38 Studios Gives Guidance to Aspiring Game Designers

There are two harsh realities for students who want to go into the video game design, according to Andrew Thompson, the video game developer for 38 Studios who met with students Wednesday afternoon.

The first is that you will have to start at the bottom and work your way up to doing want you want to do. No one starts out designing their own dream game.

“If you do a good job, they’ll bring you on full-time and you’ll work your way up," he told the students.

The second is that there really is nowhere in the industry where you get paid to play video games all day. The closest to that “dream job” is working in quality assurance, where you test games for glitches, bugs and other issues.

“They’re not having fun, they’re trying to break the game,” said Thompson, explaining how the quality assurance testers will repeat an in-game task or work in one small area of the game to make sure there is nothing a user can do to cause the game not to work.

Still, if students are willing to put in the work and get to work at a studio, Thompson said, they’ll get to enjoy a more freespirited office experience than most jobs. He said the game designer’s offices are filled with posters, figurines and other fun collectibles.

“It’s not your typical office environment. It’s a very fun environment and very relaxed,” said Thompson.

Thompson said one of the key qualities someone needs to succeed in the video game industry is a willingness to learn new things and, more importantly, be a self-motivated learner.

“The single, most important thing you need to do is to learn how to teach yourself,” said Thompson. “Everything you learn now will be obsolete in five years or even in six months.”

Game designers are constantly learning new programs, new software and new ways of doing things to keep up with the changing technology.

While most associate the West Coast with technology and video game development, the Northeast is a burgeoning hub for developers. Not only is 38 Studios located in Providence, RI, but Turbine, Inc., makers of The Lord of the Rings Online, is located in Needham, MA, and Harmonix, the developers behind Rock Band, are located in Cambridge, MA.

The strengths of New England colleges and universities are attractive as these firms look to hire recent college graduates for internships and lower-paid entry level positions, and schools like New England Tech are beginning to offer programs specifically in game programming and design.

Thompson also said students have already started on the right track by designing their own games for the and should keep creating them and create their own websites to showcase their work. He said he had actually played a number of the students’ games and he was available to give them feedback.