My Thoughts on GDC 2026 – The Good, the Interesting, and the Bad (ARM, WTF) | Hacker News
Hello all! This is my 1st post here! I promised to myself that in 2026, I'd get out of my shell virtually, so here I am :-)I attended GDC for the first time this year, always wanted to go, but never could. So I went this year, as an independent person. I just got home after a long week (San Francisco is awesome!), I wanted to share some of my own thoughts on where the gaming industry is heading and where it’s not doing so hot.The Good/AwesomeGoogle DeepMind’s Genie 3: The talk was packed, there was no room, and it became standing room only with tons of people being turned away. You had to get there early. As for the talk/demo itself. AWESOME. MIND BLOWING. I can't imagine what that is going to be like in a few months / years from now, given how fast the AI space is moving. Just crazy. And I hope game creators and gamers can take advantage of it meaningfully somehow.Microsoft’s Project Helix: I'm a huge Xbox nerd, so I love anything Xbox. So I attended this hoping to hear about a new console, and I sort of did. Console + PC gaming in 1 machine is an interesting idea for sure, but lets see how it pans out. Given they have a new gaming chief, no idea how this is going to turn out, but my hope is they don't forget the actual point of a console is to play games and not stuff it with AI slop.The Interesting:I spent a lot of time at the Luminaries panel discussing Generative AI in gaming. It’s an incredibly tough topic, and I noticed a lot of tiptoeing around the core issues. My thoughts right now? Artists and game creators **MUST** be credited. Full stop. It felt like there were too many out-of-touch heads in the room who don’t understand how to integrate this technology in a way that actually benefits the humans who make games. AI shouldn’t be force-fed into the process imo, it should empower the craft.The Bad:I do have to address the ARM keynote I attended. To be brutally honest, it was TERRIBLE. I left it feeling surprised by how bad it was, but the more I thought about it, the less surprising it felt. I've used ARM tech since my undergrad and always felt they're a step behind in things, especially in mobile gaming, and this keynote only reinforced my views. If they want to stay relevant to developers and the space, they need to show up at this conference with a much better understanding of the audience they’re speaking to.What made it even worse is that the rest of ARM’s mobile gaming presence did little to change my view. The talks lacked clarity, substance, and any real sense of insight into the problems developers actually care about. The keynote was absolutely the low point though: it was difficult to tell what the message was, who it was for, or what ARM was trying to accomplish. MAJOR WTF. My advice to ARM would be to get an actual PERSON and not a CORPORATE ROBOT to speak in keynotes, especially when you want to try and support game developers at a game developer conference, but drop the ball in connecting with the community in a meaningful way.That's all for now, hope people find this useful!
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