Every year it's the same thing. I get emails asking me if I'm going to have time at GDC to meet with them about some game, industry partnership, licensing opportunity, etc. And each year I respond "Sorry, I won't be at the GDC" (Game Developer's Conference).
They're almost universally shocked that I don't attend. It's not that I'm boycotting it. I think the GDC is a great conference. I just don't see what particular benefit it would be to go.
From a social aspect, I'm only in contact with two game developers outside Stardock who would attend (Soren Johnson who's working on Spore these days and Adel Chaveleh at Timegate, makers of Kohan and other great games). That's it. And even that's only a few times a year. I have some friends who work at Microsoft and Ensemble and Blizzard but they're not likely to attend either.
When I have gone, I always feel like a total outsider. Like there's a club that I don't know how to join. It's pretty much the same feeling I get about the "Association of Shareware producers" (there's a whole shareware industry thing too).
Whenever I stick my foot in the water, I just get that "it's a private club" feeling. Not an exclusionary one necessarily just one that I'm not part of.
Of course, the PC game industry itself is kind of a club, one which Stardock in general and myself in particular aren't really part of. We're about as unconnected as you can get.
It generally doesn't have much impact on our actual business. We miss some industry awards and some glory as as a result. TotalGaming.net, for instance, is probably the 2nd or possibly 3rd most popular digital distribution system out there but if there's a round up of them in the media, we'll manage to be ignored because we're not on the radar of those in the industry. The millions we make are never measured or counted by anyone in the industry. Our alternative to DRM (SSD - Secure Software Deliver) never gets much mention even though I suspect that the future is going to be some combination of the two anyway. The guys from Starforce are more likely to get on a panel discussing dealing with piracy than any of us are.
I wish GDC wasn't held this time of year. If it were held in May (for instance), when the industry is in its slower mode, then it would be easier to go. But with 3 major game titles due out by the end of June (Sins is already out, GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor is due in about a month and The Political Machine 2008 is due in June) it's hard to justify the time to go.
So anyway, that's why I don't go. 
-Brad Wardell (Frogboy/Draginol)