Even a rebrand may not be able to save America’s most storied gaming event

In this week's newsletter: since 1988 the Game Developers Conference has been a core part of the gaming calendar - but exorbitant costs and Trumpism put that at risk

Every year for as long as I have been alive (read: since 1988), the annual Game Developers Conference has been held in California. It started out as essentially a house party: a gathering of 27 people in the living room of Atari designer Chris Crawford. By the mid-90s it had left Chris's house and grown to more than 4,000 attenders, and in 2005 found a permanent home in San Francisco's Moscone Center. These days, about 30,000 game development professionals of all kinds attend every year. The online GDC Vault is a precious trove of game development history and useful advice for any gaming discipline.

GDC has developed a bit of an image problem in recent years, however, as we have reported before. It's prohibitively expensive for developers: a conference pass is more than $1,500, and travel and accommodation in one of the world's most expensive cities quickly multiplies the total cost to anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 (even for a hotel room with approximately the dimensions and safety of a phone booth).