GDC Canada offers free admission to unemployed video game developers

Video game developers laid off in the past year are being offered a complimentary pass to attend Game Developers Conference Canada.

In a conference call with the Straight, Izora De Lillard, event director for GDC Canada, said that the decision to provide unemployed developers with a free, main-conference pass was made to ensure that nobody was being left out.

Last year, organizers also decided to make free passes available to unemployed developers.

The convention, which will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre, starts with Epic Games' opening night party on May 5 and runs through the end of May 7.

Dan Irish, CEO of Threewave Software, and Tarrnie Williams, executive producer of EA Sports Active, are on the advisory board for the conference.

Irish said that the conference is an opportunity to learn from the best and to meet people face-to-face. "That's why I've always encouraged my teams to pick the sessions where they will learn the most," he said.

Williams agreed. "There is no better way to get connected to other people in the industry."

De Lillard said that attendees at GDC Canada, which is considerably smaller than the main GDC convention in San Francisco every spring, benefit from the intimacy of the event. Last year, she said, speakers were still taking questions in the hallways long after their sessions were over. "Everyone is so willing to talk and to share," she said.

Highlights of the conference include a keynote speech by Zynga's Bill Mooney, who is general manager of FarmVille, the runaway hit game on Facebook. He'll be speaking about the social gaming market, which he characterizes as "games at the speed of light".

Glenn Entis, a veteran of DreamWorks Interactive and Electronic Arts, will be presenting a session—Funding for Game Developers: Do's and Don'ts—intended to illuminate methods of funding a studio. Entis is a founding general partner with Vanedge Capital, a Vancouver-based venture capital firm.

Williams said that one of the great benefits of Vancouver's video game sector is its huge talent base. "The big thing missing is the access to capital," he said, adding that Entis's ability to share some insights will benefit companies, new and established. "By putting the talent pool together with the money pool," he said, "great things will come."

Prospective attendees who want a complimentary pass to attend GDC Canada must have been laid off from a "Canadian video game or creative/digital arts company within the past 12 months". After pre-registering, attendees need to show a record of employment at the registration desk on site to receive the free pass.

De Lillard also said that if there are others who don't qualify for the pass and who want to attend but are limited financially, they should contact the conference organizers. "We'll work with them," she said. "We want them to come and have a good experience."

Irish said that offering free passes is a good investment. People won't always be unemployed, he said, "and that goodwill will pay off".