Hacker Culture A to Z

Chapter 7. G

Game Developers Conference (GDC)

Some tech industry events feature shiny new electronic devices to show off to the media, like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Some industry events feature upcoming video games and gaming hardware with the same sort of eagerness for media coverage, like the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). But there’s one big event in the gaming scene that’s popular with hackers where the media coverage is just a bonus. The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is really just a huge annual meeting of video game developers, with gaming-industry business leaders and fans coming along for the ride.

GDC was started by Atari game developer Chris Crawford in 1988 as a social event called the Computer Game Developers Conference; it took place in his home, and 27 people attended. GDC grew steadily, fulfilling game developers’ need to discuss their art and craft. Today GDC is based in San Francisco and draws thousands of participants, and even holds international events in places like Cologne, Germany, and Shanghai, China. The Independent Games Festival and the Game Developers Choice Awards are also part of GDC.

See also “Atari”, “Consumer Electronics Show (CES)”, “Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)”

Gates, Bill

William “Bill” Henry Gates III (1955–) is the founder of Microsoft and one of the most famous (or infamous) Silicon Valley billionaires. There’s a popular myth that Gates (and many other tech moguls) all started from nothing and founded multitrillion-dollar ...