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March 6 - 11, 2012
The Game Developers' Conference is held every year around in this time in San Francisco. Unlike the more well known E3, GDC isn't about showing off all the latest games. It's a conference for game development professionals and focuses on lectures and round tables, recruiting, business meetings, and demonstrating the latest game development hardware and software. I've been to GDC several times as part of a school group when in college and I went by myself two years ago in 2010. However, I missed last year's since I was in Japan at the time. Fortunately, since it was a work related trip, I was able to get time off from my teaching job and go to GDC this year.
Gainesville doesn't have much of an airport so I ended up flying out of Jacksonville. Since I had a fairly early flight, and parking at the airport is rather expensive, I spent the night as a hotel that had a park and fly package, which was the better deal by far. The flights went smoothly and, thanks to the time difference, I arrived in San Francisco in the early afternoon. The airport isn't all that close to downtown San Francisco, where the convention center and my hotel were, but that's what the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is for. It's essentially a subway. It's rather limited compared to the systems in Tokyo or New York, but it stops at the airport and several places downtown, and that was all I needed.
Past visits left me with rather mixed feelings about downtown San Francisco. It's an older city, at least for the US, and has tall buildings everywhere. It's also got more hills than the entire state of Florida (or so it seems). But the thing about it that gives me a pause is how much the good areas and bad areas are mixed. You can be on one street strolling past fancy stores and art gallerias and then go a block or two to the side and be in a trashy area with barred windows and graffiti on all the walls. Many areas also have quite a lot of crazy homeless people wondering around (a number of which seemed to be high as well). I suppose it doesn't matter too much during the day but some of those streets make me rather nervous at night. They're avoidable once you know which is which, but having them so close to the good streets is a little unsettling.
But anyway, after getting off the BART, I climbed (and it was a climb) to the Nob Hill Hotel. I stayed there last time I went to GDC and had forgotten the name but, fortunately, I managed to find it again. It's not the fanciest hotel, and it's a bit over a mile from the convention center and near the top of a hill. But, that aside, compared to all the other hotels in the area it strikes a really good balance between quality, cost, and location. The size of the single bed rooms reminds me of hotels in Japan (which isn't a good thing) and the rooms (or at least the ones I've been in) don't have their own temperature controls, but it's comfortable and the place has style. And hey, according to the plaque at the entrance it's over a hundred years old, which is pretty impressive.
I only stopped by the hotel long enough to check in and drop off my stuff before heading back out. I passed a couple of interesting looking churches and then made my way to Japan Town. I found Japan Town last time I went to GDC. It's one of only two in the US (the other one, which I've heard is a lot bigger, is in Los Angeles, but I haven't had a chance to go there yet). It's comprised of several blocks (much of which is inside a large mall). There's a lot of restaurants and stores (clothing, antiques, anime, and assorted Japanese stuff) with the most notable being a Daiso (the big Japanese 100 Yen store chain) and Kinokuniya (the Japanese equivalent of Barnes and Noble). Quite a lot of the people there speak Japanese and everything is very authentic (aside from a few bootleg items in some of of the anime stores) so while it's not the same as being in Japan, it's not bad for a place in the US.
I walked around and browsed for a while. I especially like Kinokuniya as it's got an enormous selection of manga in both Japanese and English, along with lots other Japan related books. It even has some imported music CDs, soundtracks, figurines, and the like and they charge much less of a markup on imported items than most stores and web sites do. I ended up finding a few books I'd been looking for as well as the soundtrack for Project Diva Extend, which was pretty cool. After that, I got curry udon at one of the nearby restaurants before calling it a day.
I spent Wednesday looking around a bit and talking to a lot of different people until the expo floor closed. Though I did get sidetracked for a bit by this year's convention game (every year, there's some sort of game for convention attendees). It was called Meta-Game and you get a random set of cards containing several video game cards (Minecraft, Pokémon, Final Fantasy VII, etc.) and several question cards ("Which is the most tragic?", "Which is the better representation of a sport?", and the like). You challenged another player by presenting a question card and a game card. They would then choose a game card of their own and you'd both get a couple of minutes to argue why your game better fits the question. Someone who happened to be nearby would judge and the winner got to take a random card from the loser. It got pretty interesting, especially when arguing for a game you know nothing about that really has nothing to do with the question.
Anyway, at the end of the day it was off to the awards show. Yes, awards show. GDC hosts the Independent Game Festival and the Game Developer Choice Awards. While I don't always agree with the winners, it's nice to have a show where the nominees and winners are chosen by actual game developers and they've always got some big name game developer hosting (Tim Schafer, Cliff Bleszinski, etc.) along with a bunch of videos from the hilarious Mega64, so it's a lot of fun.
On Thursday I made a slow circuit of the entire expo floor, checking out the different booths, taking a closer look anything that interested me, and the like. Most of the stuff wouldn't be of too much interest to anyone not involved in game development so I won't go into a lot of details here. I did, however, get to meet the team behind the excellent indie game To the Moon (which I keep meaning to write a review of) and Laura Shigihara, a composer I like who did music for To the Moon, Plants vs. Zombies, and more. So that was pretty cool. I also demo'd a couple of upcoming games. Nintendo was going full force with Kid Icarus Uprising, I got to try the single player mode, multiplayer mode, and AR card mode, all of which are a lot of fun (if very different from the original Kid Icarus games). I also tried out a Vita for the first time. The screen on it is really nice and Gravity Rush is looking like a very cool and unique game. I know I'll be getting a Vita sooner or later, so maybe I'll do it when Gravity Rush ships this summer...
After the show on Thursday, I met up with a bunch of other game writers for dinner, which was fun even if we did run into a few complications with our restaurant reservation (long story short, it got lost and the place was packed).
Finally, on Friday I checked out a few last booths I had missed on the previous days, got a rather cool picture, and collected a bunch of random swag (not as cool as the stuff I've gotten at E3, but there were still some rather nifty items). And, since everything closed a bit early on Friday, I headed back to Japan Town to get some gyudon before sunset.
I got to walk through a nice residential area on the way, which was pleasant change from the combination of fancy and slumy commercial areas I passed through going to and from the conference. I even got a look at a number of San Francisco's famous "painted lady" style houses. But what really impressed me was the synagogue itself. The plaque on Shereth Israel said it was over 100 years old and it was easily the fanciest synagogue I've ever seen. The exterior was impressive enough but the inside was all marble floors, elaborately painted walls, and stained glass windows. This picture isn't that great (I couldn't just walk around taking photos whenever I wanted), but it should give you some idea.
After services I went back to my hotel to change. While there, I decided to check the BART schedule so I'd known when to leave the hotel in the morning. Turns out the BART doesn't start running until 8:30 AM on weekends, by which time my flight would have already left. Good thing I checked when I did, but I should keep that in mind when booking flights for future GDC trips. Cab fair to the airport is a bit on the expensive side...
Staying in the room all day seemed like a waste, especially since the weather was good, so I decided to walk around the city for a while. I figured I should head towards either the Golden Gate Bridge or Pier 39, since those are the biggest attractions in the area. The bridge turned out to be quite a lot further away, and there wasn't much else nearby, so I decided on Pier 39 and headed out. After hiking uphill for a bit, I happened to run into a San Francisco attraction that I had completely forgotten about, Lombard Street. If you're not familiar with the name, it's also known as the world's crookedest street. There were a number of people (mostly Asian tourists) gathered around the top and button of the street taking photos. There's a nice walking path on both sides, so I walked up one and down the other. It's lined with some fancy houses but, judging by the cameras, it looks like most of the people who drive down it are tourists, not locals.
Soon after that little detour, I finally reached the top of the large hill I'd been climbing and got a good view of Alcatraz off in the distance. Then, as I drew near Fisherman's Wharf, I got a completely different view as a small group of naked people on bicycles rode past. Before you ask, I don't have any photos of them. Besides, most of the riders were middle aged men so you probably wouldn't want to see photos even if I had taken any. I have to say, California certainly lives up to its reputation as a haven for weirdos (no offense to any readers who live in California, but I saw more strange people on this brief San Francisco trip than in the entire past year).
Fisherman's Wharf itself was fun to walk around. Turns out there's a good bit more to it than Pier 39. I saw a lot of stores and restaurants, including a bunch of stands selling fresh crab. Seems like a rather odd snack food but, then again, Japan has dried squid on a stick so... Anyway, as I was walking around I ran into an old penny arcade. Well, many of the machines originally cost a penny, but most of them had been modified to take quarters instead. It was really cool regardless. There were old sports games, video machines (back from before true video cameras were invented), pinball machines, and even classic video games. There was an old arm wrestling machine too, and a really strong one at that. I'm no "muscle man" but I'm in fairly good shape and it completely overpowered me on the weakest difficulty. I did see someone beat it, but only by having a friend pull backwards on the arm at the same time (once again on the weakest setting). There was a warning sign on there saying it could hurt your arm and, considering how strong the weak setting was, I imagine the stronger ones could really do some damage if your tried to fight back.
Continuing on, I came across Boudin Bakery, which claims to be the first place to make San Francisco's famous sour dough bread. I got a free sample, which was quite good. They had some pretty fancy breads on display as well, like this one which would look more at home in Florida. I also passed a place that rents bikes, the goal being to bike to and over the Golden Gate Bridge, passing a number of San Francisco's landmarks on the way, and then returning via ferry. If it'd been earlier, and the weather hadn't taken a sudden turn for the worse (it had become cool, windy, and a bit foggy), that would have been a fun way to spend the day. Well, maybe next time.
Shortly after that, I finally reached Pier 39. It's covered with restaurants (mostly seafood) and souvenir stores. As I made my way through, I paused to watch a guy making crepes and a seagull that apparently needed some dipping sauce to go with its meal. The far end of the pier had a nice view of Alcatraz and would have had one of the Golden Gate Bridge as well if not for that aforementioned fog. Of course, there were also the famous Pier 39 sea lions They mostly just laid around lazily, with the occasional pair fighting over a favorite spot, but they were fun to watch. And then there was one that stayed far away from all the others and just stood around posing.
While there were some good looking restaurants on the pier, I didn't want to hang around for two hours until supper time so I decided to make my way back towards my hotel. Checking my map, I saw that I could go through China Town on the way back so I figured I might as well. And, on the way, I passed yet another impressive church (see my pictures from Tuesday for some of the others).
China Town wasn't particularly amazing. There were the usual assortment of Chinese drug stores, grocery stores, butchers, and restaurants, but it didn't really stick out much compared to some of the other China Towns I've visited (such as the ones in Honolulu and Yokohama). Though it was getting cold and I was getting really tired of climbing up and down hills so I only walked down one street and may very well have missed the best part.
I eventually made it back to my hotel and it was a relief to get off my feet for a while. After resting for a bit I started to head back towards Japan Town to eat but, along the way, I passed a Yemeni restaurant that looked interesting and, since I'd already eaten in Japan Town twice over the last few days, decided to give it a try instead. I got salteh, which is a lamb stew in a hot stone bowl with a rather interesting mix of herbs and spices and large flat bread of some kind on the side. I wouldn't call it one of my favorite meals, but it was pretty good and I always like trying new types of food.
After that there was nothing to do but pack up, get a little bit of sleep, and head to the airport for the trip back to Florida. Overall it was a fairly good GDC and my exploration left me with a much more positive view of San Francisco than I had before. I'm even looking forward to my next visit, and not just for GDC and Japan Town.