We attended another session at 5:30 PM Thursday regarding Hollywood production companies. The speaker drew some interesting parallels to the movie industry of the 1920s and how the business model eventually changed such that the major Hollywood studios "farm" their productions/films out to production companies. The speaker also suggested that eventually we will probably see the video game industry shift towards this model.
The rest of the talk focused on how to interface with the production companies from a video game company perspective. While it was interesting it is very far removed from where I'm at in terms of game development so it was hard to relate.
Afterwards, we went to Bruno's, a tapas-type restaurant and spent $50 on a few dishes and a glass of wine each. The food was good, but hard to fill up on as portions are small and we ordered things piece-meal so there was a wait in between some of the dishes. I recommend their fried chicken remoulade and their green beans gratin (with blue cheese crumble).
Following that, we checked out a couple GDC parties, which were mostly lame and then went to Velvet Lounge to dance our asses off. Loud music, heavy bass and alcohol always creates that unique, somewhat surreal, environment of a night club. It felt good after not doing it for over a year.
We followed it up with some coffee, pastry and juice at a coffee shop and made our way back to the hotel by 3 AM, though we spent some time getting lost off of the highway, the hotel is located somewhat confusingly and it seems you have to go past the hotel, make a U-turn back onto the highway and then get off at the proper stop). I'm not making that up.