GDC Hotels

[Mike Boeh]

I was trying to book my GDC hotel room today, and all the ones right next to the conference are already booked :( Where is everyone staying?

[Pyabo]

Seattle.
:o

[Ryan Clark]

We're staying at the Ramada in Santa Clara, I think. Supposedly it's not too far... hopefully you can still get a room, Mike!

[Matthew]

We're staying a little bit north on 101 at a Best Western (only $51/night). It's ~8 miles from the convention center. We drive out for the GDC, though, so we'll have the vehicles to make the commute. It's probably hell to try to get there through any kind of public transportation.

[Curiosoft]

Public Transportation in the Bay Area is excellent.

Retro...my suggestion is to find a motel near CalTrain or a BART station and use public transportation to go to GDC everyday.

Use this...
http://www.511.org/

To find out if your motel is close to public transportation.

Later,
Action

[svero]

Did you ask the hotels if they had any more expensive rooms available. Get a suite! or a penthouse or something. Don't be such a cheapskate.

PS : also hold a r64 party with free booze

[arcadetown]

Did I hear free booze? I'm there!! Alas R64's party probably couldn't compete with RealArcade's free booze and little hottie go go dancers.

[svero]

Hmmm... Well I don't think Mike should let himself be undone. I think he's pretty much got to hire some gogo dancers of his own for the r64 party now. Gotta keep up with the joneses you know. But it's not enough to just match what others do. One has to do better... Along those lines I think mike should have a famous band or entertainer, perhaps david bowie, play at his party. Oh and some of those little microwaveable sausages with the dough wrapped around them!

[Robert Cummings]

And... And! Two gorillas to keep out sonicron. Although you'd only need an old lady for that.

[Mike Boeh]

Ended up at the Fairfield.... I guess the shuttles run often...

-Mike

[Midnight Synergy]

Which type of passes are folks going with for registration?

(I haven't made up my mind whether to go to the GDC or the Casual Games Conference in July - or both).

[James C. Smith]

Be sure to get a giga pass or a tutorial pass if you want to go to the Casual Games Summit at GDC. It is an all day event on Tuesday before the "classic" part of GDC begins on Wednesday.

In the past I always got a classic pas but this year I got the giga pass so I wouldn't miss the casual games summit.

[James C. Smith]

I haven't made up my mind whether to go to the GDC or the Casual Games Conference in July - or both

If you are only going to go to one conference this year, I would go to the Casuality conference in Seattle at the end of June. http://Seattle.casuality.org/ It is organized and supported by the majority of the people who were on the steering committee and speakers at last years Seattle Casual Games Conference. Casuality is not run by the same company who ran the Casual Games Conference last year but it has most of the same people organizing it who organized last years CGC.

GDC is huge and can be great. But for someone focused on the indie or casual games industry, the relevant sessions at GDC are few and far between. There are some great sessions at GDC, like the Casual Games Summit. If you can go to two conferences I would highly recommend Casuality Seattle and GDC. But if you only go to one, I would make it Casuality Seattle. (Unless of coerce, you focus on making retail games for Play Station and Xbox then GDC is you main event)

[Mike Boeh]

I was figuring on getting the tutorial pass, since I won't be there on Monday anyway. Hope you make it Patrick, would be cool to meet you after all these years :-)

[James C. Smith]

I am sorry to continue the off topic thread within this thread, but I wanted to point out that I edited my last message because I had the months wrong. The Casuality Seattle conference will be June 27th - 29th.

[chanon]

To take it a little more off topic (sorry):

If you're going or thinking of going to the GDC, please consider representing us at the IGF Finals and get a free hotel room and (probably) a free giga pass (or 2 classic passes)
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=5772

[Midnight Synergy]

I was figuring on getting the tutorial pass, since I won't be there on Monday anyway. Hope you make it Patrick, would be cool to meet you after all these years :-)

Just booked tonight. Got the tutorial pass only (Mon/Tue). I figure I'll check out the expo on Wednesday, leave San Jose again on Thursday. Hotels are getting pretty sparse already, I ended up at the Executive Inn Airport.

I'm excited to finally put some faces to people's names - we should definitely do a "roll call" closer to March to ensure we meet (although I presume that most forumites will attend Tuesday's all day casual-game thingy?).

Cheers,
Patrick

[Jamie Cheng]

Rock! I also looked on the gdconf website and all of those hotels were booked up, so Ryan refered me to this thread. I now have a place at the Executive Inn Airport San Jose :)

Thanks everyone!

Best,
Jamie.