Hi,

I recently knew about GDC and GDC Vault. I am fairly new to the industry with under 1 year experience in game development and about 4 years total of professional software development.

I first knew about GDC Vault through a lecture posted by Jason Gregory (Lead Programmer at Naughty Dog) on "Context-aware character dialog in The Last of Us". And I can say that it was very beneficial to me and helped me know more about the world's biggest studios get the job done.

I was thinking, if free content is of such benefit, what about the members only content?! I am starting this post because the yearly subscription fee ($495) is not a small amount of money to me. It is not huge but I should carefully think before spending such amount.

So, do you think that the resources offered by GDC Vault are necessary for serious game programmers?

Thanks Promit and ApochPiQ for your replies. So what are the best ways to know about the latest trends in the industry? And of course I know that anybody with my level of experience may not be able to grasp the details of a lecture he watches or an article he reads, but at least I'll be able to get pointers on what I can later gain deep knowledge in.

I'm in the game industry for 2 years only as programmer. I was using my studio's account last year basically watched almost all the sessions in GDC 2013. It's a game dev Netflix for me and I like it.

For me, I don't think it help me a lot on technical side. But, it's really entertained. After a day of work, sometimes I'm tired and still want to know something about game industry, I clicked some of the sessions to watch. It's like watching Netflix, but full of game industry contents. I was able to see people from different areas talking their topics, e.g. producer/designer/arts/marketing/audio/indie... . I had a good time watching these sessions, although some of the speakers did not make the talk fun.

Although it didn't help me a lot on technical side. It's probable not some where to learn stuff for me. It reminds me there are lots of hard working people out side in game industry making fun stuff. Then, I will remind myself to learn more as well, and not limited on the stuff I'm working at the studio.

I really like GDC Vault, and I'm also considering subscribe it this year. But the fee is quite high, haha.