
and became speakers and thought  leaders.
So the conversations we used to have in someone's suite
all of sudden were happening up  on the stage,
which was pretty exciting.
STEVE MERETZKY: The growth of the conference  sort of mirrors
the growth of the industry itself and the change
the increasing diversity of the  industry.
And I'm not just talking diversity in gender or
ethnic groups or what have you. I'm talking about diversity of
types of companies, diversity of types of games,
diversity of the audience that we're developing for.
Originally it was relatively monolithic by those standards.
It was mostly people developing PC games that were sold
through the retail channel in  boxes for 40 or 50 dollars
to probably mostly male teens  or young adult males.
LOUIS CASTLE: As the conference got bigger and the industry got bigger,
it became more and more difficult to
share ideas on things that might not even be finished yet.
Chris Crawford famously would talk about games that
he was working on, long before  he even had names for them.
You really wouldn't quite do that anymore,
especially with the bigger  companies.
From the board's point of view  what we really wanted to do
was protect the quality and the caliber of the material
that was being shared.
So we've always been challenged with
making sure that somebody can  actually
get up on stage and say what they want to say.
We make sure that the company clears all the assets.
We do all the stuff you imagine.
NOAH FALSTEIN: It's when it moved to San José, because it had gotten too big.
The first few were in different hotels every year,
as it got bigger.
And then it was in Santa Clara  for a while.
Santa Clara was still very intimate
and you tended to meet most of  the people at the conference.
In San José, it started to become a little more corporate.
STEVE MERETZKY: And then it moved to the San  José Convention Center and
it was there for many years, probably 10 years.
I think for a lot of people that was like the
Golden Era of the GDC.
The Fairmont Hotel was, or the Fairmont lobby bar...
You could get a few hundred people in there, certainly not
all 2000 people or whatever.
but at least most of the people
who mattered knew to go to the Fairmont lobby bar
and spend the entire evening hanging out there.
And there's never been anything
like that since the conference moved up here.
So I think there's a lot of nostalgia
for the Fairmount lobby bar.
BOB BATES: It was not just a lobby bar.
There was this big pit that 
people would sit in, with  couches...
and then... almost like a  mezzanine.
And so the entire community  would
gather there and it's very loud, very crowded, very noisy.
But you knew that if you were there,
then everybody you knew would  would come by.
WARREN SPECTOR: The intimate quality of the Game Developers Conference
lasted quite a while, actually.
It changed, obviously, as the  the conference got bigger.
But what happened was you made friends with people
and developed this circle
that would get together once a  year.
And so we would later on gather in the bar of the Fairmont Hotel
in San José and hang out with  people that we saw infrequently.
But the best parts of the Game Developers Conference for me
have always been the times you spend in someone's suite
talking all night about game  design and
about the future of game  development.
NARRATOR: For 7 years, the GDC took place  in the city center of San José.
But it could not grow much  further there.
The owners' solution:
Moving to San Francisco.
GORDON WALTON: We didn't like to move.
Even coming here to San Francisco took a while.
Until we outgrew the San José Convention Center,
we stayed down in the San José area.
JULIAN EGGEBRECHT: San José had this really  intimate feeling,
despite it being in the convention center.
And I have to say, I never...
I was part of the advisory board when we did the move.
And I know why the move to San Francisco had to happen.
I personally never enjoyed San Francisco as much.
The Fairmont bar was...
Basically you drove down there,
you arrived on the first day
and you met everybody you wanted to meet.
That never really came together like that here in San Francisco.
BOB BATES: And we've really lost that.
And I've suggested for years
that the organizers take the
Moscone lobby, put up a cash bar,
and they're not going to lose money on it.
People will come and people will gather
and that would, I think, again
help bring the community back  together.
NOAH FALSTEIN: The very first conference,
there were perhaps two cart tables set up
and people had a few brochures.
And gradually it became a little more formal.
But most of us were going to the Consumer Electronics Show
that predated E3,
which was an enormous show and very professional.
So everything that GDC was doing seemed almost amateur
and casual by comparison.
And it wasn't really until they moved here to San Sanfrisco
that the Expo started to feel imposing and significant to me.
(Shigeru Miyamoto speaking in  Japanese)
SID MEIER: No, that's not what they're gonna think.
SID MEIER: They'll think: "I just wasted  eight hours on this stupid game"
INTERVIEWER: Why move to one of the most  expensive cities in the world?
JULIAN EGGEBRECHT: I was on the on the advisory board
back then when we were talking about that.
But there never was a large choice.
We knew we had to get out of San Jose, that was clear.
I believe Las Vegas was in the running for a little bit.
At the end of the day it became  very clear that San Francisco
was really at the heart of the  conference.
I think that's why they simply chose Moscone.
INTERVIEWER: Prices increased steeply.
Today, prices are very high.
STEVE MERETZKY: True, although...
Even though the Full Pass is pretty expensive, there are
things like the Expo Pass, that is relatively cheap.
INTERVIEWER: But it's not something
a young indie developer
will be  happy to pay.
Maybe the show has been
commercialized too much?
STEVE MERETZKY: I don't think it's really the right place
for, kind of, encouraging  indie...
No, I mean, I think it's a great place for indies, but
I don't think it's a great to encourage
newbies to come to try to break in.
This is actually my first GDC. I am a GDC newbie!
This is actually my first time ever being here.
It's a bit of a shock but I'm  happy to finally have done this.
For me it was about coming here and seeing as much as I could.
Getting across what the trends are, currently in the landscape.
And just trying to meet as many cool people as possible,
because there's a lot here.
I really got a good sense of
the scale of what I'm really working with here.
Being tucked away in Michigan, it's really hard to get that.
And also to get some of my work  looked at by people
which I'm doing right now
because it's sometimes hard to get a triple-A perspective
when you're so far away
The first few years I went it  was more about
the talks and the actual  conference itself.
Now it's more about meeting  people,
getting to meet as many new faces as I can.
In Ohio, there aren't really any game devs,
there's nowhere for me to get a good job.
There's not really any way for me to train any
sort of art digital skills.
So I come down here to make some contacts,
also to maybe get some educational information.
GORDON WALTON: The prices -it's obscene.
It is. Luckily, the expo passes  are cheap enough 
that students can manage it.
A large group of students from
our school all got together,  decided
"hey let's help each other out." We organized flights,
we organized housing, we figured it out.
I'm a person who kind of sits on his money.
I like investing in anything that will make my future better.
So... the money that I did  have saved up,
GDC seemed like a thing that was worth it.
But... the value delivered is  high enough 
that people will pay it.
I have talked to people who are
definitely way better than me, way further along, and
are giving me tips as to how I  can reach where they are.
And there are also a lot of other students here.
I was able to talk to students and give them
my little portfolio review, my  little advice.
I would highly recommend that anyone who knows early on
that they want to go into games,
specially now the industry is a  lot more developed
to really go and just attend GDC
in their Freshman year or  Sophomore year
and then they can skip a couple  of years,
and definitely just make those  connections.
Get their work out there.
I think the GDC is a good wake-up call
to real life for a lot of  people.
I think that most of the time,
at least based on last year's  experience
and what I've done this year,
there's a few standout talks
that are really, really  worth it.
that are the things that kind of are inspiring
and start to launch into other conversations with other people
that were also in attendance.
That's a part of it that I really enjoy:
When I can walk out of a talk  with someone
that I know saw it with me and  then
create a whole other  conversation around
what the topic was.
So sometimes it's not the talk  itself
but the conversation that comes from the talk after
where the value is.
There's information you can  learn from most
professionals at those lectures
that you can take back to your classroom or your team
or your own studio, if you're a  student still,
and so I think that stuff can help you.
But I think also that in this  industry, that's
quite small, from a concept  design perspective,
a lot of it is about who  you know.
WARREN SPECTOR: It's a real problem getting
young developers and indie developers here.
There's no question.
It's very expensive, it's hard  to get a hotel room.
But just look at the attendance:
20,000, 30,000 people somehow  figure out how to do it.
Now I live in the Bay Area.
INTERVIEWER: So it's not so hard to come  here.
INTERVIEWER: And you don't have the atrocious hotel costs to care about.
Still, passes here are quite  expensive.
Yes.
INTERVIEWER: What pass did you get?
I got the Conference and Summits Pass.
INTERVIEWER: What did you pay?
I actually don't recall what that tier exactly cost,
but it was expensive.
INTERVIEWER: What were your expectations?
This time was my second time
and we had a more targeted  approach to GDC this year.
I'm a founder, I run a small  indie mobile company
focusing on AR and VR.
We came here mostly looking to hire a narrative designer
and a marketing person.
I actually got a scholarship
from the Game Developers Association of Australia
which covers my ticket cost.
And the rest of it is self-funded for this trip.
So I really wanted to go on my own
as an indie developer would, for the first time.
To make sure that I was having kind of the "true experience"
that so many indie game  devs that I work with have.
GORDON WALTON: People come here, they put 8 people in a hotel room.
The volunteer program is a great thing that
allowed a lot of people without really the means
to come and experience half the  show:
work half the time, experience  the show half the time.
TEMARIUS WALKER: I do have some friends who do volunteer
so I would highly recommend
looking into...
yeah, the volunteer program
which from what I hear is paid.  And they do provide meals.
I would also look into like scholarships.
SIMON CARLESS: We have our call for submissions as early as June.
So we're really starting our  call for submissions again
in three or four months for next year.
And we have a lot of post show wrap ups and postmortems
to make sure everything went  well.
So yeah, it ramps up. At the show itself probably we
swell to as many as a 100+  people working on the show.
But certainly we have a core team year round,
of 15 to 20 people, probably,
who are working on either some aspects of it,
even when they're working on other stuff as well.
INTERVIEWER: And the 100 people
do not include all the volunteers being there,
helping solve questions, standing at the doors.
That's right. So our Conference Associates program
is in addition to the 100 people,
so probably another 300 or 400  Conference Associates
and they are really an important part of the program.
INTERVIEWER: So transportation and possibly accommodation is not a problem,
but still the price of the  passes to the conference.
Yeah of course.
INTERVIEWER: So what pass did you buy?
I've done the regular Expo Pass, but last year I
but last year I tried the Expo Plus as well.
This year I bought Expo Pass,
last year I bought Conference  Pass.
I thought that the talks were going to be more educational
than they actually were.
But sitting through the talks I realized that some of
the information that they giving in there was either
(a) so rudimentary or (b) so  technical,
that it wasn't really worth attending.
SIMON CARLESS: We had a talk yesterday:
personal experiences in games, in the Indie Summit.
That's pretty much about people who
are not that interested in  making commercial titles.
They're interested in making
titles that have personal value to them.
So I think there's still a lot of idealism at the show,
but there's talks about micro  transactions.
So I think it's just sort of
which part of the show do you want to attend.
There's parts of the show where  people
don't really come on-site much at all.
That could be because you're a business person.
Or it could be because you want  to hang out
in Yerba Buena Gardens and  that's fine as well.
So I think, certainly, if you  would ask some of the
the old timers who were around back in the day,
there was a peer set there that
that I don't necessarily see at  the show anymore.
I think that speaks a little bit to
some of the issues we have about longevity
of careers in the gaming industry.
Because the game industry changes a lot.
This being my second year
and my first year where the weather was good,
there were so many more opportunities for
spotting people across the park
and be like, "Oh, I know you!"
"You make this thing, I really admire your work!" et cetera.
It's almost too much for me to  digest.
But what I did see was super helpful,
and all panels I've been to have been really great.
I'll try to go to more of them next time I come.
If I do, maybe, get a good pass  but
it has been pretty satisfying.
I've had an incredible experience.
Especially for Australia, when  we are so far,
we relish in being able to talk to people and
get to know people.
And apparently our accent is charming here!
It actually exceeded my  expectations!
So I currently work for Apple
and I'm working on a lot of non-disclosed projects.
And right now I'm looking to get back
into the gaming industry full time
and working just with a team of developers
and this is a great opportunity
for me just to get connected again.
I'd say it was worth it for  sure.
I didn't do too much inside of the conference itself.
But I find it worth it just to
meet the people at the actual conference itself and
meet them outside at the park  and mingle everywhere you can.
This is the biggest gathering
of people who do what I do
that I get to go to.
And it's just exciting to talk to other people
going through the same things.
And help each other solve  problems
and make great games!
WARREN SPECTOR: The GDC Vault is an amazing  resource.
So I would encourage people who can't afford
to come to the conference
to try to get access. You still  have to pay for it,
but get access to the GDC Vault and
you can hear all sorts of talks.
SIMON CARLESS: The sheer recording costs of
recording so many rooms simultaneously are very large.
So that's why it's sort of got bundled in.
But we're continually being more lenient with that,
because we want people to see  the stuff.
Even if you're not at the show.
So we're seeing now we have some...
we have some GDC videos on  YouTube...
with hundreds of thousands of views.
So our reach is getting pretty crazy.
If you look back at its  beginnings in a private home
or in small hotels, today's GDC  is hardly recognizable.
Today, the expo alone is bigger  than many consumer shows,
although GDC is a business  conference.
There are halls for indie  projects, recruiting booths,
career counseling for young game developers and artists.
And of course, there is the conference itself,
with more than 600 speeches and  roundtables in five days.
With a single day's agenda  filling a gigantic poster wall,
maybe the range of topics  already is too big.
SIMON CARLESS: So I think we're trying to go with adjacency.
You know I don't think you'll  see us doing...
a slot machine conference or a  VR movies conference
We sort of got a little bit into that kind of stuff.
We had a VR entertainment track for a while.
Which I think we will also have this year.
But again it's stuff that's clearly adjacent
 and not a long way away.
These are the kind of things  where we have 
a pretty wide program.
So it's great if you want to come in and watch a talk
about KeyForge, which is a  collectible card game,
because you're into that game.  That's great.
But it's not the case that we do expect people to
turn up and camp out in that  room for all day.
LOUIS CASTLE: In the beginning,
Game Developers Conference was call for papers,
people would just write stuff and we would all sit down
and say: "What do we want?"
We'd go through every  submission.
And... we rejected a lot.
We still do. The vast majority  gets rejected.
INTERVIEWER: Because they are self promoting or...?
LOUIS CASTLE: Sometimes that. Sometimes it's  just we go, "Mmh..."
"Maybe that's..."
A lot of times, people just want to give us a 101,
because somebody made a game game once,
and they go: "Wow, everybody should know how to do this!"
An we say: "Yeah..."
"Most attendees have shipped six games,"
"so we're not gonna do that."
So we changed it over the years
and I know I was very...
closely involved with the first change:
Instead of just casting a net,
 we'll go out and set a  curriculum and say:
"These are the talks we are  looking for."
We were capable of doing that because we had brought in
so many great business leaders throughout
the games development community
so we can say: "These are the  things we're facing today."
"We'd love to have talks on it next year."
And that's actually right at the end of the GDC.
WARREN SPECTOR: I was never asked
to be on the advisory board!
INTERVIEWER: Why not?
I have no idea!
I certainly know people who are on the board.
I didn't want to invite myself.
That would be kind of gosh, I  guess.
But no they never did. I would have served happily.
LOUIS CASTLE: The second big thing we did:
We changed it from having people send us full submissions
to these abstracts.
And that was a big change, too.  Because
we didn't get as much a flood of stuff as you might think
because we really lowered the  bar when it came to
how much you had to prepare.
But what it did was, it meant that
the people that were getting rejected
weren't spending all this time on doing full presentations.
LOUIS CASTLE: I want to point out right on  the front
the front. I recorded this all in Frank's little casino...
which has an audio recording booth...
CORY BARLOG: You are focusing a lot on the
middle section of the game,
so some stuff in the mountain...
- if you all played the game, 
you'll understand this part -  
inside the mountain... 
HENRIK JONSSON: We are all part of the joy  industrial complex.
CORY BARLOG: An at the back of that group of  people
is Hideo Kojima,
Right? Bathed in light...
WARREN SPECTOR: And I love it.
Speaking to a room full of other developers
and sort of, frankly, pontificating a little bit
getting up on my soap box
is always fun.
I hope I've contributed  something to the
discussion about what games can  and should be.
 In San Francisco, GDC continued to grow,
but slower than before.
In 2019, there were 29,000 attendees.
In 2020, because of the novel Corona virus,
GDC was postponed and held as an online event, only.
SIMON CARLESS: We haven't been growing quite as quickly as we did
at one point, if you look at our raw numbers.
And I think there's various reasons for that.
Also we are getting quite  close to capacity.
Although the recent remodelling  of Moscone center gives us
a bit more space for conference  rooms and for expo.
So I think we have the space to get somewhat bigger and
and that sort of our intent.
But we're not really planning to massively pivot the show...
or suddenly say, "it's open to  all consumers".
So we're getting a little bit  towards 30,000.
And I hope to keep growing from  there.
But I think...
We'll see what happens.
And if you count the people who  are also in San Francisco,
participating around the show,
INTERVIEWER: In hotels and...
Yeah. It's actually  quite a bit larger.
We don't really know what the number is, frankly.
STEVE MERETZKY: We're still at a point where
it's pretty important to get in the same location
as the people you work with.
LOUIS CASTLE: The Game Developers Conference,
Its heart and soul has not outgrown San Francisco.
So much of what we are as an industry is here.
JULIAN EGGEBRECHT: The spirit within the whole thing,
that people genuinely have a love for games
and want to exchange information freely
about where are things going,
where is game design going,
where is engineering going,
all of these things that really  were at the heart of GDC
in the beginning - I think that's still the case.
I've heard from lots of younger developers
that they enjoy it so much bumping into people here.
INTERVIEWER: As far as I know, you are the only person
you are the only person who has ever been to every single GDC?
GORDON WALTON: Not true! Tim Brengle, who was at the first GDC,
has also been to every GDC.
I've spoken at more GDCs than he has.
But now we're in a race: Who's going to fall out first?
LOUIS CASTLE: You know, who really inspired me was Chris Crawford.
Chris is a very eloquent man and he's very passionate.
And I think...
he inspired me in a sort of backhanded way, because
he kept talking about how hard  things were going to be.
And when he would talk about these challenges, I was like:
"We can do that!" "We can do that!"
And they were really hard  challenges, he wasn't wrong, no!
But I was really inspired by his passion
for video games as an art form.
and as a medium of touching people's hearts and lives.
BOB BATES: Chris is a force unto himself.
A man of strong opinions...
and... many of which ran counter to my own.
Because he has a view of storytelling in games,
that is a very specific one.
He likes to say that "a player cannot interact with story",
"He can only interact with  data."
And we were at loggerheads in  that regard. And still are.
We talked and we disagreed.  But...
But he is an interesting guy, you know, he's a fun person.
INTERVIEWER: Is the founder still welcome?
Could he have a speech here, for example?
SIMON CARLESS: Yes. He actually did give a  speech here, for the 
30th anniversary. INTERVIEWER: two years ago or so?
SIMON CARLESS: I think even more recently than  that.
But yeah I mean, I think Chris is a brilliant guy.
if you look at some of his early career stuff, like...
Balance of Power is an amazing  game.
And we really respect the way that he founded the show.
I think we're ultimately honoring what he did
essentially by continuing to run the show.
INTERVIEWER: What are your thoughts about  today's GDC?
Are you happy that you gave  birth to 
what now has become modern GDC?
Are you critical about it?
CHRIS CRAWFORD: I feel rather as if
I had saved the life of a baby tiger.
That there'd been this tiger kitten
and I had actually created it somehow.
And I brought it to life and I  nurtured it
and it was so cute
and so beautiful and so full of  promise.
And it grew up into a big...
carnivore.
And it's not cute.
But it is the natural result of  what I did.
And so I don't feel bad.
It's more like...
A kitten is only a kitten for so long.
And I was there at the beginning
and I helped this kitten live
and grow up.
And now it's a tiger,
and that is as it should be.
But I...
... don't play with tigers.
