âI feel like Iâm on Jonathan Rossâ, my first-year Games Design student interviewee quips as I direct him where to sit.
Rather than a fancy expensive set however, both he, Aaron Ryan, and the 2nd-year Games Development student Iâm interviewing alongside him, Andrew Gill, sit in a small student house living room, on an also small sofa. I sit on another one, looking to build a profile on âthe games student of todayâ, and to get some fresh perspectives on topical gaming issues from people yet to be crushed by the monotonous wheel of work.
The gaming industry both are working towards being a part of, has been ever-evolving right from the start, since the days of the early arcades and the Brown Box, to the reign of Nintendo and Sega, to the debut of the PlayStation and the Xbox, right up to 2017 with the launch of the Switch. Throughout weâve seen the jumps from black and white graphics, to the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, to our first 3D castles and tombs, and so much more. What other form of entertainment can claim to have evolved so much in so little time?
âI think the first game I ever remember was watching my brother play Spyro: Year of the Dragon on PlayStation Oneâ, Andrew tells me.
For Aaron, it was the original Tomb Raider, which he came across after his Dad, âbought a PlayStation with a load of games off one of his friendsâ.
Both stories started them on a path thatâs led them here, not just sitting on a semi-comfy sofa in a house with overpriced rent and substandard Wi-Fi, but learning how to be a part of industry theyâve been fans of for almost all their lives.
Only in the last couple of years has this industry seen the rise of Virtual Reality gaming with headsets like the Oculus Rift and the Vive (no, the Virtual Boy doesnât count). Plus, indie gaming has exploded in the last decade with platforms like Steam, the increased inclusion of indies by major publishers, and with the ever-continuing rise of the internet. Today, thereâs more ways than ever to play, and more games than ever to experience.
âTomb Raider, Life is Strange, Heroes of the Stormâ, Aaron lists as his favourite games. â[Tomb Raider] because Iâve grown up with it. Life is Strange because itâs very different. Heroes of the Storm because everyone loves a good MOBAâ.
Andrew is less sure. âFavourite game is difficult. It changes often. Um…ones that have good customisation elements. A lot of RPGs I enjoy. [Iâve taken a] recent liking to MMOs, recently got into World of Warcraft for a bit but I had to come off that because it was very addictiveâ.
Games like Tomb Raider and World of Warcraft donât just come out of thin air. Whatâs sometimes forgotten in the comments sections of the Web is that the hearts and minds of individuals were behind all of your favourite games and consoles. Pioneers like Shigeru Miyamoto and John Carmack, and the millions of other artists, animators, designers, programmers, and writers (amongst other professions), that arenât as well known, but still played a major part in bringing those experiences to life.
Future experiences still will be brought to life by the next generation of game creators, many of whom, like Aaron and Andrew, are learning their craft in University games courses around the UK, such as those at Teesside. Teesside has been rated one of the best Universities in the UK for games design, and itâs not hard to see how dedicated it is to the industry, with their campus hosting Teessideâs own annual games and animation convention: Animex.
On what’s most challenging about his course, Andrew finds, “On the solo courses itâs very difficult to sometimes figure out the software. This year we started on Unreal and I had to learn it from the ground up since Iâd only ever used GameMaker before that. But I got to grips with it pretty quickly.”
Aaron meanwhile, struggles with, â3D Animation because I canât do it, I canât get the hang of it, but itâs a part of my module that I have to pass, so I have to keep practising. I prefer that [the course] is practical rather than more written work…I prefer the Prototyping module the best, because even though it gets boring itâs fun to find out how to make things work in a game, and how things break games. Itâs like behind the game”.
Like any other, the gaming industry has its fair share of controversy. Some of todayâs issues focus on how games are delivered, some amongst a platter of microtransactions and pre-order bonuses, and others with DLC plans stretching far into the future. The average consumer undoubtedly will have differing opinions on such topics compared to industry professionals, whom are often the much less heard party.
Games students lie somewhere between these two cohorts, knowing and learning more about the industry than your average Joe, while also not fully immersed in it. Thereâs potential for some unique perspectives from them, on issues topical in the industry right now, and on some more general gaming conversations. While a far more pressing issue to them is likely whether theyâll be able to finish their assessment due for next week, some of these topics are ones they may find themselves wrapped up in when theyâre in the industry full-time. Why not rack their brains a bit early?
âMicrotransac-â, Aaron stumbles over his wording briefly. âThat word is amazing. Theyâre good, I love themâŠYou canât just get a free game and expect the developers to be paid, they have to make their money somehowâ.
âIâm opposed to it when it provides an unfair advantage when you pay. I donât mind it as long as it doesnât inhibit someone that isnât paying, itâs only like [cosmetic]â, Andrew adds. âSometimes you do just wanna pay to get the better thing, so you can have an advantage, but it really hurts the community likeâŠI think it was World of Tanks you could pay, and you could get like Gold ammo or somethingâŠand it broke the community because everyone disliked itâ.
Microtransactions arenât the only thing causing mass grief in gaming right now. With the closure of Visceral and the âre-focusingâ of their Star Wars title came a wave of panic surrounding whether single-player, story-focused titles have had their last hurrah.
âSingle-player games wonât go awayâŠa lot of single-player games have a rich story and I donât think they can take them away because a lot of people like themâ, Aaron points out. Heâs unconcerned then.
Other issues in the industry concern the people who work in it. Female representation and sexism in the games industry, largely male-dominated, is frequently a point of controversy in games and games media, when it comes to those who work in games (e.g. the Gamergate scandal), or just the games themselves (with organisations like Feminist Frequency looking to bring change).
âI think that [more female representation is] whatâs starting to happen now, thereâs a lot more females coming upâ, says Aaron. âIf you go to a games lecture [for Games Design at Teesside], half the room is femaleâŠitâs pretty mixed now. I think thereâs probably more girls than guysâ. Little surprise then that according to a 2016 report from Gametrack, 43% of UK gamers are female. What was once thought as a hobby for teenage boys, has evolved.
Thereâs no doubt the industry has evolved in other ways too, like with the general stigma that has surrounded the hobby since its inception. âItâs always like, if someone asks, âWhat do you do in your free time?â, âI play gamesâ, thereâs a negative stigma about it, they think that you just play games in your free timeâ, Andrew notes. âBut from my point of view Iâm confused as to what people do if they donât play games in their free timeâ. Well, according to Nielsen, more people than ever are playing games, making anti-game stigma increasingly hard to hear.
To conclude, I asked both Aaron and Andrew what scared them the most about working in the industry full-time, and what excited them most.
â[I’m scared of] f**king upâ, Aaron shares, with brutal honesty. âDoing something wrong and not being able to get it sorted out in time âcause youâre gonna have a lot of deadlinesâ.
A curse of the games industryâs continued success plagues Andrewâs mind meanwhile. âFinding a company [to work with]. Thereâs a lot of companies to choose from, being able to find one and stick with thatâŠIâll probably be pretty flexibleâŠapparently thereâs quite a few in Teesside, but itâs just that trying to find where to goâ.
On the other hand, he looks forward to, âBeing able to focus on one task for like-long-term projects. Like working on a game as a long-term project rather than short-term modulesâ.
âSo just doing what youâre doing now, but more?â I ask, to which I get a confident, âYeaâ.
Aaron, somewhat hesitantly, exclaims, â[I’m looking forward to] the money? Is that a good answer?â.
This article was originally published on November 3rd 2017, on the author’s blog. You can read more articles like this there: http://virtualdistraction17.blogspot.com/
Third Year Journalism student, and TUXtra Online Editor.
I particularly enjoy writing about video games, and in the future, I’d like to do so for a site like IGN or Gamespot. For now, I do it (sometimes) at virtualdistraction17.blogspot.com.
