If first impressions are really worth anything, then this convention’s a bust.  Lucky for them the Workshop I’m taking is making up for things a bit.

I certainly hope that the registration/customer service lines get some improvement; all I needed was a badge reprinted (mine had the wrong tutorial printed on it and they wouldn’t let me in), and the customer service line didn’t move more than 20 feet in 20 minutes.

I finally life-hacked the solution and jumped in the speaker/exhibiter line as it moved quickly and asked them if they could just reprint my badge.  They did.  Hooray for common sense miracles.

The first half of the Game Design Workshop wasn’t off to a much better start.  It was overbooked, and so I wound up spending my first four hours at GDC on the floor.  I typically don’t mind sitting on the floor if I have to, but I signed up for a workshop.  As in, paid extra money.  You’d think that would come with a chair.

Then we move onto the lunch debacle, which involves me arriving to the lunch queue, only to find out they were completely out of lunches.  After they had scanned my badge.  Realizing that today was going to be just one of those days, I didn’t even bother complaining and just hit the Metreon for a bite.

I haven’t even gotten into the whole aspect of seeing con staffers participating in the tutorial sessions, eating the lunches set out for the conventioneers, drinking the beverages, and playing the games at the kiosks.  I’m not saying they’re some kind of subclass who doesn’t deserve any of these things; I’m saying it just reeks of a lack of professionalism.  I didn’t get this feeling from PAX, which is staffed by fans and friends of a comic strip.  Get it together, GDC.  Please.

More on the actual workshop in a bit.