{"id":517,"date":"2010-10-12T22:03:21","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T22:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/?p=517"},"modified":"2010-10-12T23:08:31","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T23:08:31","slug":"should-indies-go-to-conferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/should-indies-go-to-conferences\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Indies Go To Conferences?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There are an increasing number of game development related conferences happening around the world.\u00a0 I went to GDC<\/a> and Freeplay<\/a> earlier this year and I\u2019m attending GCAP<\/a> tomorrow.\u00a0 Gamification<\/a> has just been announced and it seems like the changing landscape in game development is being mirrored in the conferences held.\u00a0 Whenever conference time comes around I hear a lot of debate within the indie scene about their value.\u00a0 Today I\u2019ll discuss the ways I determine whether a conference is worth attending and hope to help you with the decision.<\/p>\n

Different Perspectives<\/strong><\/p>\n

From my experience there are three main opinions when it comes to game conferences within game development (both indie and mainstream).<\/p>\n

Shut Up and Code<\/span><\/p>\n

I often hear people say they don\u2019t have time to go to conferences as they want to make games, not talk about making games.\u00a0 This opinion is particularly prevalent among programmers.\u00a0 When laying out the entire costs of many of these events, they often make up a substantial proportion of an indie.\u00a0 For this reason, many developers I meet simply don\u2019t have the time or money to burn on conferences and most tell me they will go there \u201cwhen they make it big\u201d.<\/p>\n

Networking, Networking, Networking<\/span><\/p>\n

Another viewpoint I often see is from those that go to every event they can and give talks whenever possible.\u00a0 To this group (often in marketing or management) the whole reason for making their game is to get it out there for people to see and play it.\u00a0 This group will often miss all the talks\/lectures and can instead be found walking the halls looking for new contacts or reconnecting with old ones.\u00a0 A lot of value is achieved at most conferences from these people, none of it related to the speakers.\u00a0 It is difficult though, particularly for the more introverted members of the development community.<\/p>\n

I’ve\u00a0found the best way to achieve the networking goal is make full use of whatever contacts you have (the higher the better). \u00a0You receive invitations to bigger and better parties and you\u2019ll get more introductions.\u00a0 The friends I went to GDC with introduced me to people working on Halo Reach, Mass Effect and a bunch of influential people attached to the Australian game industry.<\/p>\n

Cost to Benefit Analysts<\/span><\/p>\n

I fall into this group.\u00a0 We are the people that list out all of the costs of going to a conference and weigh these up against the expected benefits.\u00a0 I\u2019ll dig deeper into this analysis and shed light on how you can quantify whether a conference is right for you.<\/p>\n

Costs<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to quantify the costs of going to a conference.\u00a0 The major costs are associated with time and money.\u00a0 Below is a list of the costs I\u2019ve found from the average trip to a conference:<\/p>\n