GDC attendance expected to be down on last year

The economic climate is being blamed for an expected fall in attendance at this year's GDC event, taking place in San Francisco this week.

According to Meggan Scavio, executive director for the conference, talking to Forbes, Think Services is anticipating the number of people attending to be "slightly down this year from last year's 18,000 people," as a result of companies cutting travel and training budgets.

It's also expected that there will be less money spent on parties through the week, despite the games industry continuing to grow its revenues - in the US in February the software market grew by 9 per cent year-on-year, while hardware was up 11 per cent.

But Scavio thinks the industry will tone it down a little: "It's kind of like let's celebrate, but do it quietly," she said.

The conference itself starts later today, and will feature a keynote from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata later in the week.