Anyone go to GDC 2012 in San Francisco? I was there all day today and am going again tomorrow. It was my first time ever going to GDC and it was awesome! Lots of major companies have booths there: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Google, Adobe, Autodesk, NVIDIA, Intel, etc. Plus they have IGF and GDC Play as well, which is like the indie booths. Many, many games to play and developers/representatives to talk to!

Some of the coolest things that happened to me at GDC today were:

• Played a bit of Syndicate on a 5-monitor setup! This was a massive display, a near 180-degree radius around you. The game was definitely lagging though, which made it hard to play. All in all, was very cool and impressive to see, but not sure it adds any benefit to the game. When you're playing, it's almost as if you're playing on just a single monitor. Don't notice a whole lot out of your peripherals.
• Remember Photofly? Well, Autodesk was there and had a booth set up for demonstrations of the official product, 123D Catch. I got my faced photographed by 25+ cameras simultaneously from nearly every angle in a 180 degree radius and should receive an e-mail sometime soon with a 3D model of my face! Interested to see how that turns out.
• Seen Tim Schafer from Double Fine Productions on the main floor! Didn't get to talk to him or shake his hand because he was in a huge hurry. Must have needed to get somewhere.
• Met and chatted with Daniel Kayser from GTTV! I seen them setting up for interviews and introduced myself to him when he was taking a break. We only chatted for a few moments, but it was sick nonetheless!
• Got to attend the GDC/IGF awards ceremony with some big names from the industry in attendance! Cliffy B. from Epic Games was the host of the GDC awards. Seen Tim Schafer again and Todd Howard from Bethesda Softworks there as well. Of course, Skyrim won game of the year (no surprise there).
• Last but not least, Intel had a Diablo 3 booth set up and I got to play it, plus received a beta key from Blizzard's Community Manager, Kester!
  

One last thing: Unity, HeroEngine, and GameMaker all had booths at GDC this year. Where was the EE booth?!

Hah, yeah it was surprising. I noticed Gamebryo was also there when I went back again today.