The 2018 Game Developers Conference attracts 28,000 games industry professionals, setting a new attendance record.
Organisers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) say that last week’s event was largest yet, with over 28,000 attendees making the trip to San Francisco’s Moscone Center for five days of networking and learning.
The conference hosted over 750 sessions and tutorials, and over 500 companies exhibited at the sprawling GDC Expo. This year’s event also saw the return of the Indie Megabooth, GDC Play, Double Fine’s Day of the Devs, the indie Train Jam, and Mild Rumpus.
Other highlights included the annual Game Developers Choice and Independent Games Festival awards, which saw games including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Night in the Woods, recognised for their artistic and technical achievements.
Katie Stern, general manager of GDC, said in a press statement:
“True to its name, the Game Developers Conference is an event for everyone in the games industry, from the aspiring game makers in the indie showcases, to the legendary creators in the classic games postmortems, and everyone in-between. It also helps spotlight the best games of the year, the most promising indie teams, the most advanced technology, and the most pressing social issues as reflected by the industry as a whole. Games can be a vehicle for art, but they’re also the product of the hard work of game creators from around the world, and GDC will continue to work to showcase the best talent and to help support those on the verge of creating something special that pushes the medium forward. ”
The 2019 Game Developers Conference will return to the Moscone Center, and will run from March 18 – 22, 2019. The call for speakers submissions will open this summer.
You can check out more of our GDC coverage below, and stay tuned for more session reports and developer interviews on Thumbsticks in the coming weeks.