Every GDC has a defining moment. Shigeru Miyamoto getting a well-deserved standing ovation from a packed house of his peers. Bill Gates announcing the Xbox. Decrepit booth bimbos in skunk outfits shilling for an odor-emitting PC peripheral.

This year's most memorable event took place during Andrew House's PlayStation keynote. While showing off the funky little EyeToy (which received an innovation award and was ubiquitous on the expo floor), House mentioned that Sony was about to release an EyeToy-enhanced dancing game, which sounds like a winner to me. At which point the craziness began.

House (paraphrased): "I am a lousy dancer, so I won't demo the game for you. However, we have found a local guy who'll be delighted to do it."

Me: "Local guy? Hmmm… Let's see… What can one find in this area? Hi-tech companies, some universities…"

House: "In fact, he was not afraid to dance for all of America."

Me: "All of America? Like, on TV? A tech guy, dancing on TV?"

Gulp.

Me: "Oh no… They wouldn't dare…"

Oh yes they would.

Lights went down. Giant screens flared up. In rolled the clip that made Him famous, as much for his grace and contagious good humor as for his astounding levels of musical incompetence.

House: "Ladies and gentlemen, here to sing and dance to YMCA…"

And he entered the stage, to thunderous applause, in all of his unexplainable splendor. The man, the myth, the legend. The Real Idol.

William Hung.

William Freaking Hung.

As he prepared to slaughter a song that needs no outside assistance to be unbearable, I stood up and cheered.

Why not? He's one of us, in a sense.

Even now, as I reminisce about his painful performance and a small part of me wants to look for a sharp stick to poke out my mind's eye, I am delighted that I was there to witness it. The triumph of the Geek. Our triumph.

A Week of Surprises
I expected absolutely nothing out of this year's show. In fact, I didn't want to go at all. I hate flying, the past couple of GDC's had felt increasingly irrelevant, and to top it all off, three of my four sessions had been scheduled against must-see lectures by Will Wright (for the third time in four years, I think), Brian Reynolds and Peter Molyneux.

But I am now reconciled with GDC. Against all odds, William Hung has a career, and I had a blast.

Heck, even the food was better than usual. On the last day, the caterers finally ran out of their ten-year supply of potato salad, and we got chips and Oreos instead. Imagine that.

General Impressions
This show was BIG.

I don't put much faith in official attendance numbers (there's no way there were 10,000 people last year), but I have no trouble believing that GDC 2004 was the biggest one ever. The place was packed, all the time. Many of the sessions overflowed, the booth crawl was a zoo, and the main plaza filled up long before the day's first lectures. Even on the last day, usually a depressing wasteland.

And the mood on the floor was generally upbeat, although not for any single reason that I could point out. Some companies are beginning to make a little money in mobile gaming. The upcoming PSP may support human-scale development for a few more years. There was more action in the job fair than in previous years. And maybe people were just happy to be away from the office for a week. Who knows. But I'll take it anyway.

The Big Winners
Unquestionably, BioWare owned this show. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic won Game of the Year, Excellence in Writing and Original Game Character of the Year at the Game Developers Choice Awards, founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka took home the IGDA Award for community contribution, and BioWare staff held several of the most popular sessions. Hats off, guys.

The Trends
Here are some of the recurring themes I picked up on, in the sessions and in informal talks around the convention center:

The business is not getting any easier. The average console title now loses $10 in retail price within 6 weeks of release (it used to be 12 weeks), EA's Return of the King team peaked at 177 people, and individual developers are working longer hours than ever, so much so that more than half of them plan to leave the industry within 10 years. (See the IGDA Quality of Life white paper, edited by yours truly, for more information on the unfortunate state of the industry.) In fact, I heard the word "union" uttered more than once, and not only during the Quality of Life sessions. Have we reached the breaking point?

Industry heavyweights are leaving the beaten path. Marc LeBlanc is an IGF winner. Hal Barwood and Bob Bates are freelancers. I like it. As I said here numerous times, the more alternative ways we can find to build lives and careers that work for us, the better.

Moderate growth expectations. Even industry analysts, usually prone to ridiculous levels of optimism (gotta sell those reports, and rich people don't like bad news), now seem to believe that we are reaching maturity. Jupiter's Michael Gartenberg evaluates the number of "console households" in the U.S. at 52 million, or 46% of the total number of households in the country, with the figure growing to 62 million by 2009. That's an average growth rate of less than 4% a year, and some of these households may only have an old Dreamcast gathering dust in a closet. And the average online adult consumer plays 3.3 hours a week, a time commitment much lower than what they give to the Internet, TV and even radio.

True internationalization. About half of the participants in the Business Summit were from outside of the USA, which is amazing for a show held on the West Coast. On the other hand, outsourcing was on everybody's lips – but only as a recipe to further diminish the slice of the money pie actually going to the people making the games. Which is disgusting, not to mention nonsensical. After all, while international collaborations are a Good Thing when done right, Stephen King wouldn't sell nearly as many books if he outsourced their actual writing to some random kid in Uzbekistan.

The Best Sessions
As I hinted above, I was otherwise occupied during several highly attractive lectures, so my experience may be different from that of most other attendees. That being said, there was plenty of entertainment and food for thought to be had in those sessions I was able to attend.

My personal highlight: the Designer's Challenge, during which Eric Zimmerman tasked Raph Koster, Warren Spector and Will Wright with designing games that tell love stories. Will's "first-person kisser" embedded in Battlefield 1942 was a sight to behold. Of course, this session probably didn't provide a whole lot of immediate practical value, but it did give us a wonderful peek into three masters' minds. An experience to repeat, especially since the game show-styled Programmers Challenge has now vanished from the program.

Also highly worthwhile:

[] Hal Barwood's talk about cognitive dissonance and immersion, in which he insisted on the role of story to fill the gaps and on the player's desire for wish fulfillment to overcome his conscious realization that he is just playing a game.

[] Katherine Isbister's ten tricks from psychology to enhance character design, which left me wishing she'd prepare a full-day tutorial for next year.

[] Tim Schafer's "Adventures in Character Design", packed with common sense advice that we ignore at our own peril, such as: "Give the player character the best lines/active roles" and "Have NPC's respond to the player's awesomeness."

[] And especially a little gem of a lecture by Toru Iwatani, legendary creator of Pac-Man. It might not have been the most practical, nor the most timely, nor even the most focused, but hearing from the master himself that his first three games had been failures, and that his programmer thought the little animated vignettes between Pac Man's levels would be a waste of time, and that his boss wanted all of the ghosts to be painted bright red because he thought that four colors would be too confusing, was enough to give me a strange little hope. Plus, I got to spend one hour listening to Toru Iwatani, which by itself makes my little corner of the universe a brighter place.