Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer calls for the Game Developers Conference to become “more accessible”

Josh Sawyer, studio design director at Obsidian Entertainment, has announced that he will not be speaking at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) and calls for organisers to make it “more accessible” for smaller developers.

Sawyer, who served as narrative designer for Fallout: New Vegas and directed 2022’s historical murder-mystery Pentiment, shared on Twitter that he will not be speaking at GDC’s March event.

Outlining his decision, Sawyer shared that he disagrees with the conference’s “policies on compensation, travel assistance, and distribution,” which he says harms “many less-established devs [and] devs from smaller studios” due to the cost of attending.

When he communicated these issues to the organiser, Sawyer says he was offered a stipend and travel assistance, and told that the support is available for others.

“Friends who had talks accepted for ’23 received no such information,” shared Sawyer. “I searched and found other devs, going back at least 3 years, with similar stories: they complained and were offered help.”

I will be giving a free online talk about Pentiment (dialogue) in the next few months. I will also be talking at various conferences throughout the year. However, I will again not be giving a talk at GDC due to their policies on compensation, travel assistance, and distribution.

— Josh Sawyer (@jesawyer) January 14, 2023

“Perhaps this is uncharitable, but I have to assume that only squeaky wheels get greased – and the people most likely to make noise are the ones with the least to lose,” he added.

Sawyer argues that GDC’s support policies “make it very difficult for less-established devs to break in and share their experiences,” while the conference’s paywalled content make it harder for these experiences to reach a wider audience.

“I strongly urge GDC and the devs who work with GDC to revise their current policies in the interests of making the platform more accessible to less established and privileged devs, both as speakers and as viewers of the content the conference produces, much of which is paywalled.”

Though he won’t be speaking at GDC, Sawyer has shared that he will instead be holding a free online talk on Twitch, explaining that he “will reach a broader audience through here and my Twitch channel than through the closed GDC ecosystem.”

The topic of Sawyer’s talk will be dialogue in Pentiment, which we called “a tale of pure brilliance” in our review. Back in November, Sawyer said Pentiment would not have been created without Xbox Game Pass.