Interview With GDC Director Alan Yu
When our landing craft first hit the beach and we stormed the San Jose convention center we luckily bumped right into the man in charge, Director Alan Yu. Mr. Yu was kind enough to answer a few questions we had about the event's history and the future it will help to create...
THG: Mr. Yu, thank you for your time. We appreciate that your schedule must be very hectic right about now. What is the history behind GDC? How did it start?
Alan Yu: The GDC started nearly two decades ago, in the living room of a game developer. It's grown to 300+ sessions and attracts more than 10,000 attendees every year.
THG: Is it staying true to its history? How is it progressing beyond the original scope and vision?
Alan Yu: While the GDC has expanded to touch on every aspect of game development from art to to production to business to programming, across every platform and every genre, one thing remains constant: the GDC is about game creation.
THG: How does the developers coming together (at the GDC) benefit the average gamer?
Alan Yu: At the GDC, game creators come together to openly share ideas, technology, and methodologies. The free exchange of ideas is what enables evolution in the games to occur at such an exponential pace, providing the average gamer with incredible advances in gameplay.
The future of gaming is behind these doors.
THG: Has technology as it has evolved over the years changed the role of the programmer in a development team? Are the number of programmers needed for a title increasing?
Alan Yu: Technology has advanced so far that it's a given, if you will, that the number of people needed on a team has increased. Development teams have grown from several people to say, 60 people who might come together for a particular project, then disband and go work on something else. There is a lot of debate on the use of middleware and centralized programming groups, but the degree of complexity to build a game is so high that the role and position of programmers won't radically change right away.
