Report from GDC 2018

Once again I attended the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. This year's conference seemed to have a lot more energy than last. I also found a number of new technologies to be very interesting. While Unity didn't have a large presence, Unreal did. For those that don't know, both are makers of video game engines used by many developers around the world. In fact, if I had to give an award for the best booth at the show, it would be the Unreal booth. They actually had 2 booths and the one showcasing a number of games written in Unreal is my favorite of the show. This is significant because my company had a large booth but I liked Unreal's more.

Another booth, other than my own, that I enjoyed stopping at was from Amazon. They seem to have some pretty interesting technology that others can use to help create games. I stopped and talked with them for a bit and am impressed. Of course, I think my ideas are light years ahead of theirs but I might be a bit biased.

Virtual Reality continued to have growing representation and I am interested to see how that part of the market evolves. Right now I think we have some great technology with high-end hardware from Oculus, mid-market technology from PlayStation, and ubiquitous entry-level hardware with the smartphone manufacturers coupled with Google hardware . All we need is great content. Some new games have recently been released and I look forward to the E3 announcements this summer.

It pleased me greatly to see that this year's GDC seemed much better than some of the more recent ones. It gives me hope that the industry is healthy and picking up momentum again. Perhaps video games are just the distraction we all need to keep our mind off politics. I know it helps me.