The crowds hit 28,000 at GDC 2023.
The crowds hit 28,000 at GDC in March 2023. This year, 30,000 are expected.
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Allegations of assault and drink spiking surface after GDC 2023

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Multiple people were reportedly harassed, assaulted, or drugged during the Game Developers Conference, prompting a wide discussion about such behavior at gaming events in the wake of Me-Too revelations in recent years.

Guy Blomberg, the founder of Games Industry Gathering, said in a tweet he had been informed of multiple people who had their drinks spiked with “roofies,” also known as the date rape drug, or Rohypnol, during an after-hours karaoke event last week during GDC. The event, co-hosted by Blomberg, took place on Thursday evening at the Pandora club in San Francisco.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.