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!!! THIS PAGE IS A COPY OF MY 'PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS' MODULE ESSAY!!!

ALEX JOHANSSON

Alex Johansson is an indie developer who prides himself in his use and creation of alternative game controllers. Alex spoke painfully nonchalantly about the reality (AKA the utter horrors) of indie development, and just how hard it was to be successful in the industry today, via a Microsoft teams call (as per the new norm). My peers seemed absolutely terrified of Alex, and what he had to say, but, to me, it was a welcome breath of fresh air. I think deep down we all already knew how difficult it would be entering the industry; we just weren’t ready to face up to that. We all needed Alex’s virtual slap in the face to get the ball-rolling. Alex tells us via his LinkedIn that he has been making games for the last decade - before I had even left primary education - so I’m going to assume he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the industry, stating that its “constantly changing and radical – but [that there is] stigma around commercial failure”. As with every educator, Alex goes on to tell us that “people won’t notice you’ve failed; people will notice you tried” as “a successful game does not make a successful career”. I could tell this statement was said with utmost sincerity – Alex does not believe he has had a successful career, despite having over 2 million downloads on IOS alone. One of his first-ever games released was his most successful; the rest being deemed ‘commercial failures’ by himself and his peers for not amounting to the same level of success. I’ll admit that this put me down. I was SO proud of the first ‘game’ I ever successfully coded, despite it never being even near viable for the commercial scene – whether that be indie-dev, or something else. Hearing Alex say he thought he had failed, despite making over 50 games and establishing ALJO Games was a bit like a punch to the gut – should I feel as though I failed too? In comparison to the now standard AAA, I can see why Alex thinks he might have failed. I’ll probably feel the same way about that first game I coded if I move upwards in the industry in this area... doubtfully.

As previously stated, Alex seems like the dude to speak to when it comes to the alternative ways in which one can play games - winning the ‘Excellence in Experimental Design’ award at the Busan Indie Connect (BIC) Festival for his game MORSE. MORSE is “a single-player typing game that teaches you the lost language (!!) of morse code” using a telegraphy machine in place of a keyboard. Here, Alex suggests his use of the telegraphy machine was the main grounds for MORSE’s success as supported by various reviews: "The Magic of Morse is in its telegraph controller" Rock Paper Shotgun, "A game you can enjoy with a real Morse telegraph" Inven, "Play a Morse code strategy… with a special controller" IGN Japan. He states that an alternative controller “doesn’t need to be commercially viable if it draws press and professionals in”. This is true for a lot of the games he’s made with alternative controllers, not just MORSE – it simply put him on the map. Alex also tells us that these alternative controllers can be basic; they don’t have to be as extravagant as what he used for MORSE. He spoke about MAKEY MAKEY, “an innovation kit that allows users to turn everyday objects into computer keys” available for as little as £20, and an alternative controller he used for his game NARCISSUS that was, what he classified to be, “a glorified iPad stand [that] went down a storm and won [him] a space at EGX.” (Figures 1 and 2)

Alex’s talk really excited me – I previously assumed that anything ‘alternative’ would have to either be expensive or way too technical for me to understand – so I started looking into ways I could incorporate alternative controllers into my games. One idea I came up with was using AI to register sign language for it to then be translated into text in the hopes of making communication between sign users and non-sign users easier. While I’m not sure this could be considered a game in its own right, I was really interested in developing it further to somehow have more game-like features. I began looking into a software called GESTOOS – a computer system “for detecting and understanding human gestures and movements.” I signed up to their mailing list and requested a demo, but I am yet to hear back from the creators.

The best bit of advice I found Alex gave us was to work with people who don’t know games – not just those who don’t make games, but those who don’t play them, those who don’t follow gaming news, those who have barely any interest in games at all, in any form, and to playtest as though we don’t know what games are. Alex states that these kinds of people – music producers, fine artists, children, and the old – have ideas that are not constrained by their skill levels or what a controller must be. Alex himself spoke of how he worked with a graphic designer on Corporate Salmon who had no previous gaming experience. This led to a lot of whacky ideas Alex would never have thought of because of his own internal biases of what is and isn’t a game, some of which did make it into his final game. I pursued Alex’s advice and grabbed a fine artist who is unfamiliar with the world of games (alongside other game players) to help me playtest an idea for a multiplayer game using what I would consider being a form of alternative play and control – or at least an uncommon one. This idea involved players creating definitions for words that they had created using other words that had been chopped up and rearranged (Figure 3). I had anticipated that my players would split the words where syllables separated, or directly in half as I had been doing. The gamers I used did go down this route, but my fine artist chose a completely different way of playing. They chopped up words completely randomly – sometimes into 3 or 4 separate parts including single letters. This different style of separating and creating words led to an entirely new gameplay style (Figure 3). It was amazing to see and yielded fantastically unique scenarios that I had never thought to account for. While this isn’t an idea I’m going ahead with, the insight I gained from playtesting with a non-gamer was paramount, and a tactic I’m definitely going to be using going forward.

MARK RANDS

Mark Rands is the lab manager of the Barclays Eagles Lab branch based in Southampton that we visited. Eagle Labs are “specially curated spaces designed to aid start-ups and entrepreneurs” to “help their businesses grow and innovate”, and what Mark described to be “the biggest incubator in the UK” despite only being developed 6 years ago. While I was not looking into creating my own company or business at the time, a lot of what Mark said really resonated with me. I tried to take most of it to heart. A lot of people's biggest barriers to starting a business was suggested to be knowing where to start; I had no clue, either. Mark reassured us that some of the best entrepreneurs started without knowing what they were doing – with no money and no plan, just a set goal. It’s a well know tale that Apple was founded in Steve Jobs' garage (despite no actual making being done there); Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, states that this is simply because they “had no money. You have to work out of your home when you have no money”. Apple is now worth over 2 trillion US Dollars, and as of 2013, Jobs’ garage has been listed as a historical site. Mark also states that we need to stay creative; we can’t get bogged down by maths and numbers (something I’ve personally always struggled with). If there’s something you don’t understand when it comes to starting up a business, don’t bother trying to learn it all… these things can be outsourced – “there will always be an accountant looking for a creative”. One must know their strengths and play to them. Not-knowing-what-you’re-doing doesn’t have to be a huge barrier, just as Mark suggests and Jobs perhaps proves.

A suggestion Mark made was to look into mentors, of which he had had 3 at one time for different areas of his professional life… something we clearly shouldn’t be afraid of having multiple of. Mark told us to look for mentors within studios we like, and we know - to not immediately look for jobs, but connections and help. These mentors also don’t necessarily have to be within the gaming industry either: if art is something we want to pursue, find a fine artist; if running a games company is on the table; find a business graduate. A mentor can also be on an informal, perspective-based level – just someone who tells you whether they like where you’re going from an outside view.

One of the main things I have taken away from Mark's talk is to take social media sites, in particular LinkedIn, seriously. Each post made doesn’t have to be something amazing and monumental – be funny, be self-deprecating, post about things you’re actually interested in (not just things that make you look smarter) but interject professionalism too. Mark’s most liked post was a coffee he made after a long day (Figure 4). After liking, commenting, and making posts, our names will eventually be recognisable in the community (a community in which everyone seems to know each other...) On the way back to campus after the talk, I began updating my LinkedIn and Instagram pages to be more relevant and connected with others I was previously too chicken to engage with. As Mark said, “don’t be afraid to be ignored or turned down; you’ll hear ‘no’ a lot more than you’ll hear ‘yes’, but there’s always something to take from this”.

SU CAREERS

Before our talk with SU Careers, I had already attended several recruitment fairs within the university and externally, too – namely the ‘One Southampton Jobs and Wellbeing Fair’ at the O2 Guildhall Southampton, and ‘Skills London’ at the ExCel Exhibition Centre. Networking has never been my strong suit; I think anyone who says it IS a skill of theirs is probably lying, or perhaps they lack the fear centre in their brain. Either way, I attempted to use these recruitment fairs as a sort of networking event, which ultimately failed because of the type of company often present at the fairs. Networking in the hopes of entering the gaming industry when most of the businesses there were law firms, banks, big supermarkets, and charities was not my brightest idea… but I did end up making connections. A lot of the time, the bigger companies had the same recruitment officers at each event who recognised me and spoke to me for periods of time. In a way, this has introduced me to the world of networking – I spoke to the types of people I have previously been too afraid to approach, making meaningful conversations and connections with them. SU Careers opened me up to the world of virtual recruitment fairs. Fairs that are held via zoom, or alternative software, are obviously much more accessible – there’s no travelling involved, one can easily switch between company talks, and often, talks are saved and available after the show. They are usually also focussed on specific industries, so it has been a whole lot easier finding talks for game-makers. One that I attended recently specifically for developers entering the game industry was a ‘Crafted Conversations’ talk by the Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard. Their talk provided us with the tools we would need to create a portfolio specifically for art and animation that would be industry standard and tips to help during the recruitment process.

SU Careers also told us they are available for 5 years after graduation for a manner of things. This REALLY surprised me – I thought that we would be left on our own, in a way. Our advisor spoke a lot about the boom in the videogame industry amongst a wider range of players, too, especially after COVID, and what most companies look for in candidates. She stated that “good companies will invest in you and pay for training in your weaker areas… they look for good attitudes and ethics – something that certainly can’t be paid and trained up.” After this talk, I’ve been logging into our online careers hub to complete ‘work style’ surveys, keeping my account up to date on my personal plans after completing our degree that will be used if we chose to contact the Hub within our 5 years after graduation, and signing up to the majority of their mailing list suggestions that provide weekly updates on the best bits-and-bobs in the world of job-seeking for graduates.

JOEL BEARDSHAW

After working his way up from a junior level designer at Swordfish Studios, Joel Beardshaw has been a lead designer at USTWO Games for the last three and a half years alongside Megan Matthews – a GDA graduate. Joel spoke predominantly about his current project Desta and how he is leading his team, but also on how we can boost ourselves and our portfolios ready for the recruitment process, as previous talks have also done. Joel informed us of their main work style at USTWO – there will be up to 30 people at one time, often working on 2 separate games in various stages of production. These production stages were coined ‘concepts, prototypes, pre-production, production, post-launch’, although I struggled to decern the difference between pre-production and the actual production phase. Something that I really homed in on during Joels talk was the ways in which he ensured everyone in the team had a voice and that their voices were heard, and their ideas accounted for – no matter how junior they were. To do this during the concept and prototyping phases, USTWO use a range of highly informal techniques: digital boards, scales of ‘good to super good’ (to prove that no idea is a bad idea), and crazy 8s. Crazy 8s involves writing 8 things in 8 minutes based on one problem/topic so that a “board looks like a heatmap of excitement and interest”. Joel also states we “don't have to be absolutely amazing and proficient at something to be able to put it on [our] CVs. If [we] can move things around in Unity, and code for movement, [you] can probably say [you] have skills in that area” – brilliant news!

During the pre-production phase of Desta, Joel tells us that each team would have been working on certain aspects of the game at the same time – 3D artists will be busy creating character models, while across the room, level designers are creating white box prototypes. “White boxing is the process of placing primitives to represent the final shape and volume of the level. It's to allow the other developers on your team to prototype without having to wait for the artists to make the actual level content.” For Assemble with care, Joel and the team used Unity’s ProBuilder software to create place holders, and in Desta, they used Unity’s base shapes. As a group, we’ve always been told prototyping can and should be simple, but I never really had the chance to see it in practice for an industry standard game until now. I employed this technique in one of my early game ideas – using the Google Doodle on December 1st for Jerry Lawsons 82nd birthday which allowed users to efficiently create platform games (Figure 5). While my game was never intended to be a platformer, the various assets it provided me were perfect for getting my point across (even if I had to bring it into PowerPoint afterwards to complete the experience).

MATTEO MENAPACE

Matteo is someone we are all familiar with, so it was nice to hear advice from him regarding entering the more physical side to the gaming industry and what it means to be a boardgame maker in today’s tech centred world. Matteo spoke with us mainly about his upcoming game Daybreak – a multiplayer board game that looks at social and political responses to climate change – alongside Matt Leacock, creator of Pandemic, which, as of December 2021, had sold over 5 million copies worldwide. One of the main things I took away from Matteo’s talk was how in-depth he and Matt went during the prototyping and testing phases, and the importance of doing so. He stated that, when creating boardgames, its much smarter to have everything set out for the player in easy-to-understand ways – to not have lore and important elements hidden away from them/behind the scenes – but not to overwhelm players with information either. Matt Leacock called this NOT having a “chocolate dipped in broccoli” game – something that looks good on the surface, but once players are forced to dig deeper, it’s not as good as what it previously appeared to be. He did this in Daybreak by realistically showing the full effects of climate change and its causes, and by looking at the bigger, systemic issue. He spoke to us about how the idea of having a ‘Carbon Footprint’ was coined by an oil company in order to shift the blame onto individuals. He explained this idea in Daybreak, too, to showcase climate change without seeming pretentious, arrogant, or as though he was shoving it down a players throat. Matteo explains that dealing with climate change in this way gave players more autonomy during gameplay and introduced the socio-political aspect of the game. He also spoke enthusiastically about the behind-the-scenes of boardgame production and its real-world impact, as well as the importance of not contradicting oneself when it comes to connecting production and actual gameplay. For example, an early iteration would have needed hundreds of tiny, wooden counters in separate bags. This would have resulted in countless trees being harvested and an increase in carbon emissions – not a great message for a game about climate change – so they opted to use a singular die instead. Just as Joel had done, Matteo also spoke about how paramount it was to share ideas in quick and easy ways i.e., using napkin sketches – helpful for spur of the moment ideas that would otherwise be unrecorded. Matteo’s talk has definitely encouraged me to think more deeply about real-world repercussions when it comes to making games, not just their effect on the climate, but in a socio-political sense, too.

REFERENCES:

MATTEO

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matteomenapace/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leacock/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_(board_game)

https://www.zmangames.com/en/news/2021/12/6/pandemic-over-5-million-copies-sold/

https://www.daybreakgame.org/

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/carbon-footprint-coined-by-big-oil-to-blame-you-for-climate-change

ALEX

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-johansson-3ba29043/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1976860/MORSE/

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/corporate-salmon/id1235847306