Hi,
I was looking at the GDC passes, and still can't make my choice since I have never been there before and am not sure what the conference and tutorial look like.

We were hoping to have a first taste from it, just looking around and be ready for 2012 or 2013 (we plan a small exhibit at some events)


So for a first GDC would the Expo pass (the cheaper one) would be OK or it would limit us too much from getting a global view ? Should I pay the extra money of the conference/tutorial pass or would it be too much overwhelming for a first GDC?

For the expo floor, is it comparable to the E3 floor? Bigger? Smaller?


Ah....so many question....

Thank you!!!

With an Expo pass, you can mingle and meet people, exchange business cards. The expo is much smaller than E3 and has precious few games to see except for the IGF (very worthwhile). Mostly what you get with the expo floor is middleware vendors, QA services, and job booths. The things you do not get with the Expo pass are the sessions (usually incredibly useful), and the lunch box.
Oh, and the expo floor is only open for a short window of time during the day, 11 to 5 or something.

What, exactly, are you going to GDC for? There's a lot of stuff to offer there, and a lot of different options for how to get there - but it all depends on what you intend to get out of the experience.

The best I can gather is that you want to demo a game on the expo floor - is that correct?

Thank you for the answer, so I guess am better with either the summit/tutorials pass or the conference one.

I am still hesitating between those since when I am looking at example of conference and tutorial I don't quite grasp the difference, but since I really hope to attend the indie game summit, I will probably go with the summit and tutorials one.

Quote: The best I can gather is that you want to demo a game on the expo floor - is that correct?

In reply to ApochPiQ, no, not game. We wan't to showcase our middleware tools, but not until next year or the one after because they are still in development.

We are aiming the indie market. It's one of the reasons I wish to attend the indie game summit. I want to see if it is possible to showcase there or only on the expo floor, advertise there and finally network with a couple of indie studios.

A tutorial is an all-day thing in one room, drilling down into one topic.
A conference is a series of short speeches, roundtables, and panels on numerous topics.
A summit is a series of short talks on various aspects of a single subject.

The expo will be the only really relevant part of GDC for you, then; as Tom noted the summits are really more oriented around people giving short talks/panels from actual development experiences, rather than talking about their products.

Well, if you are developing middleware for developers it might also be worthwhile to listen to real development experiences at the summits. If you are multiple people going, why not send off one person to the summits, to whatever talks seems related to your product. You never know, maybe you'll gain some valuable insight.