Who Develops the Developers?: An Interview With Meggan Scavio, Part 1
Your average gamer can't go to the Game Developers Conference, but Event Director Meggan Scavio tells Crispy why you should pay attention anyway.
3/20/2009 8:26 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 4
Meggan Scavio doesn't really want to get onstage. But, as the new public face of the Game Developers Conference, she's going to have to do that. A lot. The woman behind the event's Bosslady Blog talks to us about how GDC is like a family reunion, what goes into pulling the massive five-day conference together, and what that E3 show needs to do to get its mojo back.
"I don't think people quite realize just how many times I have to get on the phone with a sponsor or an exhibitor and explain to them why they're not getting a keynote, why their exhibitions aren't accepted."
It's your second year as event director, but your first in being the public face of the GDC. What's the difference?
Meggan Scavio: Doing interviews and going onstage to introduce keynotes are all new to me. Other than that, not much has changed. Last year and in previous years, I've been responsible for all the content of GDC. Possibly, programming the keynotes is the other new [responsibility] for me.
Crispy Gamer: What goes into considering the programming?
Scavio: There's an entire process that actually starts in [the preceding] June, when I get together with the advisory board. The advisory board is 18 people, all volunteers, who are pretty much all luminaries of this industry and are so dedicated to this event. They discuss and determine the topics that they think will be important for the following year's GDC. And that's what we include in our call for submissions, which opens in July.
It's a really detailed process. The call for papers closes in August and we get about 1,000 submissions. Then, the advisory board has about a couple of weeks to read and grade each of those submissions, and we lock them in a hotel conference room in early August so they can decide what gets accepted, what needs work and what gets rejected.
Crispy Gamer: So, leading up to GDC 2009, what were the topics that the board decided were going to be the lightning rods for this year's conference?
Scavio: I think they were really looking this year for postmortems. That was sort of the thing on everyone's list. There were so many great games released last year, and last year's GDC content focused a lot on writing in games and creating emotions in games, and all of these new ways to design. I think this year will be sort of focused on, "Well, how did all that work out for you? How'd we do?" You'll see a ton of postmortems at this year's GDC.
Crispy Gamer: Let's talk about the nuts and bolts of what GDC means. The mainstream consumer only really knows E3, in that it's the most heavily covered videogame event...
Scavio: Yeah. You know, when it comes down to it, GDC is for developers and it's really technical. Most consumers wouldn't understand a lot of what happens. I don't understand a lot of what happens!
[Laughs] That's why we have an advisory board. The GDC doesn't speak directly to consumers.
Crispy Gamer: Do you feel consumers can get anything out of paying attention to GDC?
Scavio: GDC shows what's going to be popular or big in a few years, so they're getting an early peek at the technology and direction of videogames. They're going to see what's on their shelf, or what they're going to be digitally downloading, in the next three or four years.
