The GDC Trip, Or "Do You Have A Bomb With You?"
Ah, GDC. This will be my eighth year of NOT attending GDC. I do kinda miss it. Though I'm not sure I'd even recognize it now.

Back in the day, Kirk Baum (now at Incognito, part of Sony) and I were part of the regular "delegation" from SingleTrac to GDC. Which was, until 1998 or so, called CGDC, or "Computer Game Developer's Conference." name changed to let those console game developers - like us - feel more at home. Then the console devs took over. But that's another story.

The first GDC was definitely the best, in 1995. It was still transitioning from being a small grass-roots affair to a Big Deal. It was the second-from-the-last year they had truly open hospitality suites and suite-hopping. It was room after room of parties, getting swag, seeing what other companies were up to, receiving recruitment offers, and being encouraged to support new hardware or use certain tools in game development. There was TONS of food.

The following year the suites were still there, but the swag and free food had diminished. By 1997, the hospitality suite night had all but dissapeared. There were just too many attendees. And I became more and more jaded, and found the conference to be less educational but still just as inspirational.

I think it was on the 1996 or 1997 GDC trip when I had an incident at an airport that would probably have led me (and an airport employee) being detained for suspected terrorism for half the trip if it had occured after 2001.

Kirk and I had received airline tickets through some sort of promotional discount that required two parties to fly together. Our office manager made the arrangements; I never knew the details. Maybe it was a buy one, get another for 1/2 price deal, but it required that Kirk and I fly together. I was unaware of all this, as the office manager had only told us that we'd be flying together. Ummm... yeah, sure.

Kirk arrived a bit later than me to the airport. I figured I'd just go ahead and try to check in, not realizing that they really wanted us to check in as a pair. A couple. Oh, how cute...

So the desk attendent is going over my stuff, trying to check me in, and then he stops, looking at my ticket, and then looks at me. Like he's considering something. And then he asks:

"Do you have a 'bomb' with you?"

I did a double-take. Was this there clever new security system? Yeah, never mind the metal detectors and the explosive-smelling dogs. They were just gonna screen everyone by asking them point-blank if they were a terrorist.

I answered, glibly, "Uhhhh..... what?!?!?!?"

The attendant looked even more sheepish, and tried to explain. "B-A-U-M. A Mr. Kirk Baum?"

"Oh, Kirk! Yes, he should be here any minute."

"I'm sorry," the attendant said. "I wasn't sure if that was how you pronounced his name."

"I was not ABOUT to answer `yes' to your first question!" I informed him. He nodded and chuckled. I chuckled. Ah, the 1990's. You could joke about crap like that back then.

I do miss going to GDC. Though I think I'd be a little more interested nowadays in one of these smaller, grass-roots type indie / casual developers conferences. Which are probably closer to what GDC used to be back in the day.

Ah, the innocent 1990's (*cough cough*).

(Vaguely) related diatribes:
* The Wildest Birthday Party Ever
* Ways to Fake More Believable AI
* Do Games Matter?
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Labels: retro

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