For the first time in 6 years I attended GDC. I stopped attending largely because of a combination of my divorce from Nicky Robinson (which divided our friends and colleagues as some divorces do) and the lawsuit brought by the then-CGDC board against my present wife Sara.
Because of the difficult and strained relationships involved, Sara and I felt ourselves to be in exile from the game development community. Some of our exile was self-imposed, some felt to us like it came from the community.
The people who (I thought) split over my divorce from Nicky included many of my very best friends—people like Ellen Guon and Steve Beeman (with whom I worked). I felt like I lost most of them. Of course, I did gain my present wife Sara and two kids, so there were compensations, but....
The people who sued Sara were the CGDC Board: Nicky (who, face it, I was going to have a difficult relationship with); Tim Brengle (who'd been my boss at EA); Anne Westfall (of Jon & Anne, of Free Fall Games, who'd been my first mentor as I entered the games business in 1984); Ernest Adams (with whom I'd worked at EA); and Susan Lee-Merrow (who, with her ex-husband Norm Lane, had been friends for many years). I was caught in the lawsuit. Not only did I agree with Sara's position and support her (emotionally and in the community), I was the only person besides her to be deposed.
There were people who supported Sara, of course. Jim Dunnigan (IIRC) sent money, for which I'm sure I've never properly thanked him. Diana Gruber and Rosemary West were very supportive. There were probably others whom I no longer recall.
The issues of the lawsuit are no longer important, and there's no point in rehashing it. What is important is that it combined with the divorce to increase my (our) alienation. After a year and five months at Rocket Science Games, I left the games business. I spent 4 1/2 years at Adobe Systems. We did not socialize with our (mostly former) friends in the games business.
Last year Neil Kirby emailed and suggested lunch while he was at GDC. We did, and as a lark, checked to see if our free passes were, in fact, available at GDC. They were, and we got them, and we spent a hour or so in the Lobby Bar.
This year, as is recounted elsewhere, I attended GDC because I'm re-entering the games business. I knew that I would encounter people I didn't want to, but there really wasn't a choice if I wanted to make the contacts necessary.
I was overwhelmed by the people who said "I'm glad you're back". People like Neil Kirby, Rob Harris, Tim Brengle, Bill Lee, Peter Oliphant, Dave Warhol, Eric Goldberg, Steve Meretzky, Don Daglow, and Bill Davis. I'm sure there were others. I made nice with Ray Greer (Nicky's boyfriend when we split up and now her husband). He didn't realize that he was not on the "don't want to see" list. Once I heard that, I realized that there were probably other people who didn't know how we felt.
So I made it my business to find the ones I most cared about (Tim & Anne). Tim was relatively easy. I'd tried once before with him 3 or 4 years ago, but found myself periodically wanting to rip his face off—which is not conducive to pleasant conversation. All I had to do was walk over and tell him that I was over it. That was easy.
Anne was much harder. Although she and Jon joined a conversational amoeba that I was part of, and we exchanged "oh, you've moved to Texas" conversation, we did not really communicate. As I saw them leaving one evening, I begged out of my current conversation and followed them. I asked if they had five minutes. It was harder than I thought it would be. I thanked them for not appearing scary, and tried to get out a few words on how cast out I had felt. After a bit I know that I must have been babbling. We eventually had a slightly deeper conversation (kids, houses, lives, etc.), and Anne told me that she might want 5 minutes of my time later.
She did, right after the GarageGames sponsored session. And I think it was just as hard for her. She started to tear up a couple of times just as I had when I was trying to connect with her and Jon. In the end, we made up. The details are not anybody's business. I spent a couple of hours just hanging out with them, talking about stuff and walking the Expo.
It was good to go to GDC. Not only did I do the things I set out to (make contacts, learn stuff, put my card into a lot of hands), but I managed to end an exile of about six years. I have come out of the wilderness.
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