In 2014, Proficient City, part of Game Hollywood, attended our first GDC in San Francisco. Being one of the biggest videogame conferences in the world, we were excited for all the possibilities. And it didn’t disappoint.

It was also most of our team’s first time in San Francisco, except for our CEO, who showed us around the best spots in town. We went to the unmissable Golden Gate Bridge, took a long walk on Fishermen’s Wharf where we had the best seafood, enjoyed the amazing Golden Gate Park, and ended our first day in Chinatown. Then, we were ready for business.

 Setting up the booth was already a great experience, once we finished, we could walk around and see the whole GDC without the crowds and take a look at the booths that were to come alive with visitors the very next day. We couldn’t wait.

As soon as the first day began, we could see the size of the whole event. Even though we were in the business area, that was already massive, and everything was crowded from the first minute. We got ready for our meetings and to talk to everyone who would pass by our booth. The next 8 hours were spent in back-to-back meetings where we get to meet publishers interested in our games, we got to play some awesome games and meet the best ad networks.

We stayed a few extra days in San Francisco after GDC had ended, and after enjoying our weekend eating the best food San Francisco had to offer, which was a lot, and sightseeing as much as we could. Then, we took the road to visit some of the companies we had met at GDC and see their offices. First we visited Kongregate, who now publishes several of our games like Ork Buster or Zeus Age. That same day we went to Kabam’s offices, one of our Wartune’s publishers in the US.

 Next day we visited Facebook’s offices, which are, without a doubt, the happiest place to work at. After having some ice cream and playing amazing old arcades, we sat down for business and had a very successful meeting. We have been working directly with Facebook for a few years now, and it was nice to finally meet face to face and sit down to chat. We also tried their food, it was great!

 That ended our first GDC adventure, our Proficient City team split up to go back to our Asian and European offices. All and all it was a great adventure we can’t wait to repeat every year.