This post has been moved to my new website, higgyb.com, and you can find it at the following URL:

http://higgyb.com/?p=448

GDC was again back in San Francisco for its annual visit and we decided that Unity Technologies needed to make a bigger splash than we’d ever done before. We started in 2007 by being one small part of the large Nordic Games pavilion, then in 2008 by having our own 10 foot x 10 foot booth, and now in 2009 by having our own 20 foot x 20 foot booth and flying out nearly the entire company! All told we had something like 25 people in town for the week and that meant lots of social time together as well as a ton of hard work plannig the future of our company and product as well as working our extremely busy booth during the expo.

Note: I posted about this conference on my work blog as well (read more).

Photos
Unity Tech at GDC

The Booth and Meetings
As noted above we had our largest booth ever this year and with that comes complications like you wouldn’t believe. Luckily between myself, Alex and Henrik (and many others too) we managed to shepherd nearly our entire company’s staff to San Francisco to attend and work at the conference. We started the week with some booth preparation and engineering planning meetings. Then we closed the week by having an incredible number of people visit our booth during the expo and having a booked meeting an interview schedule all week! We all worked our asses off all week and it was well worth the effort, kudos to everyone at Unity Technologies!

Our engineering crew all gathered together (photo by Mantas)

Entering the North Hall (photo by Mantas)

Getting our booth ready (photo by Mantas)

GDC was as busy as ever this year (even more so for us!) (photo by Mantas)

The Parties and the People
Of course with a conference like GDC and our entire company in town we spent a lot of time socializing and out having fun. We started the week with a great team dinner at the House of Nanking in Chinatown and then a night out together roaming around North Beach.

Cheers y’all!

We followed that up by being treated to a taco dinner courtesy of Jon and Matt from Graveck Interactive. Naturally when they asked where to go I made it clear that La Taqueria was the spot (and as usual it was!). After tacos we all piled into the Nordic Games party at Slim’s thanks to Sten. It was a fun party made all the better by an open bar. GDC parties FTW!

Finally I got my free Taco for playing 10 Balls 7 Cups!

Next on the social calendar was our own party on Thursday night. Things started out a bit slow by sure enough the place (Anon Studio) was packed and it stayed that way until late in the night. The Anon Studio is a cool place with lots of small nooks and rooms for folks to hang out in and a great roof top deck. Downstairs we had a DJ, upstairs conversation, folks seemed to get comfy and hang out all night. All in all it was a great party.

David having a good time (photo by Mantas)

Rune and Rasmus with others outside on the roof deck (photo by Mantas)

Our DJ Wyeth camped the music flowing (photo by Mantas)

Finally, we closed out the week with an all hands company meeting over breakfast, then a day sailing the San Francisco Bay on a giant catamaran and then an evening starting with a fantastic team dinner at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco. After the push to get Unity 2.5 launched and then GDC, I think we all needed and deserved such an awesome day.

The Unity Tech team sailing the San Francisco Bay (photo by Aras)

Yarr, pirates are everywhere! (photo by Aras)

Everyone enjoyed the incredible meal at Foreign Cinema (photo by Mantas)

Joachim, as usual, entertains the crowd (photo by Mantas)

Dave and I eyeball the camera after dessert (photo by Mantas)

The Summary
This part is easy. For the company it was an incredible week and a great way to bond with each other after the Unity 2.5 release. We made a ton of great new contacts, met with a lot of existing customers and spread the Unity word to a lot of people. Naturally we’ll be back again in 2010 and we’ll have an even larger booth! For me personally it was another great week with my friends and coworkers, quite seriously I can say that each and every person we have on board is awesome and I love hangin’ out with them. See you (GDC) again next year!

It had been a while since my last visit to Europe (you know, a few months ) and just over two months since we’d hired Joe out here in San Francisco, so it was time to head back to Unity HQ in Copenhagen as well as attend the Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, Germany. As usual I had an awesome time as it’s always cool to hang with the Unity crew and we had a great time in Hamburg.

Photos
Unity HQ and Casual Connect Hamburg

Unity HQ
Luckily for me I get to visit Copenhagen a few times a year to spend time with my colleagues and friends at our company headquarters. This trip had the added benefit of being an introductory trip for Joe, our newest (as of November ‘08) US-based employee, to the HQ office and for him to meet most of our European coworkers. We flew over at the start of the month and spent a week in Copenhagen, working, getting Unity 2.5 ship-shape and of course hangin’ out and having fun. We capped the week off with a bit of a company party on Friday night including a large group of friends, some tasty food cooked up by Sam and plenty of home-made mead from Skjalm!

Sam (and Alex!) getting dinner ready

Joe and Skjalm enjoying the mead

As always, Unity Tech parties seem to include rowdy rounds of Rock Band

Of course I also made sure that Joe and I had a late night out on Saturday as he needed to be shown a bit of Copenhagen nightlife. We started with a few beers and dinner with Ethan and then slowly we crawled our way around to various bars, eventually losing Ethan as Joe and I made our way out to Vega for a late night closer at one of the city’s hippest dance clubs. Good times!

Me and my delicious plate of nachos at the Irish Rover

Me and Joe enjoying our beer and the night out

Casual Connect Hamburg
After spending a week in Copenhagen it was time to make our way to Hamburg, Germany so we could work at and attend the Casual Connect conference. The best part of it all was the fact that we were renting a car and driving instead of flying down and I was going to be the primary driver, sweet! We picked up our rental car from the airport and drove south into Germany and on to Hamburg, I don’t know why something so simple as driving seems so much more fun in other countries.

Awww yeah, our rental car for the trip

Once in Hamburg the conference was great and our nights out even greater! We spent the week socializing with friends both old and new, notably at one of the conference parties as well as at our own hosted drinks night with a bunch of local developers, good times were had by all. We also spent the week networking and chatting about Unity as we had a sponsor table at the conference, one that had us all quite busy and that allowed us to once again spread the word about just how awesome Unity really is (I know, I’m biased!). So not only was a great time personally but it was also a great time professionally. We drove back to Copenhagen on Thursday night in time for Joe and I to spend one last night at company HQ before flying home.

We rotated between late nights out…

…and busy days at the table…

…and late nights out…

…and busy days at the table.

As always it was another great trip to Copenhagen and another fun conference representing Unity Technologies. Just another great reminder of how cool my company and job really are, w00t!