Area 5’s Jay Frechette and game producer Erin Ali met a few years ago when they were both working their way through game design programs at different schools (Jay at The Art Institute in San Francisco, Erin at The University for Advancing Technology in Phoenix, AZ). In Splash Damage, the duo discuss their experiences — the positive, the negative, the insightful, and the just plain funny — at game design school.
Follow them on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JayFrechette and www.twitter.com/HenleyFenix.
Erin: A big misconception about this industry — and something way too many of my fellow students believed to be true — is that if you make video games, then you must play them constantly.
One word: False.
When I was in college working towards my degree, I probably completed 2-4 games a year. A year! There was always too much to work on. Being at the Art Institute probably had you super busy as well, right Jay?
Jay: I was very busy. I found myself playing games less and less as I went further into the program.
That bothered me at first. I felt that as a person who was hoping to design games, I should know what’s out there and what other games are doing. Then I realized that I had spent over 10 years playing games; college was the time to focus on learning how to make them. Plus, after working with 3D software all day, the last thing I wanted to do was sit on the couch and look at more polygons.
What bothered me is that we had a lot of kids who seemed more interested in continuing to spend all their time playing games in labs and at home than making the most of the program. I would be in a lab trying to work while a bunch of kids spent the whole afternoon playing Unreal. Drove me nuts.
Erin: I know what that’s like. When Halo 2 released, so many people stayed home that it felt like a school holiday. I remember sitting in our Game Design course and, instead of the usual 40+ students in attendance, there were roughly 12-15 people there. Same happened with Burning Crusade — and I can only imagine how the school handled the Wrath of the Lich King launch last year.
I felt the same way as you did: If you were going to spend money on an education to better yourself for the industry, why wouldn’t you make the most of it?
I think those students had a misconception about developing games. Most people assume it’s an easy job. When we as players see the things we dislike about a video game, we don’t see the choices behind them. We don’t know the decisions developers make based on their tech, talent, and more. So we assume it’s easy.
It took learning more about development and working with teams to really understand why game developers make those choices. Had I not taken development seriously and looked at it in a different light, I might have ended up much like those other students.
Jay: A lot of students seemed to think that all they needed to do was come up with good ideas and their amazing game would just come to fruition. And once they did realize how much work and iteration goes into making games, they retreated back to merely playing them. It’s just more fun to play Halo or World of Warcraft instead of tweaking code or lighting to make a scene look just right.
Erin: In the game industry, not only will you iterate constantly on your work, your work will also be criticized. It’s hard, but that’s the industry. Fact is, everyone in this industry wants video games to be good. And to do that, we all need to constantly improve our skills. Students who think that they’re already good at making games or that they don’t need to learn anymore while in school can be crushed by this fact.
Also, avoiding school work to play more video games can definitely hurt them in the long run, from lowering their GPA to hindering the number of industry contacts they make.
Jay: I remember playing Diablo 2 a lot at the beginning of my freshman year. The Lord of Destruction expansion had just come out and I couldn’t put it down. I wasn’t going to club meetings or taking advantage of any of the extracurricular stuff that was available. I also didn’t spend as much time as I should have with class work. I just couldn’t wait to get home after class and spend my evening leveling up my ninja.
My roommate and I were taking a 3D modeling class together at the time, and I remember looking at an assignment he had just finished and feeling crushed when I compared it to my attempt at the same project. Even though we both started the class with no background in the program, he had advanced so much further than me because he was taking an active role in his education while I was grinding away in a dungeon. That was a wake-up call.
Erin: I often noticed students sitting in the same spot day after day, playing a game at school. I’m not sure they even got up to eat. They were a constant reminder for me to keep working.
It might sound like something to be ashamed of, but I’ve finished more games in the past month and a half than I think I did my entire college career.
After your wake-up call, how did you handle playing video games moving forward?
Jay: I made an effort to change my habits. Instead of spending all my time playing and reading about upcoming games, I tried to find more of a balance and direct that energy to other areas that would help me do well in school.
Before I knew it, I was involved in so many extracurricular activities and projects making games that I didn’t even miss playing them. That really reaffirmed to me that I had made the right decision to get into the game industry.