Game Conference Opens Amid Strong Sales and Layoffs
The Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco will be beeping and buzzing this week as video-game fans, employees and developers gather for Think Services’ annual Game Developers Conference. The GDC, which is expected to attract just under 18,000 attendees, opened Monday and runs through Friday.
According to Director Meggan Scavio, the GDC serves as a barometer for the health of the video-game industry. “The strength and spirit of the industry,” Scavio said, “is reflected here in these five days where the community gathers together to continue to network and learn from one another and to directly challenge current global economic conditions by finding and creating new opportunities.”
Attendees can choose from among 500 lectures, panels, tutorials and roundtable discussions, and will have a chance to hear a keynote address by Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, on Wednesday.
Strong Sales
According to sales figures sent out last week by David Riley, senior manager for NPD Group, GDC attendees should be in a pretty good mood. Year-to-date sales for the video-game industry hit a remarkable $2.81 billion at the end of February, a solid 11 percent increase from the same period in 2008.
Hardware vendors received particularly good news as their sector surged over the previous year by 14 percent, compared with 13 percent for accessories and 10 percent for software.
There will be plenty of opportunity to talk over developments as the GDC hosts a variety of summit meetings. Among the events scheduled are the AI Summit, the Casual Games Summit, the Game Outsourcing Summit, the IGDA Education Summit, the Independent Games Summit, the Localization Summit, the Serious Games Summit, and the Worlds in Motion Summit.
Warning Signs?
Despite the fact that the video-game industry is bucking economic trends so far, there are some warning signs of potentially difficult times ahead. Thanks in part to steadily rising development costs,…
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