I really hope CMP makes GDC invite-only for press. In years past I would have said “No!” because frankly, a lot of my friends got in on bogus press passes, but in the last year or two CMP has curtailed that.
While I have a lot of friends who are press, most of them work for big enough media outlets that they’ll probably still be coming to the show. And frankly, anything to curtail the number of attendees is a good thing, although this is obviously CMP kowtowing to the bottom line (press doesn’t pay to get in). If they implement this, I hope it makes next year’s GDC considerably geekier and more developer-focused. That would be a good thing.
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I just noticed that there were 18,000 people at the GDC this year… Probably around 1,200 press. Can you even imagine what the GDC will look like in 5 – 10 years? O_o! Madness.
GDC was such a great experience for me, but even I noticed the press, which kind of annoyed me because I felt like it took away from the actual games and the hard workers behind them. Like you said, I think the press should have to pay to attend GDC.
I have yet to go myself, but it’ covered enough so I can get a feel for it, but maybe just stricter credentials to get in? I mean less attendance from media outlets generally men guys like me don’t get the full scoop. I mean if a low level journalist manages to score a few emotional minutes with a prominent developer it’s better than something like Joystiq popping in there with scripted questions, no? hmm… I’m gonna cut this before it gets too long…oh and by the way, this is Max, I met you at the lecture you gave at SCAD.
As press who attended and has attended for 6-7 years, I hope not. With E3 nebulous it has turned into a mini-E3.
I used to send staff and require they attend session so they would be educated and could review/interview intelligently.
This year, due to money constraints and the terrible timing, I was the ONLY person from my site there the entire time. (I had two people who were there for half a day and only to see product.)
I never opened a session guide much less attended a session and this is 2 years running.
I no longer hope I can review intelligently; I only hope I can write intelligently.
Sure, but … ONLY if people like you start liveblogging or at least partial transcripting the sessions you go to.
Too much good stuff at GDC goes unreported on the textual internet, and as we all know: if Google can’t see it, then it never happened.
Sorry.
/unmount soapbox
But I’ll keep protesting until Google starts Speech-to-Text’ing every conference as a matter of course…
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