International gamers in SF for convention 'shell shocked' by 'dangerous city'

Attendees at the Game Developers Conference, held the week of March 18 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, detailed some of their less-than-savory experiences in the city during their week stay. Attendees at the Game Developers Conference, held the week of March 18 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, detailed some of their less-than-savory experiences in the city during their week stay. Photo: Twitter Screen Grab Photo: Twitter Screen Grab Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close International gamers in SF for convention 'shell shocked' by 'dangerous city' 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

More than 28,000 international gaming professionals recently congregated at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, where they tested the latest VR tech and sampled hundreds of indie games.

But some attendees, many of whom traveled thousands of miles for the annual convention, found the city streets outside the Game Developers Conference (GDC) inhospitable, the sights disturbing.

"My GDC feedback was simple: Stop hosting it in SF," wrote Emre Deniz, director of Melbourne-based game company Opaque Space, in a recent viral tweet that received more than 2,500 likes.

San Francisco, Deniz continued, "is a dangerous city and America is not welcome to non western developers."

"The city hates us being there," he wrote. "We are worried being there, move it."

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GDC started in a San Jose living room in 1988 before moving to San Francisco in the early 2000s. This year marked the 32nd iteration of the ever-expanding conference, touted by organizers as "the world's largest and longest-running" professional game industry event. The gathering routinely draws upwards of 20,000 people from across the globe for a week of lectures, network events, discussions and a sprawling expo.

When asked by fellow Twitter users to elaborate on his GDC experience, Deniz claimed he intervened in a mugging, experienced racial abuse, "toxic dudes in events" and had his credit card skimmed. Deniz added that Airbnb hosts canceled last-minute on "heaps of people," and "scores of devs" had "rejected visas or (were) hassled by TSA."

"The downtown area felt really unsafe to both myself and apparently many other attendees," he wrote. Deniz could not be reached for comment.

A GDC spokesperson gave SFGATE the following statement: "We're evaluating feedback from GDC attendees and our post-show survey, and are keen to hear about everyone's experiences as we plan for our future."

Deniz was not alone in his observations. Morgan Jaffit has attended GDC in San Francisco for more than a decade. In response to Deniz's tweets, Jaffit, a co-founder of indie games studio Defiant Development, wrote: "Oh it's not just you. Every international I've spoken with is still shell shocked after this year."

SFGATE reached out to Jaffit, and the Australian developer described a host of crimes he witnessed during his week in San Francisco, including the smash-and-grab of a parked vehicle, a knife fight and, after a GDC presentation at the Four Seasons Hotel, "10 police cuffing a guy outside the door."

"None of that was in 'bad neighborhoods,'" he said over email. "It was all within one block of the show, or on Market." The Moscone Convention Center is located on 3rd Street in SoMa.

Crime reports reinforce Jaffit's observations. Between March 18 and 23, the dates of the conference, multiple petty thefts, strong-arm robberies, vehicle break-ins and assaults were reported within a two-block radius of the convention center.

That's nothing out of the ordinary for the streets around Moscone, said San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Grace Gatpandan.

Conference organizers typically hire their own security, including off-duty San Francisco police officers, to patrol the grounds and the one-block radius surrounding the event space. Gatpandan said GDC hired a number of SFPD officers for this year's event, though she declined to reveal how many.

Gatpandan said she has not noticed an increase in crimes around Moscone in recent years, even when it hosts large events. She also admitted conferences that draw thousands of out-of-town visitors can inspire "crimes of opportunity."

"People might take advantage of them because they know they are in an unfamiliar area," she said.

Tourism pours a stunning $9 billion into San Francisco each year, an unquantifiable amount of which comes from people attending conferences, like Dreamforce and Oracle OpenWorld. It makes sense to come to the capital of tech to talk about tech, but some think it's not worth the city's unsavory baggage.

Anna Marie Presutti, general manager of Hotel Nikko, said conference location scouts aren't immune to the sights on San Francisco's streets.

Presutti recently told The Chronicle's Heather Knight that inspectors routinely say, "Wow, from our hotel to Moscone Center, my folks are going to have to literally walk through this? ... People are saying, 'I'd rather go somewhere else.'"

The general perception among conference attendees is that San Francisco's crime problems are getting worse.

Jaffit said the number of anecdotes about "muggings, assaults, theft, abuse" from fellow attendees seemed "much higher than usual."

The developer said he even witnessed crimes against some convention attendees. Jaffit recalled intervening in a wallet theft "that resulted in bystanders getting maced" by the thief. He also recalled an incident in which an attendee was "shoved violently into traffic by a large homeless man." Jaffit walked with the terrified fellow until the man "stopped following him."

As a 6-foot-3 man comfortable in big cities, Jaffit said he doesn't feel particularly threatened walking around San Francisco, though he'd be reluctant to send some of his 30 staff members there.

"We're likely to shift our focus more towards other conferences around the world in the next few years," he said.

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Not every GDC attendee left with such a bitter taste in their mouth.

A Reddit user going by the name @Synaesthesiaaa posted a thread on the website Thursday to express his longing for the "beautiful city."

"I came to SF from Orland for GDC, and I left missing it terribly," he wrote. The Redditor said he "got the authentic SF experience" while staying at the Artmar Hotel in the Tenderloin, where he glimpsed the staggering reality of the "underprivileged people who live here."

"On a less depressing note," he continued, "I walked something like 30 miles across hills I could never even begin to imagine."

He said he's looking forward to returning next year.

Australian developer Iain Garner's San Francisco visit landed somewhere between the two previously described extremes.

He told SFGATE by email: "My experiences were nothing more than being horrified by the wealth disparity."

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.