Picture is from GDC’s Flickr account.

Oh wow! I am happy to see the GDC crowd back. Not all of them, but definitely highly encouraging. Visitors booked over 12,000 hotel rooms.

I haven’t been to an in-person conference for more than 4 years.

Game Developers Conference brings biggest crowd to S.F.’s Moscone Center in two years

The video game industry was one of the biggest economic winners of the COVID-19 era, as time spent gaming soared during lockdowns and console sales surged through the pandemic. This week, San Francisco became a beneficiary of that growth as thousands of people descended on Moscone Center on Monday for the start of the weeklong Game Developers Conference, the city’s biggest convention since public health orders upended the events business two years ago.

Attendance numbers weren’t available Monday, but visitors booked over 12,000 hotel rooms. Attendance is expected to be around 50% to 60% of pre-pandemic levels, which peaked at 29,000 people in 2019, said Katie Stern, vice president of media and entertainment markets at Informa, the organizer of the event, which lasts through Friday.

SF Chronicle