The annual Game Developer's Conference is coming up in San Jose, California, and I wanted to encourage any commercial MUD admins to consider going. It's not cheap, but it's the largest annual gathering of game developers in the world (12,000+ attendees).

Lectures, sessions, and roundtables range from the highly technical to keynotes by guys like Roger D. Moore (visionary behind the new Battlestar Galactica) or lead designers from Valve (Half-Life 2).

If you do happen to be going, consider coming to one of the three roundtables I'm co-hosting with Dan James, CEO of Three Rings (they do Puzzle Pirates).

It's called, "Free to Play! Pay for Stuff: The Digital Content Sales Frontier". Overview of the discussion:
"The 'pay for item' business model has caught fire in Korea and threatens to sweep the US market. Arguably with the success of MMO auction services, it already has! Join a lively debate and information-sharing between operators of games with digital content sales, sceptics, and those with an interest in the future business model for online entertainment."

I know not too many text MUD people outside of us and Simutronics attend, but I'd sure love to see more text MUD people involving themselves in the industry.

By the way, if you do decide to go, get your pass before Feb 15. Prices go up after that.
--matt

Is the conference normally around the same time of year? Maybe I'll attend it next year, but out of my range right now.

And you're very correct about the spread of pay for stuff going on in Korea. It's spreading through Asia actually, due to current "Korean Wave" that has been going on for a few years. Just about anything popular here quickly spreads to Japan, China, Singapore, and most of Asia.

Yes, it's always in March, and usually in San Jose, though last year it was in San Francisco.

--matt