GDC 2008: Jamil Moledina: Probing the Mind of GDC, Part Two

TE: I guess kind of on a related note, I also wanted to ask you: How hard is it to get these creative minds together to share, perhaps, you know, what they're working on or new ideas when we all know the companies they are representing and working for are very secretive of what they're working on, the new methodologies and things they're developing? How do you draw that line or balance that edge?

JM: Well, it's two things. One is that we benefit from the GDC having been originally created by game developers, so it has this built-in sense of trust. And what comes with it is our secret weapon, which is our advisory board of 20 top industry luminaries. So, they're already out in the community, they're talking to their own staff, they're talking to their colleagues, they are working on our behalf to ensure these creative developers that GDC is a safe place, and it has a history of being a safe place.

And on the other hand, our GDC management team is out there doing a lot of ambassador work with a lot of these folks. For example, I spent a lot of time just traveling around the world talking to developers. I spent a lot of time in Japan talking to the folks at the top publishers over there, and sometimes it means having just a one-hour sit-down meeting and expressing, "we would love to see your games explained at the GDC, and this is the benefit of why it might work." And understandably, you are sharing your secrets, but essentially they're the secrets you had six months to two years ago and you've advanced from there. And wouldn't you say it's your staff's execution that makes your games so great?

So it's a balancing act, and the more that we can kind of personally reassure them that we have this editorial outlook, that we want to promote this 1960s of free love and free sharing, and present it in a way that shows that by participating, you are also standing to gain, because it encourages other people to share. And we have this amazing kind of chain reaction then, where you see all of the top developers sharing the information that they have. And it is so unbelievably satisfying and rewarding from an editorial standpoint to see this. It really makes it all worthwhile.

TE: I suppose another part of it may be ... I don't know, you tell me ... the relationship between the conference and the various press arms coming out. I mean, how do you ... what do you see right now as kind of the state of the GDC's relationship with the game press, particularly considering what an eventful year it has been for the game press?

JM: It's been an eventful year for the game press meaning ... ?

TE: Well, we've seen a number of conventions, in fact just most recently DICE had taken an ... I don't want to call it an adversarial stance, but they were severely restricting certain sites. It's kind of this feeling that game press is maybe not the place people want to be talking to anymore. Since the industry is becoming more mainstream, maybe some of these enthusiast magazines that had been getting a lot of attention before aren't anymore. Do you feel that at all at GDC or is that just not even something that you guys deal with?

JM: There's a lot of people that ... let me see how I should say this ... we are actually restricting what we classify as press at GDC, so this year, the total number of people receiving a press badge is going down. And I think that's due more to the phenomenon of people starting a blog and saying a few words on their website and then trying to classify themselves as press.

So we've had to just kind of upgrade our press credentialing to make sure that it is people who are professional members of the press who are being accredited. And that's really fair to professional journalists as well as professional developers, who are all paying a fairly high pass rate to get into GDC, and the professional journalists need to be respected for the work that they do as well.

So our response is more to that side of things, rather than anything else. We have a strong and ongoing relationship with the enthusiast press ... these are the folks that have loved us first, and they will love us last.

TE: I want to finish with one question I asked Brian, and I'm asking everyone ... what do you think the party to be at is going to be this year at GDC?

JM: Oh, that's tricky. I would say that the Independent Games Festival and the Game Developers Choice Awards will be the evening event. That is our main event at GDC, it's the place where, you know, the whole week we're seeing developers onstage with a spotlight talking about what they've learned and the ideas they have, but this is the one night where they'll be on stage being recognized for their accomplishments. I mean, everywhere else in the industry, it's Mario or Master Chief or a company name gets recognition. I mean, let's look at this seriously: this is the 21st century art form, games. And we love these games, and we ought to respect the individuals that make them, and this is the one night where we do this, and it's so emotional. People say what's actually in their hearts, because they're recognized by their peers. It's a magical night. I love it and I recommend it highly for everyone to attend.

GDC begins today and will run through Friday, February 22nd. The Escapist will be there providing exclusive coverage of panels, events and parties.