{"id":220,"date":"2018-01-30T01:46:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T01:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/?page_id=220"},"modified":"2018-01-30T02:06:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T02:06:51","slug":"student-interview","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/student-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><em>Around twice a year I get a large group of students requesting interviews about being a game designer.\u00a0 In an effort to avoid repetition, I&#8217;m including some of their questions and answers, compiled from interviews with several students, here:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Student Interview - &quot;Game Design as a Career&quot; #gamedev\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ttdTc6eW9Qg?start=21&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What did you study in college and what was your major?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I went to NYU undergraduate film school.\u00a0 I majored in film and television production, with minors in math and computer science.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What skills did you find the most helpful for this career?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Game design isn&#8217;t really a single set of skills (unless you&#8217;re making the same game over and over), so I think the most important skill is learning to learn.\u00a0 Each game I design feels like a brand new challenge, so I&#8217;ve gotten used to starting off very confused and gradually figuring out what this game needs.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>When did video game design become a &#8220;career&#8221; for you; when did you realize this is what you wanted to do?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I read a book called &#8220;The Diamond Age&#8221; by Neal Stephenson, and it inspired me to make games.\u00a0 At the time I didn&#8217;t know anything about how games were made, so I got a job as a programmer at a studio.\u00a0 I soon figured out that it&#8217;s the designer that figure out the direction the game should go in, and got my first design job at that same company a year later.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What do you enjoy most about your job?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">My favorite part is collaborating with creative people.\u00a0 If I&#8217;m doing well, that happens every day.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>I am currently studying computer science in college; am I on the right path?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I definitely think that it&#8217;s a good idea to learn one of the more concrete skills of game development before going into design: either 2d or 3d art, or programming.\u00a0 That said, learning those skills just means you&#8217;ll be able to execute your own ideas, or at least understand what your teammates are doing.\u00a0 It won&#8217;t actually make you better at design, so you&#8217;ll have to learn about that separately.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What should I do now if I wanted to get a job\u00a0as a video game designer\/developer?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The best thing to do is to just makes games.\u00a0 As many as you can.\u00a0 Make all your mistakes as quickly and cheaply as you can.\u00a0 Finish them.\u00a0 Put them up for sale\u00a0on itch.io or elsewhere.\u00a0 The more practice you have the better you&#8217;ll be, and the more you&#8217;ll have to show if you need to prove your skills to others.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Can you list some pros and cons about your job?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0Designing videogames is a lot of fun, it&#8217;s about solving creative problems.\u00a0 On the down side, video games are intensely difficult to make.\u00a0 It&#8217;s really amazing they ever get finished at all, and to make them fun to play, and come out on time, takes a lot of time and effort.\u00a0 That time and effort is most of what you have, as a human being, so you need to be prepared to make some sacrifices.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Are there any particular classes in school that you recommend taking?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">You should learn at least one of the core game development skills: Programming, or Art.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re a programmer, learn low-level and declarative languages like C, C++, C#, etc.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re an artist, learn to animate, either in 3d with Maya or Blender, or in 2D with Photoshop.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>How long have you had your job?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I&#8217;ve been a professional game designer since 2011.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>How much money do Game Designers make?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">It depends wildly.\u00a0 Some indie designers get paid a percentage of the profit, which can be $0 or a vast amount of money depending on how well the game sells.\u00a0 If you&#8217;re working for an established company you get paid a salary.\u00a0 How much is that salary?\u00a0 It depends on whether you&#8217;re a contractor or a full-time employee.\u00a0 Contractors get paid more to compensate for the fact that benefits (like health insurance) are not included.\u00a0 What are the numbers on salary?\u00a0 I don&#8217;t really know.\u00a0 You should google it.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Tell me more about your definition of &#8216;play&#8217; as it applies to gaming.\u00a0 We have had lengthy discussions of what this means and our readings broadly expand on this so any thoughts are encouraged and applicable.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I really like the definition used in Salen &amp; Zimmerman&#8217;s &#8220;Rules of Play&#8221;: &#8220;Play is free movement within a more rigid structure.&#8221; It covers all kinds of usages, like when you say a loose screw has a lot of play.\u00a0 Society itself has a rigid structure, and it&#8217;s interesting to hear when people say others are &#8220;Playing the Game,&#8221; meaning Life.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>As a designer, what challenges have you faced with as far as creative agency and game design? This question is open to however you want to go with this&#8230;activism, social responsibility, design, gender issues, innovation&#8230;etc.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Creative agency, if I understand the term correctly, has never been much of a problem for me &#8212; even under a lot of constraints, there&#8217;s always so much room in the design landscape if you&#8217;re willing to go exploring.\u00a0 There have been a few times when the constraints imposed on me were morally questionable &#8212; early in my career that was about making somewhat predatory free-to-play games. I didn&#8217;t have the backbone then to voice my discomfort vehemently enough.\u00a0 Now I think I do.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Could I have a personal anecdote revealing a bit more?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Yes, there was one instance while freelancing when I was asked to make a series of educational games by a company under contract by the Saudi government.\u00a0 That already had it&#8217;s pitfalls, but children deserve an education no matter where they&#8217;re from.\u00a0 Then I heard that the curriculum would be very different for boys and girls.\u00a0 I had to pull out.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Do you have a personal philosophy or mission?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">My ultimate goal is to contribute to an environment where anything a player might want to learn can be learned through a videogame.\u00a0 Not every project I do is an educational game, but everything I make makes me better at contributing to that goal.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What steps or processes do you employ when designing a game?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">It depends on whether I&#8217;m doing a blue sky design, or being given an assignment, but I try to simulate the game in my head.\u00a0 I make some notes in my notebook for a few days, trying to understand the basics of the game&#8217;s dynamics.\u00a0 Then I try to explain the idea to a few other people, and see if it sounds interesting at all.\u00a0 Then I start to prototype, either on paper or digitally.\u00a0 If that&#8217;s still interesting we can start development on that feature, which will require a lot of adjustsments and tuning.\u00a0 At any point I may need to start from scratch or to redo large portions of the design, as I respond to the realities of how the game plays and the resources available.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What are your favorite games to play? Why?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I play Threes about an hour a day.\u00a0 It fits well into my life.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>What elements do you feel are most important in creating gamer immersion?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I don&#8217;t like the term &#8216;Gamer&#8217; because it implies a level of commitment to the hobby, and a certain mindset that not all players share.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">That aside, I think the most important thing to create immersion is having a character that the player can relate to and empathize with.<\/span><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Why is your design process unique\/different?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think it is.\u00a0 A lot of what I&#8217;ve learned about designing games I&#8217;ve learned secondhand from books or lectures.\u00a0 The best I can say is that I have a unique blend of influences.\u00a0 I think I&#8217;m pretty good at it, though.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Who is your target audience?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I&#8217;ve made games for all kinds of people &#8212; kids, housewives, gamer bros, businessmen, language learners.\u00a0 It all depends on the game.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Anything else you would like to add?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">There&#8217;s something special about games.\u00a0 They have all kinds of untapped potential, and we need more and different perspectives to realize it.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">~<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><em>If you&#8217;ve been assigned to interview a game designer, and you&#8217;ve chosen me, and you have questions that aren&#8217;t answered above, feel free to get in touch.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around twice a year I get a large group of students requesting interviews about being a game designer.\u00a0 In an effort to avoid repetition, I&#8217;m including some of their questions and answers, compiled from interviews with several students, here: What did you study in college and what was your major? I went to NYU undergraduate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Student Interviews - Bobby Lockhart","description":"Around twice a year I get a large group of students requesting interviews about being a game designer.\u00a0 In an effort to avoid repetition, I'm including some of"},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-220","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobbylox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}