For aspiring Game Designers: Part IV

Working in the Games Industry - more viewpoints!

Introduction

For this article, I have outsourced most of the writing to other people (delegation and outsourcing are also important skills to learn BTW :P), where I have asked them to write a short text describing their path into the games’ industry and what went as they planned and what didn’t, plus any other tidbits that they think could be interesting to tell you. I have already given my journey in pieces throughout the earlier entries of this series, but I will make a short summary how my interest actually started here.

I see this article more as an inspirational one rather than a “here’s how to do it” because, as you will see, there is no one true way to do it! It also in many ways ties in with what I have written in previous articles, where you shouldn’t be afraid to experience other disciplines than the one you are gunning for before you get there - you might even find an affinity or a love of something that you hadn’t considered at all to begin with, like my path to becoming a designer focused on Combat and AI that I have told in previous articles.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did, and huge thanks to the people who participated in it!

Jocke Sohls - Senior Game Designer at MachineGames

My journey to get into game development actually started pretty late; it was not a dream of mine as a kid, outside the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” truth-bombs I would drop while playing games as a kid (fun fact: my dream job as a kid was actually to become a stuntman!).?

I did play games as a kid, starting with a second-hand NES when already the Super Nintendo had come out, and then my interest grew exponentially from there!

What led me to pursue this career comes down to two separate acts of random chance:

1. As a teen, I saved money to buy myself my own Xbox (the original). It was a modified/chipped one that allowed me to download games and play on it as well as play imported games. For this story, the first reason is the important one.So, I was searching the less than reputable sites online to find cool games, when I found a little game called “The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay” - I had never heard of it nor the movies it was based on at the time, but for whatever reason I decided to download it and try it out.Then, during the intro, I quickly noticed that almost all the names in the credit sequence sounded extremely Swedish: Jerk, Jens, Fredrik, Anders etc. This made me do a double-take and go “hang on, there are Swedish game developers??!”. This jumpstarted my interest in finding out more, as I had not really cared before that, and I quickly found that Sweden had a big and very successful game dev scene already back then.
2. In my very late teens/early 20s, I had trained karate for a few years when I randomly talked to one of the newer joiners to the club I went to, a guy named Reine Rosenberg (he is a fantastic artist btw, check out his stuff if you can!). We did some small-talk about what we were doing, and he mentioned that he went to a game development school called Playground Squad, located just one town over from where we were at that moment. This revelation once again blew my mind; I had no idea that such schools even existed, let alone in small rural Sweden, far away from the major town. From then on I had a clear goal to get in and start on my path too.

I did apply to the Game Design discipline at Playground Squad and got in! There I made some very good friends and future colleagues, and then I got my first real experience in the industry during my internship at Starbreeze Studios.?

For people who don’t know, they were the people who made that Riddick game that got me on the path to where I am today, and I have worked and am still working with a lot of the people behind those Swedish names today at MachineGames. Adding even more improbable wholesomeness, Reine also worked at Starbreeze at the same time I did, so I have had the privilege to work together with pretty much everyone who set me on the path I’m at now, which I am so happy for!

What happened to my career after that point has already been pretty laid out in the previous article entries, so now I will sit back and let other people tell their stories instead.

Ezekiel Virant - Game Design Lead at MachineGames

Zeke is my direct lead at MG and a super nice guy. We have been working together for a couple of years now since he joined us at MG after working at Avalanche Studios. He is an awesome dude with a very good grasp of not just design, but also how to lead a team in both an efficient but, equally importantly, respectful way that both empowers and inspires you to put in your best work.

He sent me some answers he had already provided for this article (there are some more non-MG examples in there too if you want to read more!), which is why it is in Q&A form.

“Where did you go to high school? What habits or hobbies did you develop during your high school years that now contribute to your designing games professionally?

I was a boarding student at Baylor School, a private school in Chattanooga, TN. The coursework was rigorous, but I always found time for music and video games. Outside of playing games and listening to new music, the majority of my free time was spent trying to play music with other students; throughout high school, my dream was to write and perform original music with a band. Though it was discouraging and difficult trying to put together jam sessions and form bands, learning how to accommodate others’ tastes and trying to become a better collaborator has been one of the most important lessons in my creative career. By the end of high school, it was actually fun to play in a band!

Where did you attend college/university? What sorts of skills did you develop during your time there that you now utilize to design games professionally?

I went to Bard College for undergrad where I studied music, and then after 3 years of doing odd jobs and writing and performing music, I attended the New York University Game Center where I received a master’s in game design. The Game Center taught me a lot and helped bridge the gaps in my music background and game development: how to best utilize feedback from people, how to hone and iterate my designs, how to present and pitch my work, and how to constrain ideas and develop games in a timely fashion.

Looking back now, was there something unique about your particular college/uni's campus environment, geographic location, or regional culture that enhanced/impacted the development of your academic design skills?

I’ve always found New York’s game development scene to be very welcoming and diverse - it’s amazing to see video game developers, board game developers, artists, etc. all at the same events and offering each other detailed feedback. From my very first weeks studying game design, I was lucky to be able to tap into the community and start sharing my work with others. Sharing your game with others before you think it’s ready is a crucial part of video game development, and NYC was the perfect place for me to gather feedback and expand my horizons.

How long after college graduation did you begin to design games professionally, and did you develop any habits/skills during that interim period which you now utilize in your professional game designing?

I started designing games professionally immediately after graduating from the NYU Game Center in 2014, but I had a 3-year interim period between graduating undergrad in 2009 and starting graduate school in 2012. That period was tough and helped me realize how much I needed a network of collaborators and friends. Creating work in a vacuum, even for a short period of time, is challenging, and for me, it has always had a detrimental effect on my work. This is one of the chief reasons I work as a part of a design team rather than as a solo designer or solo developer. So by the time I entered graduate school, I was already starting to engage with games communities and trying to find other artists and designers.”

Jonathan Heckley - Technical Director - Level Design at Ubisoft Toronto

Jonny is a previous colleague of mine that I’ve worked together with for a number of years at MG, where at the time he was an excellent Level Design Lead. He is however very experienced in many other things as well, as you can clearly see if you check out his work history and what he himself wrote here below.

His experience with many other types of editors and engines has been super valuable for someone like me who has had a limited experience due to only having worked at two companies (both using idtech-based engines/editors), as he could easily identify things that could be done better and provide concrete examples on how it could be done.?

It is no exaggeration to say that he had a very large and extremely valuable impact on the efficiency and ease of working with our editor for the better during his time with us at MG!

“I got into the industry in 1998 as a QA Tester. I applied by way of a tiny ad in the classifieds of the local paper (yes, a real papery paper that gets posted to your house) when the position came up purely by chance at a medium-sized AAA studio in a nearby town in Northeast UK. Along with a cover letter and CV, they asked for a breakdown of some game mechanic from a game you recently played, and suggestions for how you would improve it. I wrote some analysis of the Materia system from FFVII, having played it extensively for the last year while ‘job-seeking’. I got an interview, and out of approx. 400 or so applicants, I got the job.

It was my first full time job after completing my Art and Design degree in '97. My goal was always to be an artist or illustrator of some kind, working on comics, books, games, film even - whatever I could get close to. I wasn’t explicitly seeking work in the games' industry; back then there were no ‘game dev courses’ or internship programs. Regardless, games matched my ‘possible industry’ checklist, and QA was quite a common path to get your foot in the door; it still is, or can be, to varying extents.

During any downtime in QA, I started trying to figure out how game art was made and sought guidance from our Art Director. He suggested low-poly modelling, so I started getting stuck into 3DSmax. There wasn't the abundance of guides and tutorials there are today (there was no YouTube or LinkedIn Learning), so it was more just experimenting and getting ad-hoc pointers and guidance off co-workers. I also started learning photoshop, MS Office, and whatever else I could get access to.

Internal employer-based mentorship programs, career development tracks and training opportunities were unheard of back then. These things just happened organically by a combination of good will, personal effort, opportunity-seeking, and chance. As such my ‘become a game artist' goal began to wane; there wasn't a clear path to get there.

But I was in luck. The design team had reached out to my QA manager to ask if any of us testers wanted to submit suggestions for gameplay mechanics for a new project. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I wrote what was probably a bunch of overly enthusiastic flowery descriptions of how some character abilities could work and sent it over.

Turns out they liked it, and since we were between projects and the new ones were ramping up, they wondered if I'd be interested in joining them as a junior designer, which again of course I jumped on. The rest, as they say, is history; I've been a designer in some form ever since. But that's obviously not the end; what’s also interesting is how the definition of the role of a 'game designer' has transformed over the last 25 years, and how my goals have evolved and adapted in response.

When I started in games there were no specialized designer roles; there were no UI or UX or AI or combat or level or systems or tools or technical or anything else designers; just 'game designers'. While in QA, I once asked one of the designers what a game designer does. They told me “everything that's not programming or art or animation or audio”. Somewhat of an oversimplification but, yes, it sure did seem what way. We did paper design for UI, frontend menu systems, logic flow for AI behaviour, paper and 3D level design, scripting in the engine/editor, and whatever else came our way. I also got to exercise some of my art muscles with some concept art at various points, and dabbled in production roles once or twice, but it didn't jibe with me.

Eventually as game productions and technologies became more sophisticated and ambitious, the role of 'game designer' became more diversified. Level Design became more of a 'thing', and as level editing tools and tech became more accessible (Hammer, Unreal Engine), I started to realize that my passion was for building the worlds people play in, and populating them with the activities they experience. So, I too diversified, and eventually I switched primarily to Level Design. Again, I'm not sure if this was ever something I acknowledged consciously as a goal; this was just where it all led me.

After specializing in Level Design on and off now for more than 10 years (and a short stint as a start-up co-founder), my goals changed again recently. This time it was most definitely something I consciously acknowledged. I realized I was getting more personal gratification from the technical aspects of design, from facilitating the work of the team, by providing tools and tech support to level designers, and helping them to do their jobs. This is exactly what I get to do in my current role, and I’m loving it. While I still do art for a hobby when I can find the time and the motivation, I’m always grateful that I never did make it down that track; instead, I get to keep that for myself, and still get paid to help amazing people build amazing things.”

Viljar Sommerbakk - Game Director at Funcom

I worked very closely with Viljar early on in my career on Syndicate while at Starbreeze studios. Together we were a small team of scripter and game designer that worked on the combat in the single-player portion of the game, and we got a pretty efficient and fun work method going that allowed us to do a lot with very few people.

I definitely learned a lot of what I know today from that time working with him, and I have a huge respect for that to this day, which is why I reached out to him for this article.

“Hello everyone, My name is Viljar Sommerbakk. I am the game director on Funcom’s “Dune: Awakening”, a survival open-world MMO game set in the Dune universe.?

I’ve worked in the video games' industry since 2000, on PC, consoles and mobile. My first game industry job was with Funcom. While I am currently at Funcom, I’ve worked at several other companies as well. I keep coming back to Funcom, though.?

As to where my career started, I have always been a gamer. Growing up I played games at arcades and fast-food joints. I also enjoyed point-and-click adventures on floppy disks at friend’s houses, through to playing on my own gaming rigs and the various consoles that have come out over the years. My ultimate realization that I was a gamer was with Wolfenstein 3D, when the first boss appeared as I opened a door. He shouted “Guten tag!” and killed me with his dual miniguns. What a moment!?

I never intended to work in games. Growing up in Norway, I never thought it could be an option. I did tinker with various games early on, though, to see what made them tick, opening them in game editors, changing wall textures, level layouts and enemy compositions. I did not think this could be a way to make a career, however. Then Funcom’s Anarchy Online appeared on my radar. I started following its development, thinking that the graphics and the setting presented on the official website were jaw-droppingly cool.?

Compared to today’s standards, the website was limited in presentation and production values, but this was the late 1990s – what I saw was cutting edge and innovative, and the game is still running, more than 20 years later. Eventually positions for world builders opened up. I applied, not thinking there was a chance in hell that I would get the job. Funcom got back to me, though, with instructions to build a level in one of a selection of games, and info on relevant editors.?

The next few days are a blur, as I bought a copy of Quake 1 or 2 (don’t remember which), downloaded the fan-made editor for it, and made my first ever from-scratch level. It was a tower with player entry at the bottom, exit at the top, with monsters, treasure, and buttons which opened doors. Advanced stuff, I know. It wasn’t bad. It worked. You could play it.?

I’ll never know if the level itself got me the job, or if it was the fact that I provided a paragraph of narrative context for it and explained how to get it to work: the game, the patches, the hoops to jump through to be able to evaluate it. It probably was a combination of all of them. However, it took a while before I got hired.?

I lost hope that anything would materialize from my application, but fast-forward several months of Funcom internal project cancellations and people-reshuffling to where Funcom still needed world builders for AO - Funcom eventually gave me a chance, for which I am forever grateful.?

Through ups and downs on the games' industry carousel, several credited games and companies later, I’m still here, making games, at Funcom. It's the best job in the world.?

See you on Arrakis!”

Conclusion

I hope that reading these accounts have had the desired effect I had in mind for you, meaning that it has served as an inspiration for you. These are all people I respect greatly and that do great contributions in their fields wherever they work, so if you want to have good examples to follow, you can hardly find better ones than these people!

The most important point I hoped to get across with these accounts is that what I have rambled about in earlier parts of this series isn’t just made up by me; some people get into the industry with a very specific idea they want to do, but that doesn’t always mean that is where they will end up, either through discovering a love for some other disciplines along the way or by pure chance that led their career down a different path. Others may have not had any clear goals in mind, but have found their calling during their careers and worked towards achieving it.?

There is no one true path to get into and then navigate through the games’ industry, and things can and will most likely change over the years, especially with how quickly the industry changes alongside the people in it.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more things like this or even contribute to it yourself, please reach out and let me know! I have a few more on the way, so I'm pretty certain that there is at least going to be a part II with more stories from awesome people at some point in the future, but it would be great to hear from people I don't know personally too, of course, both experienced and newbie!

Thanks again to Zeke, Jonny and Viljar for their contributions, it has been greatly appreciated by me and the readers too, I'm sure.

//Jocke