GDC: There & back again
Well, it feels great to be home, in my own bed and kitchen. GDC was a trip, and I know for a fact, I’m not the only one who ate poorly, didn’t hydrate enough and has sore knees and feet irrespective of age.
I described GDC on Linkedin as “amazing chaos”, because it really was a ballet of rapidly scattering and rejoining ensembles. Less gathering and more like an atomic event. Really well organized and great fun. Literally thousands of people there to see and be seen.
I was there by myself. No team. Just me.
That was bittersweet actually. That in my 17 years in games, I never had the chance to go, nor the support from my leaders to make it so. As a developer that got where he is through his own hustle and hard work, it felt kind of fitting that I made it there under my own steam. Oddly poetic, and empowering I guess.
I found people a bit transactional: “if you can’t help me right now, I don’t have time for you” vibes. Fair enough. I connected more with the people who said, “Let’s talk to anyone and see what shakes out”. They were my tribe, usually taking a smoke break around the South Building. IYKYK. I am so grateful to everyone that made time for me. The connections, old and new, were without a doubt the absolute highlight of the week.
Yes, things are different now.
I guess.
Even without a clear point of comparison, it’s obvious the energy has shifted.
Lots of people are here chasing the money.
$187 Billion (2024) is the milkshake that brought everyone to the yard.
Those with money are being gun-shy where they spend it.
What no one is talking about is the new economic model we’re all going to need to get comfortable with.
Trust. The new economy.
Our audience is losing trust. Various industry choices have alienated them over the last 2-3 years. They have been insulted, manipulated and disappointed. It’s not that the market is changing. It’s that we’ve forgotten our part in a simple equation.
Value for money. Respect for time & attention.Publishers are cautious with developers. So many devs looking for funding so they can keep doing what they do, without asking if its the right thing to be doing at all. Multi-year million dollar projects are high risk in a market where competition for eyeballs is fierce.
Everyone is wary of funding the same profiles who build the same companies and products. There is an appetite for genuine invention!
Developers and VCs aren’t quite seeing eye to eye. Many VCs appear uninformed, with little success to show. Terms focused on ROI and less on supporting creativity leave little chance for new entrants to get funded.
Players don’t trust the system. Whether that’s reviews, marketing, interviews… They prefer content creators who publish authentic content. Trying to build a 80+ Metacritic game? No one cares. Not anyone who spends money on games, anyway. Too many incidents of blatant collusion and gaslighting to dismiss this as toxicity. Players / customers trust each other way more for their insights and news, much like we rely on peer-to-peer reviews for hotels and restaurants. We know this, we just must accept it applies to our industry too.
I’m sure you’ve heard, “the industry is at the turning point”.
In which direction though?
That’s where things get interesting.
The industry needs to think fast.
We have to minimize risk without minimizing creativity. That’s why everyone is looking to indies… not for their revenue, but for their courage and innovation… creative risk taking.
We have to get to market faster.
5 years without any reaction from the target audience is no longer going to work. This space is crowded now, and great ideas come to market all the time.If user testing scares you, it’s probably because you haven’t considered the player until now. That’s a recurring cultural problem we’ll need to address.
We have to keep investment low so we can tolerate creative risk taking. This means we create smaller more senior, impactful teams with a pipeline of trainable juniors. Hire people who contribute to your product and keep them focused on making a polished product.
Partner smarter. There’s been an influx of “experts” who’ve never worked in a studio or shipped a game. Do your homework and verify; establish pedigree, experience and reputation. Do your BG checks and ask your friends. The outcomes of a poor strategic partnership affects much more than your work. It can impact your entire identity as a company and anyone associated.
FAFO is very real. Alienate your audience; expect to lose. Build small teams with people who invest in your game’s success. Not their own agendas. Its completely fine to do so, as long as it doesn’t impact the livelihoods of your team or employees.
More of the same simply wont cut it. Differentiation will be the advantage. Whether its a new untold story, or an original use of mechanics; check out Split Fiction on how to make a new experience from very common mechanics!
No more nickel & diming players. Give them value for money. If you’ve got additional content on launch day, just give it away. You’ve got more where that came from. Players can tell when they’re being milked. Locking it away behind a more expensive bundle is almost like admitting you aren’t sure there are good ideas left, so you’re gonna squeeze what you have. Super lame. Really anti consumer, and they know it. Show some good will.
Never, ever lose sight of your purpose. You’re here to ship units. Creativity, gameplay, accessibility, retention, delight, marketing, DLC… all of these things are levers we pull in service of our main purpose. Its the only way to guarantee we keep the lights on and the wages paid.
2025 will be different in other ways because of a problem of our own making.
This is where we find ourselves.
Over promised and understaffed. When the time comes to re-hire (if it ever does) those developers who have now been in excess of 12 months unemployed will certainly have moved on.
The future belongs to those who can adapt. I think. Whether that means their business model, studio structure, design philosophy etc, its only winning strategy is to mimic the success of the mobile space ($93 Billion in 2024), and re-ignite the relationship with your users.
I hope this is the year we stop making games and start making meaningful experiences instead.
I see the industry working more with external parties. More consultants and X-Devs. At least for the time being where the industry is still trying to find equilibrium in the staff : work ratio.
We’ve been through worse. We’ll get through this too.
But let’s not just survive it. Let’s build something worth trusting again.
See you at GDC 2026, obviously!
