The ATI booth	This is where ATI held training sessions on the expo floor
The Course Technology/Premier Press booth (where we spent lots of time)	The Course booth
The Course booth	Gamespy
Nokia's N-Gage	Nvidia
Nvidia's art competition	Nvidia's art competition
GameTrak

It's always a saddening moment when the PA comes alive and the announcer declares that the GDC is now officially over, and people start clearing out of the Expo before they're hussled out. I got to stay a bit longer this year because I snagged an Exhibitor pass from a friend, so I snapped a few pics on my way out. It's amazing how fast they manage to break things down. I was only half way to the door a few scant minutes after the final announcement and most of the booths looked torn down and empty. *sigh* Until next year...

One of the AI middleware companies, Stottler & Henke, was at the GDC showcasing their product SimBionic. It's a nice easy-to-use tool for implementing AI in a game. I've tried it myself a little bit since I have a friend in the company, and keep your eyes on GDNet - we may have a product review soon.

Thx to my good friend Coray Seifert, who insisted on taking these pics of me playing Counter Strike with bots programmed through SimBionic

Jeez, the Renderware booth is turning more and more into a private club. Last year, the booth had a small demo area you could walk around in, but then behind the counter was a comfy press lounge, or maybe even a member lounge of some sort. This year there wasn't even a demo area to walk around in! They had flat panels set up around the top of the booth angled down showing movies, but access to the inside of the booth was roped off, with bouncers to one side (okay, just those green-suited convention center security guards, but still). What was even cooler was that they had their entire API interface graphed onto a backlit wall behind the desk. Neet. I'll have to book something with them next year (didn't I say that last year?) to check it out. Either that or like... crawl up the side of the booth to peek inside. Ninja style.

Now this is the blingbling, lemme tell you. Of course, now that I'm writing this report I'm telling myself "hey stupid, why didn't you get the full specs?" Yes, I was too busy drooling over all the LCD screens and nitrous tanks (???) and jacked up suspension and PS2 and amplifiers and... and... well there was a lot. The upholstery was nice too. I wish it could have been a giveaway, but I guess they figured us game developers would never be interested in a car anyways.

Fools!!!

You can just see the corner of the PS2 there on the center console	Mega speakers, mega amps, mega LCDS and... nitrous??
Check that suspension out! And the side-facing muffler. They forgot the flywheel rims tho. I like those, even though I'd never put any on my car

Since GarageGames couldn't justify the expense for their own booth again this year (can't blame em), they hosted their wares courtesy of NVIDIA. I'm still highly dissapointed I didn't have enough time to stick around for one of their presentations in the mini-theater to catch all the juicy details, but I did have enough time to snag some pics. Keep your eyes on the GG site for more news pertaining to the new Torque shader engine.

A nice shot of the shader engine graph	This guy looks familiar...

Ahhh... no wires. It truly is a wonderful age we live in these days. In years past getting a seat at the internet lounge was a 15 minute wait. Getting a computer could put you there for like half an hour. This year however things were different, thanks to Intel sponsoring a wireless internet lounge on the show floor. Now you can just take your laptop, plop down in a comfy beanbag chair (or regular chair or just stand by a table if all seats are taken) and surf away. Marvelous. While it's easier to get a seat and surf the web in the press lounge, there's still nothing like a nice beanbag chair every now and then.

Don't know if this is a good idea or not, but these folks have put together a guide of game publishers, producers, studios, etc. Check it out at games411.com

RealArcade's still around to push their game download service. In their defense, while the royalty rates might not be as high as some places, they can get you a lot of exposure. And apparently their software will now ACTUALLY UNINSTALL, which makes it worth a second look by itself!

As I wander around the Expo floor I'll be taking random pics and whatnot and post em all up here.

Big bad ass Orc dude in the Blizzard booth. Hmm.. I wonder if I can snatch that hat...	*knock knock* Hello? (echo... echo... echo...)
The IGF pavilion as seen from floor level as I sat in a beanbag chair in the Intel lounge	The GDCA pavilion. It's great they assume everyone knows what game is what. There are spaces for nametags on the kiosks but no nametags!

Another "solution" S3 was showing off was a motherboard/video card combination that was specifically designed for game-based set-top boxes. It's got all the fast video and processor and such crammed into a very small motherboard. Apparently the roms are designed for playing games directly off removable media without installing. Add yourself a little hard drive and DVD-ROM and joysticks to a tiny case, and you'd have a dandy little game box.

At first, I ignored these folks with the assumption that this was yet again still another oddly-shaped game peripheral for 3D shooters, but it was actually a bit different. Shaped like something outta the latest "Star Wars", this gizmo sits on the floor. Those joystick looking things on the top attach to gloves via a couple of self-reeling strings. Using the gloves, you can do things like punch and wave, and the gizmo can track where your hands are. They were showing off its use with a rather ho-hum fighting game. Seemed like it'd be better suited to a first-person boxing game, but I'm no marketer. They were also showing how you could use the gizmo with a golf club for first-person golf games.

Today is thursday, and we all know what that means...

BOOTH CRAWL!

Basically you go around and get free food and beer from everyone. Intel was giving away pretzels and hotdogs. Mmmmm, hotdogs. No pies anywhere, though.

John at the Premier Booth Premier was giving away Corona.

Another Premier booth shot I think this was the GDMag booth.

Another shot. The dude pushing this cart was angry at me because I didn't take a cool Intel cup.

People waiting in line for FREE FOOD! The other side of the table.

Not especially game related, but the AK Peters booth had a book-signing by a guy who uses Mathematica to model origami figures. On the table below him were plenty of bugs that he folded. On the stands are an eagle and a moose, also folded by him. Not game-related, but unique.

Proving that they're capable of exporting more than freshly-caned juvenile delinquents, the government of Singapore had its own booth. They also gave out these cool metal cans of pick-up-sticks (suitable for caning small rodents) and plenty of anime-themed cellphone games.

Shortly before the GDC, these folks pestered me for a couple of weeks asking if I'd be a presenter at their awards show. Following Groucho Marx's maxim of "I'd never be a member of a club that would have a person like me as a member", I politely ignored the request figuring that it couldn't be a real awards show. DavidRM, however, took 'em up on it and reaped this fine showing. At the Computer Graphics Magazine booth in front of thous. . .hund. . .tens. . .okay just me and one other guy, David proudly announced the award winners. I clapped with extra enthusiasm, but it still seemed somewhat less than the oscars. On the other hand, because there was nobody else there to watch, this means that I had EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE of this event. You will find photos like these nowhere else!

If you've ever seen those dopey ads in Game Developer advertising Gamebryo, you probably said the same thing I did. "Uhh, what exactly IS it?"

Today I got an answer. It's an "Engine" (which is market-droid speak for a library) for doing 3D stuff. In front of their booth they played this adorable realtime movie of a momma penguin leading scores of younguns around a frozen island.

After frantically running back to the hotel to pick up my business cards, which had finally arrived, I came back to the convention center and started wandering around the expo floor, just to see what can be seen. For starters, it seemed a lot busier this year than last, but maybe that's because I went at lunch time, and everyone wanted their food.

Mmmmm, food. I had an italian sub... but there were still no pies. Bah!

Anyway, here are a bunch of pics from my first pass around the floor.

Yay book! Premier Press Booth

Mrs. M. Rhino at the Premier Booth =)

Morgan Kaufman/Focal Press Booth Alienbrain Booth

Charles River Nokia

Just some guys NVidia... no nekkid faeries this year...

Bink Video Intel

In Russia, N-Gage phone holds YOU sideways!!

The GDC wisely placed the Intel and AMD booths about eight feet apart. If you look closely at the picture, you can actually see the waves of hatred passing between the two of the. Amazing. Scientific!

Stormfront Studios was an early nominee in the "emptiest booth" category. At least they posted a sign saying "we've got a pile of money and nothing to spend it on, so we bought an empty booth".

11:30 AM Wednesday the expo floor opened. Lots of fun lights and shiny stuff everywhere. And lots of good freebies. Unfortunately, my new laptop has no floppy drive, and my Mavica communicates only by floppy, so it'll be another day before I can post pics.

Also I've got a couple of good pics of booth babes. Contrary to last year, there were booth babes to be had. . .ok, at least photographed. No real standout bits of free stuff yet. Lotsa shiny pens and stickers and silly putty and such. My two year-old is gonna love me.

Newcomer to the booth scene is S3, showing off their new high-performance moderately priced 3D cards. Since they were part of chipset manufacturer VIA, they also had some nice Windows-based set top boxes to show off that's got TIVO-like functionality along with good 3D performance for high-end games.