I didn’t actually go to the GDC this year–on Monday, I was making up for the fact that I ducked out at noon on Friday to go to Yosemite, and our third employee (not counting interns) started on Tuesday. I don’t think the bosses would’ve signed off on a week-long game conference anyway, but there was legitimately a lot going on this week that I didn’t want to miss. Luckily for me, GDC attendance has absolutely nothing to do with GDC party attendance (well maybe for The GDC Party). I had a couple of invites, so last night I took a few friends and hit up the Mochi Media party, the MTV party, and the Kongregate party. The three were a pretty striking contrast–actually reflecting the three different companies pretty well.

We got the Mochi Party as it was winding down, but it was in a pretty nice Martini Bar. Drink tickets were provided, the place was decked out with Mario mushrooms, and they had a DJ spinning. The crowd was a pretty even mix of indie developers and suits, and the impression I got from the party was two-fold. First, they want to hire more engineers. Second, they were looking to impress possible advertisers. Though they’re all gamers at heart, I’m sure, the fact of the matter is that Mochi is an advertising company now–and you need a certain amount of slickness to survive in that environ.

We next headed to what I thought was a Shockwave party (invited by my producer contact), but turned out to be a full-fledged MTV party (duh, right?). It was in a much snazzier club, with a full complement of sushi, mini-hamburgers, an open bar, and a room full of suits. Older suits. My friends and I definitely felt like the youngest people there–everyone we ran into was a Manager of this or Director of that–and not super interested in the fact that I make Flash games. A grad school friend in town for the GDC pointed out that Viacom gives MTV buckets of money to impress people at these things. We were definitely impressed by the food and free booze, but whole thing was a little too corporate for our tastes.

Finally, we hit up the Kongregate party. There’s another club right next door, so we assumed that was the place. We only made it about three feet inside–enough to see that it was another party full of suits–before a bouncer intercepted us and escorted us back out. “What party are you guys looking for?” Once we said Kongregate, he pointed us to a hand-written sign on the next door down. “This is the UbiSoft party–you want that one.” My grad-school friend actually had an invite to this one, but we were already a little techno & business-suited out by that point, so we didn’t belabor the point. After being buzzed up (they held it in their office), we rode up what someone described to me as “the oldest working elevator in San Francisco” to their offices.

The Kongregate party is what a party would look like if it were held in my apartment–a keg of beer, some chips & salsa, and Rock Band. I don’t mean that to sound negative, either. More important than catering, the Kongregate party actually had some developers present (I’d gotten a business card or two at the other places, but nothing I was really interested in). I put faces to a couple of Kongregate names, met the guys who just won the IGF for Iron Dukes (they said they were shocked, but after playing it I was pretty amazed at how great it is), talked shop with Emily Greer for awhile, and met a few other aspiring flash developers.

After a few hours there, my non-game-inclined friends were pretty much burnt out on listening to me talk about games, so we called it quits and headed back down the peninsula. It was an entertaining night, though.