While I am still working on my full post/summary/pics from last week’s GDC, I thought I’d post on a small “experiment” I ran during the conference.

I’ve always (kinda) joked that GDC is like a marathon - in part due to the intense physical/mental nature of the event itself and the extent of preparation (aka “training”) that goes into it. Like many, I’m quite a busy body during GDC running between lectures, meetings, interviews and receptions/parties, etc, from early morning to late at night. So, I brought along a pedometer to measure my steps. The results are as follows:

Monday 8138
Tuesday 9398
Wednesday 14741
Thursday 10498
Friday 7957

10k steps is a good target to hit for an active daily routine. On a regular day, I’ll usually hit 9 or 10k if I go to the gym for a run (FYI, a 5km run is about 6500 steps). So, aside from Wednesday (which was busy with awards and several receptions (including the Minna Mingle which was way far away)), most of the days were kinda average, if even underwhelming. Before the week started, I was guessing I’d hit at least 20k steps each day.

From this, I realized that I was measuring the wrong thing. I’m guessing that the physical fatigue has much less to do with steps, but more so with the amount of time just standing up. Alas, I can’t think of a smart way to measure that ;) Also, the feeling of marathon-like exertion is probably compounded by the lack of sleep (I averaged a pretty decent 6-hrs per night), lack of good/consistent food and the fact that the whole thing lasts 5 days.

In conclusion: metrics are great, but you gotta measure the right thing - and, I bet I’ll average 20k steps at E3!