Formed around 2004, the Game Development Club (GDC, not to be confused with the Game Developer's Conference) was a student-run community of game enthusiasts at WPI, centered around playing and creating games. No easily attainable records indicate the exact date or circumstances of its creation, though it is known that GDC pre-dated the existence of the IMGD program at WPI by several years.
The club ultimately split into two branches: GDC-Social, focused on game-playing, E-Sports, and social events, and GDC Developers (yes, “Game Development Club Developers”), centered around creating games and hosting game jams/workshops.
Due to increasingly separate goals and governance, GDC-Social and GDC-Dev began the process of splitting into independent organizations in Fall 2019. Due to a technicality in the bylaws and Student Activities policy, neither club was able to inherit and rebrand the existing structure. As such, two new organizations were established:
WPI E-Sports, home to WPI's competitive gaming scene, was originally part of VGC but ultimately split off into its own independent organization.