Statistics: GDC 2012

Like I said last week, GDC is about so much more than the next hot videogame. It is about ideas and philosophies. We writers go to mingle with great designers and thinkers (not to mention each other) to better understand our favorite medium and to discover the ideas that we, in turn, will be pondering for the next year. We go to dinners and lectures to drink deep and taste the future.

Then, after the show closes, we go out and just drink.

Over the next few weeks, you will see dozens of articles on Unwinnable that will be informed by the high-minded happenings at GDC 2012, but in the meantime, we’ve put together some statistics to give you an idea of what went on off the show floor. What was life like in the Unwinnable Submarine (that being what, for reasons that now escape us, we dubbed the hotel room at the Taj Campton Place)? How did a small gathering of Unwinnable writers at a dive bar in the Tenderloin turn into one of the wildest parties of the conference? What other stupidity did Team Unwinnable get into over that long, glorious week? The answers are probably not below.

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Number of dudes sleeping in the Team Unwinnable Submarine – 4

Number of dudes who slept on the floor – 2

Number of dudes who snored – 2 (not the same 2!)

Toms Peeped – 1

Drinks consumed over the course of the week – Innumerable

Drinks that were free – Disappointingly few

Irrelevant activist celebrities brought in by EA to tell us Sim City 5 exists – 3

“God hates game developers” signs spotted – 2

Number of elevators Brendan saved with Todd Howard – 0

Number of escalators Brendan shared with Todd Howard – 1

iPhones borrowed – 1

Miles walked – Too many

Parties attended at Public Works – 2

Visits to the Thirsty Bear – 2

Visits to the Death Star bar – At least 7, but we aren’t entirely sure beyond that

Number of dollars for a single gin and tonic at the Death Star bar – 12

Number of times offered cocaine from a street dealer – 1

Number of times that same street dealer said, “You gimme twenty, I give you ten.” – 3

Empanadas eaten – 12

Times Gus Mastrapa was mistaken for a girl – 1

Times a girl was mistaken for Gus Mastrapa – 1

Number of Anchor Steams Gus had at High Tide: Too many +1

Number of regulars confused as to why their Tenderloin dive bar was full on a Monday night – 7-10

Random strangers’ names on the Unwinnable $1 bill at High Tide – 2

Storefront churches passed in the Mission walking from BART to the Venus Patrol party – 2

Number of cars honking horns in the funeral procession in the Mission – 20-25

Percent of Cancun Burrito eaten by Gus Mastrapa: 80%

Percent of Cancun Burrito eaten by Ryan Kuo: 100%

Percent of Cancun Burrito eaten by Richard Clark: 50%

Crushing defeats witnessed during impromptu sessions of The Metagame – Countless

Number of Gabe Newells spotted plastered in and around the Moscone Center – 9

Unsuspecting people manipulated into giving a certain drunk writer piggyback rides – 1

Drinking-related apps conceived – 2

Productive and informative lecture sessions we didn’t attend because we were recovering from the previous night’s drinking – No comment

Times we somehow ended up in Denny’s listening to Steve Haske’s nonsensical, hours-long rants: 5 [You forgot “humorous” in there. Apparently – Haske]

PS3s purchased immediately upon returning home from San Francisco – 1

Times Gus enjoyed hugging people – A million

New writers acquired – 11