Dear Game Dev,

Next week kicks off the Game Developers Conference (GDC)! When I think back to my first GDC, I remember being a little overwhelmed in a good way, with all of the people, passion, insights, knowledge, and especially all of the connections. If attending, I hope you enjoy your time, I hope you take care of yourself and recharge when needed. 

If you’re not attending, no worries, we are going to have many IGDA-related activities throughout the year. So if you can’t join an IGDA activity at GDC, we have you covered. Speaking of IGDA activities at GDC, we have quite a full calendar. The IGDA will have some rooms for chapter and special interest group leaders to facilitate and hold meetings on Monday and Tuesday. If you haven’t set up a time to reserve a room in the Moscone, definitely reach out to Suzanne, our Director of Global Development to get that set up. 

If you’re still available on Wednesday, we’ll have a full day of booth activities in the North Hall (booth 2833)! We will have a few showcases and features, but we’ll mostly be there to share information and connect. I hope you can stop by and say hello. In addition to the booth activities on Wednesday, we’re going to have a ton of roundtables. Later that day, we’ll be hosting a VIP IGDA leaders and lifetime members dinner in the evening – so if you are an IGDA leader or lifetime member, and you would like to attend, check out the link in our GDC schedule.

On Thursday, the IGDA booth will be active from 10:00 – 6:00 pm PST, and we’ll have even more roundtables. We will host our Mentor Café in the evening from 5:30 – 7:00 pm PST. If you haven’t signed up for the Mentor Café, you can find the link to sign up either as a mentor or a mentee in our GDC schedule. To cap off the evening, we’ll be co-hosting an amazing event – our IGDA-Unreal-Modulate GDC mixer. That’s right, we’re partnering with Unreal Engine and Modulate to bring our communities together, help each other network and connect with industry professionals, and have some amazing fun while we’re doing it. There’ll be free food and drinks, and I have it on good authority that there will be karaoke! I hope you can make it!

Finally, to close out the week, we’re going to have more activities at our IGDA booth along with even more roundtables, and then we’ll take our volunteers to a special dinner to thank them for the wonderful volunteer efforts they provided throughout the week.

Now I know I mention GDC quite a bit, but that’s because I know how important of an event it is. However, like I mentioned, if you are not able to go to GDC do not fret. We will have so many more activities throughout the rest of the year, and you’ll get to learn more about those in upcoming Insiders and announcements. Until our next time together, I hope you have an amazing rest of your week and weeks ahead! I know this this year has been flying by and it’ll be mid year before we know it, but we appreciate your dedication and support to the IGDA community, and  we look forward to connecting with you at GDC or another industry event in the near future!

Take care and see you soon,

Dr. Jakin Vela

Executive Director, IGDA