GDC organisers reveal details of new “GDC Festival of Gaming”

The Game Developer’s Conference has revealed the details behind its rebrand as “GDC Festival of Gaming”, following a month of almost entirely negative speculation following the brand announcement in September. The show returns to San Francisco from 9th-13th March next year.

The new-look show is still industry-only, with no consumer access, and anchored by the sessions, expo floor (now called the Festival Hall) and networking in its established home in the Moscone Center. These are accessed by a new “Festival Pass” which is nearly half the price of the previous “All-Access” pass (but no longer grants access to the GDC Vault archive). A series of additional features are offered by a new higher-priced “Game Changers” pass, aimed at more senior figures and those at the show to pitch games.

The Game Changers pass grants access to a new three-day exec-targeted Luminaries Speaker series in Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA, along with private meeting spaces in the Yerba Buena Center and the deal-making hotspot of the W hotel, and an invite-only GamePlan networking platform for “facilitated high-intent 1:1s” that can be booked ahead of the show. Game Changers ticket-holders also get access to premium seating and loungers and “fast-track entry to keynotes, concerts and awards.”

The show retains a digital pass which offers online-only networking and access to the GDC Vault, along with “application-based options” that are designed to offer show access to early-stage startups, indies and academia. There is no explicit criteria for the latter group, who will need to apply for consideration. Ticket prices are listed on the GDC website.

Other changes include

• The Expo hall is now the Festival Hall, which is open from Wedesday through Friday and organized into five neighborhoods: Game Development, Future Tech, Indie & Education, International, Monetization & Player Engagement. Each features demos, micro-sessions, and “places to sit down and talk.”
• An extended and more varied content program, potentially with the return of keynote sessions and addition of new formats, with content previously grouped in summits on Monday and Tuesday now spread throughout the week
• A week-long series of evening events under the GDC Nights brand, with a Opening Night Social Mixer on Monday night, Austin Wintory’s Developers Concert on Tuesday night, and separating the IGF and GDC Awards ceremonies to run on Wednesday and Thursday night respectively.

The rebrand was described as “additive” by GDC Executive Director Mark DeLoura, who stressed that it was not an attempt to introduce a consumer audience or prevent the ad hoc networking and dealmaking that has always taken place around, rather than in, the venue. “There are some dedicated spaces that we’re going to take over, but I think all of the spaces that have been there in previous years are still going to be the same,” he said in an interview.

“The festival part of the GDC Festival is that we’re broadening out what the conference is and does, but not into a consumer space. It’s still by developers for developers focused on developers. I think the distinguishing features of it are going to be that we’re going to embrace the city in a different way than we have before.”

“We’re going to spread out and try to also be in the hotels. We’re going to have events in the Yerba Buena, we’re going to have pods over at the Yerba Buena for Game Changers. We’re going to have rooms over in the W for executives to take meetings, in like NDA rooms if they need those. There’s actually some really cool stuff in the works that I hope lands, that’ll be in other buildings close by. But the idea is to make it a celebration, and think about it as a celebration of development versus walking into the building and sitting in the rooms and that’s all we’re doing.”

The new Luminary speaker series will feature talks designed to help “studio heads, VPs at studios or tech directors, production directors,” says DeLoura. “People who are working on the game, but they’re also working on how the game is built, how the game is communicated, how they’re financing the game.”

“I think of it as speakers that are speaking to executives. So the speakers may be the executives, but they may also be analysts, investors.” He points to the speaker lineup at DICE as an inspiration. “The ones that really stick with me have been super out of box from other industries that maybe utilize game technology, but it’s not a talk about game technology, it’s a talk about creativity or good ways to invest into building your teams. Learning from each other, learning from other industries, I think is super fascinating. We’re really digging into all this right now. “

DeLoura describes GamePlan as a “first crack as curated networking”, citing the success of networking systems at other events run by GDC parent Informa. “We haven’t completely nailed all this down yet… If there are people who have really targeted needs that week and we can help them through some kind of curation, we should try that. Let’s give that a crack, see if we can get good at it and help people optimize their time. Especially for people who are super time constrained or executives who are looking for the best indie games. Maybe we can help introduce them to indies that they wouldn’t have met otherwise. The networking is a big part of what we’re bulking up on this year to try to help out.”

He pitches the cheaper Festival Pass as being accessible to a wider audience, while offering broadly the same spread of content that previously required All Access. “The more people who have conversations with more people at the show, the better off we all are. So we want those people to be able to come in and take part in the conference itself. Cutting the price of the main festival 45% and then making it be a full week long, it’s essentially the All Access pass of the previous year minus the GDC Vault. It’s like all-you-can-eat, everything that we do at the show, and it’s almost like half price.

The traditional session content is also being shaken up. “We have the same amount of content as before, but we’re trying to break apart the established pattern.Traditionally GDC talks are panels or micro talks or lectures, maybe some round-tables, and there’s a broader world than that out there.“

“We can do fireside chats. We’re looking into how can we do keynotes again, we’ve been talking about having debates, which we never have really done, but other shows do successfully and we are looking into that. Just let’s try some things this year and see what people like.”

Our full interview with Mark DeLoura will be posted shortly. Further details of the show are listed on the GDC website.