A record 18,250 people flocked to the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco this past week, where the MDM program was represented and showcased by the five members of the Womp Team and myself.

It made for a fantastic and exciting few days, as we chatted with hundreds of aspiring students, successful game developers, giant publishers and their recruiters, picked up too much gaming swag to bring back, and ran out of business cards far too soon.
From Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon, a number of international undergraduate students talked to us about our unique program, and dozens of recruiters and publishers stopped by to give us personal tips on what the industry is looking for.
It was the first time I had ever been to either the event or to San Francisco, and I was thrilled to have been able to go. Here are a few highlights from the weekend:

- Getting to see hometown heroes Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at a bar named Slim’s on Wednesday night. There’s a decade-old wish off the bucket list.

- Meeting Steve Wiebe, star of King of Kong and on-again, off-again record holder.  A junior high algebra teacher in Kirkland, Washington, he really is a nice guy. I asked him if he’d ever played my favourite classic, River Raid for the Atari 2600, and he said no, but he’d look into it.

- Getting a “zombie vaccination” from Zombrex, a fictional pharmaceutical company made up of the team behind Dead Rising 2. Seemingly everyone was wearing its logoed band-aids.

- Playing Super Stardust HD, MLB ’10 and Heavy Rain all in 3D. Plus, there were a number of really cool independent titles I played, including Monaco, Limbo and Shank.

- Running out of business cards on day one. I had thought to myself, “I won’t need more than 30, right?” Fortunately, I found some more in my bag that night.

- Realizing very quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to see talks by Will Wright, Sid Meier or any other of the keynote speakers because of all the interest.

- Chatting with two Spanish brothers and business partners at the Disney mixer about soccer, siestas and San Francisco’s visible homeless. “I must live in Spain!” I told them. “Now’s the worst time,” they told me. Blast.

- Eating. The food in San Francisco is really good, from the organic tortilla soup I had at a Mexican restaurant, to the greasy Philly cheesesteak I had at a dodgy diner.

- Rating the biggest lineups for each booth. In order, they were Blizzard, Naughty Dog and then Valve. Sony and Activision were up there too, but also had a larger presence.

- Speaking of lineups, at an event like this, there were no lineups for the women’s washroom, but frequent lineups for the two men’s.

- Anyway, for those who missed it, the upcoming GDC Canada event on May 6 and 7 is being held in Vancouver, which makes it much easier for our students to attend. Considering how valuable making personal connections is in this industry, I expect a lot of us probably will.

Nick Lewis is a 1st year MDM graduate student. His hobbies include gaming, videoing, video gaming and gaming videos.