2019 Game Developer's Conference
Updates from the GDC
We are ggLocators - a laser focused contract staffing and executive search firm highly specialized in sourcing and placing top flight talent in gaming, eSports and xtended reality industries.
 
GDC 2019 attendance set a new record of 29,000 attendees. There were 550 exhibitors, 780 lectures, and some incredible releases from Google, Epic, and Oculus.
 
To those of you we had the pleasure of meeting, we hope you had as great of a time as we did. As for the others, we hope to see you in San Francisco next year at the GDC 2020!
FEATURED SEARCH:
We are looking for a talented Executive Producer to join our client’s well-established team in Redwood City, GA. This EP will work closely with Lead Producers, Senior Producers and discipline Leads to determine resources necessary to ship a AAA blockbuster. This opportunity is with an reputable studio that has 20 years’ experience developing high quality, groundbreaking games that continue to push the boundaries of the industry.

Additional Roles:
eSports
Esports was a huge part of the GDC last week as the industry only continues to expand. The market is set to reach $1B and can surpass those goals if the industry is able to diversity revenue stream. The conference had dedicated “Esports Days” which were held Monday and Tuesday. These sessions focused around growing esports ecosystems alongside long-time developers, publishers, and esports community leaders. Topic ranged from improving the quality of online tournaments to increasing diversity and career development tips within the space. And of course, if you need any additional career guidance, ggLocators will be excited to help! The industry is still young and gaining serious momentum. As it turns out, 2021 is set to be a huge year for Esports . This is the year that the number of spectators of the sport will surpass the amount of game players worldwide. Seeing as there are roughly 2.2 billion gamers worldwide, Esports blows the Superbowl out of the water (103M viewers) and gives the World Cup (3.5B viewers) a run for its money. Not too shabby if you ask us!

Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality has come a long way since Tron was reduced in 1982. It’s endured struggles of inconvenient cords, lack of games in the space, and worst of all the relentless queasiness that previously came from playing VR (as recently as 2 years ago). How is VR going to surpass the stigma? Based on the sessions at GDC, the future is bright! The lines to try the Oculus Rift S and Quest were consistently 1-2 hours long to spend 5-10 minutes in a game. The Rift had a few PC based options to try while the Quest offered a 1-song demo of Beat Saber. Beat Saber, the largest VR game out there, is bound to have VR dancing it’s way right into the mainstream. As the first VR game to break 1M in sales and with the Oculus Quest coming in at an affordable price, it’s certainly looking that way. As UploadVR states in their article linked below “with good marketing and a strong launch library, Oculus Quest feels like it really could be the first VR headset for absolutely everyone.” 

Gaming
The word of the week was GaaS (aka streaming/cloud gaming). The idea of GaaS is to make a change from closed systems to the ability to play on any device with a subscription instead of purchasing each game. Consider it the Netflix of gaming while be connected to others playing these games. For those of you veterans in the industry, we know this is nothing new. GaaS was introduced in the early 2000’s but most attempts failed and fizzled out due to lack of high-speed internet access and initial funding problems. In 2019, we are building steam with 5G and esports, which is making streaming more common place . Google stood out as the belle of the ball with multiple areas around the conference dedicated to their release of Stadia. However, all of the major players are on top of this trend:
  • Sony released its version of PlayStation Now and continues to build on it.
  • Apple is set to release Apple Arcade in the Fall.
  • Microsoft bought a cloud gaming system last year and made a statement early this month about working on project xcloud.
  • Nintendo has switch which claims to have cloud capability.
  • Nvidia is teamed up with LG to release Geforce now later this year.
  • And of course, the release at GDC of Google’s Stadia.

This development will help make gaming more accessible and also more connected while counting on the increased popularity of streaming.

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