I have been to GDC, a few years ago, when I had only just started on Yucatan and I hadn't met my fiancée, and I didn't have a whole lot of experience. It seemed like the thing to to, and it was a lot of fun, but hideously expensive. It was great to meet other developers and publishers, and get a whole load of buzz going on. But these days I'd rather spend that money on developing my game, I realised you can meet all the publishers and developers you need online, or locally, you have to pay a bit more in sweat but you save a lot in $$$.
Now I help run games events in the UK (my home country) and I'm starting up my own games festival in my new home town, Glasgow. It's hard work but amazingly rewarding. I want to help people get together, make games, get drunk and all that, without feeling they have to make a yearly pilgrimage to the cable-car capital.
I think Itch.io is amazing because it shares that independent spirit. You don't need to be curated by Apple, or squeezed for 30% by Steam, you don't need Sony in your rolodex. You can just do what you do and get it out there.
Now Yucatan is nearing the end, I've launched a kickstarter to get it over the last hurdle, and I'm feeling good about it. Maybe I'll go back to GDC in the future, but in many ways I don't think I need to.
Joe Bain