Inside the Fog,

There really isn’t all that much to do downtown on a Sunday night, at least not for 14 year olds. Maybe not for adults either, but I speak only of what I know. So me and my friend Max, get downtown around 6.30, try to chase down two other friends only to see them pull away on the ferry to Marin, try to get our friend to come from North Beach to no avail and finally give up on getting people to come. So we walk from the Ferry Building back to Westfield via Union Square, look into the dark stores with merchandise going for $20,000 + and settle down in the chairs under the dome in the Westfield mall. Again we get restless and go up the Century theatres, marvel at the lack of decent movies. Get some food, pretzels and a hot dog. Talk about drugs for a bit, field phone calls from the rents asking what were doing and we decide to go to Moscone Center.

 
We make our way into Moscone Center South, and wander around the entry floor for a bit until a nice woman tells us we have to register. Not wanting to do so, we go to one of the game kiosks for Xbox and try to play before a not-so-nice security guard comes over and orders us to leave. We go outside slightly defeated and aware of the fact that we have to be home soon, but get inspired once again when we see the pack of GDC soon to be volunteers making their way into Moscone South. So once again we tag along with them, this time getting inside of the building, up the escalators, along one of the huge, football field sized hallways before we decide this is really boring and none of the booths are set up and decide to check out the storage room.

So we go into the storage room where they have thousands of tables and chairs and table clothes etc…We scurry to the elevator at the sound of a janitor, but then reconsider and go look around a little more. Then, once were spotted by another group of volunteers, we think it advisible to get out. So we take the freight/passenger elevator to “G*” assuming this means ground, especially with the big EXIT sign over the elevator. Instead we find ourselves in another storage room, since it has the same things as the level above and we have the eyes of a security guard on us we make our way onto what will be one of the main floors of the convention, though most of the booths are not yet constructed and there are boxes of unopened whatever lying around. With the security guards eyes half-watching us we mumble and make an honest effort to find the exit and then, as a second guard comes over, we beat them to it and walk toward them. We ask how to get out, and tell them we went to the ground floor from those elevators. They ask if we want to get out of the building (suggesting we actually could have stayed) and we say yes and the second guard asks the first to escort these “Fine young gentlemen” out. No badges, no yellow shirts, no appearing as though we were over 18, no nothing and yet they treated us as if we belonged there.

         A few things I thought were odd about the convetion (of the few things actually set up) were the signs plastered all over the place advertising the GDC in Texas and Canada and Europe and all these other wonderful places. If you make your way out to San Francisco for the week to see this convention they should focus on putting on a great show for you, not advertising the other places you could have gone. Anyway, I’m not a game writer so if you wanna see some acutal writing from someone attending the convention, here’s a few links to my friend and great game writer Jose Otero’s blogs.

8-bit Journo

JoseOtero.Blogspot.com