Build Your Career in Games Like It's an RPG

Welcome everyone to Game Developers Conference 2022. Great to be together virtually. This panel is build your career in games like it's an RPG. Um, a lot of people think about their careers in a linear way. You start out as an artist and you retire as an art director. But for some of us, the path is a little more jagged and a little bit weird. We're going to talk today a bit about how to take the road less traveled and meander on to new areas of the map and take a side quest or two. So first let's introduce the panelists. So I'm Gordon Bellamy, um, full professor USC Games and CEO of Gay Gaming Professionals and in some direction, hey, Anne, who are you? Hi, I'm Angi Bulo. I'm product head and creative director right now at Phoenix Labs Montreal. Uh, I started in the industry around 20

years ago as a 3D animator and I went through lots of different careers and paths to get to a to being a creative director right now. Welcome, Anne. How about you, Connie? Yes, I'm Connie Griffith and I am content lead on State of Decay 3 over at Undead Labs and uh, yeah, I've been in the industry, this is going on my 19th year and um, I got my start as a QA tester on World of Warcraft the first time it launched and uh, I've done a lot of things, but I have ended up as a designer um, focusing on storytelling experiences, but um, in my as I'm sure we'll explore in the panel, I've been a producer, I've been a game writer, I've done business development and so uh, I'm happy to be here and share my experiences with everyone. Welcome, Connie. And hello, Brian. Hey, thanks for having me. Um,

yeah, I'm Brian Corrigan. I'm the head of Americas for Krafton, uh, PUBG. Probably most people know it better by PUBG. Um, I do a little bit of uh, work with Convoy Ventures, which is a venture capital company, so investing and advising. Um, I got my career started out a long time ago working on Guitar Hero 3 networking services actually as an engineer and uh, kind of just like Anne said, weave my way through a weird path to to get where I'm today. And last and most special thanks to you, Jing, for bringing us together first and foremost this wouldn't be possible as a conversation, but also please introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Jing. Um, most recently I was a general manager at Phoenix Labs heading up their LA and Bay Area studios. That was a very strategy and operations focused role, but I actually got my start in games uh, in branding and marketing first working with Nintendo and then at Riot Games. And then during my time at Riot, I started to look for ways to expand my skills further and took the opportunity

to join the merchandising team uh, which was forming up at the time. So through that experience got like a tour through everything from apparel development to web platform to global panel uh, global channel management um, e-commerce events, player support, all of that. And then after that I went on a an adventure to with a couple of engineering friends where we started an educational game startup and then a little ways down the road uh, Phoenix Labs acquired our studio and then I worked on special projects um, before taking on the GM role. So I've gotten I kind of wanted to experience a lot of interesting stuff on the business and product side of games and right now I'm focusing on some personal projects that let me delve into the art, design and engineering aspects uh, of games and technology and I've loved having a multi-class career. It's been such a continuous journey of learning and growing and I'm so excited to speak all of you today.

Wow, um, I just as I think about it, wow, it's like over a hundred years of experience, all these max level characters, but that's not where this RPG began. Right? So just taking your metaphor uh, back a bit, we understand where you're at, but let's talk about how you began. Let's let's visualize your character sheet as it were. Let's talk a little bit about that and and maybe go into like an origin story. So like, Connie, take us in. Where were you 10 years ago? Like where were you thinking about? What did you dream of? Paint us all a picture. Oh, wow. Okay, 10 years ago was actually like the midpoint, so not quite a origin story, but I would say baby Connie did not know what baby Connie wanted, which I don't think is uh, that unusual for a lot of folks. Um, that was the first time that I hit reset on my career. Um, I was having a bit of a quarter-life crisis. Um, I previously done sort of like business

development, I was an executive assistant, I was doing production. I'd only worked for one studio at that time, which was Blizzard and um, I just came to this realization that even though I was working for my dream company and you know, people were telling me, oh, you're doing a great job, you're awesome. I realized I really I really wasn't very happy. In fact, I was very unhappy and that was a very hard thing for me to sort of struggle with because you know, when you're successful and you're climbing your career ladder and you're going, no, no, this is where I belong and I think I originally just had a hard time where I never even saw myself in games. I loved video games. Um, I just didn't know I wasn't a programmer, I wasn't an artist, right? Um, I was like, what exactly could I do? And so that's kind of kind of why I fell into sort of production cuz I was like, oh, that I can do. I'm good with people, right? People like me. I I can do this job. I can contribute. But I think that was the source of my unhappiness which I

didn't sort of internalize until later was that I actually was creative, that I actually wanted to go and make games of my own. I didn't want to just run meetings and take notes and help people organize their work um, and and schedule stuff. I still it's funny because I've gone full circle where I do a lot of the facilitation work that I did 10 years ago. Um, but it's but it's different, right? And and I think 10 years ago is when I basically decided to leave Blizzard. I'd been there for eight years and I started over as a game writer um, and that that's kind of my origin story on my path to pursuing being on the other side of the fence for game development. That's fantastic. I think um, along this path we've all found that moment of where it's time to start being the game industry versus exploring the opportunity that was given to us. Maybe, Jing, could you talk about a point when

you knew you wanted to make a major change? It was sort of born out of out of you, not just the opportunities provided to you. Yeah, absolutely. So um, about seven, eight years into uh, so I started off in marketing branding, right? And so I kind of had experienced a lot in that realm and I'd been about seven or eight years into my career there and I remember having a conversation with one of my mentors at the time and he asked me uh, the typical question of, hey, where do you see yourself in five, 10 years? Like what what do you see yourself doing? And I realized at that moment a couple things. One, that I didn't see myself continuing to do marketing and branding as kind of my day-to-day everyday focus. And then the second was that I couldn't exactly put words to an exact title or role. Instead um, I just as I thought about it

all I really wanted was to make sure that whatever was ahead of me in the future, I felt like I had a high degree of confidence that I would be an asset to my team, that I'd be able to tackle any kind of problem, learn anything learn any role that I wanted to learn and this desire to be endlessly useful and I wanted to be this kind of Swiss army knife of different skills um, and be of course very proud of the things that I've worked on and proud of the effect that I have on the team around me. And so the moment that I realized that I just didn't have like a particular thing or role in mind and instead wanted to build this multi-faceted skill set, it really opened up the way I thought about what do I want to do next and it became less like I I felt myself getting off of like the the career ladder and instead looking across the different kind of

branches of skill trees that I could be developing in and looking at where do I want to double down on existing strengths? Where do I want to shore up weaknesses? And you know, kind of pointing back to what Connie was saying like there were also some strength areas that just because I was good at those things didn't mean that I needed to continue to do that job if it was not going to be a thing that was going to be fulfilling for me in the long term. And so yeah, that I think that moment and that deep introspection um, about seven, eight years into my career was what set everything else into motion. That's so interesting. I I um, I play a lot of Age of Empires, so I think a lot about pathfinding. But also what you brought up which is skill tree. Right? Skill trees that do like wondrous moments in your career and the the steps you take when you have choices to do so. Let's bring you into the conversation, Brian. Like did you always know that you wanted to run a studio, or where did you make compromises to get there? Like in your

skill tree, in your in your pathfinding or in your skill tree to get to run a studio? Yeah, I love that idea you're you're talking about with skill trees because, you know, I feel like like you kind of always have to know your character sheet at any time. Um Uh and I think like sometimes people are are not honest about about that, you know, you kind of have this idea of who you are, but only you can't always get it by looking in the mirror, right? You have to have friends who you can talk to and who you can kind of be honest about to like tell you uh you know, maybe what you're good at and what you're missing. And for me um you know, I for me it was always about the entrepreneurship side. I always knew I wanted to uh like be an entrepreneur. My dad was an entrepreneur, my grandfather was an entrepreneur. I just had it in me as a kid. Um and I went to school for computer engineering, got out of school and got a job at a casino company. I don't know anything about gambling, don't like gambling, uh don't know anything about it at all. Um but I knew eventually, you know, at some point in my life like I

kind of wanted to run my own company, so I was looking at my skill sheet and saying like what you know, what could I bring? Maybe I'm a half-decent programmer. Um you know, first thing is kind of like learn, you know, learn to be a manager or leader. So, I spent some time with that and I knew that was a deficit for me, so early on that's what I tried to learn a little bit and like find good people to look up to. Um and you know, as you get older, you just kind of find like, well, you know, these things that you're spending your time thinking about all of a sudden are these things that you kind of end up doing. Um and I think like if you know, eventually it it kind of got to be that point where it was like well, if I'm going to do this, there's no better time, you know, we were thinking about having kids and and that sort of thing. Um and you know, so the folks on the call know, but I live in Upstate New York, which is not exactly known to be like the Mecca of of game development that like, you know, LA or Seattle or um Austin or Montreal for sure with Anne for sure Montreal, right? Um so, you know, for me it was like, well, if I want to get into the industry and I want to kind of be an

entrepreneur, you know, the idea of like going out and starting your own game studio and making games, it just really wouldn't happen. I mean, the funding wasn't there, I didn't have the experience, so um I tried to leverage the skill that I thought I had, which was, you know, this um you know, knowledge of like back-end and kind of big data systems like cloud. This was brand new. Um and so I kind of started a contract studio around bringing games kind of like into the cloud and online and this was the same time that the Xbox was kind of like just coming online. And I was lucky enough to have one of the first games I worked on be Guitar Hero with with the local studio, the only local studio here called Vicarious Visions, they're amazing. Uh and I don't know why they trusted us, they they shouldn't, but we worked really hard and I think we did a good job. And yeah, kind of leveraged that later into into a few more steps, but eventually I did get to where I wanted, which was which was to run my own studio. So, I kind of always had the dream of being an entrepreneur, but you know, it's a it's it's tough to sometimes see that

far ahead knowing how much you have to do. Um but you know, I I did my best and I did make it, so. That's so cool, Brian. I mean, so Brian, you just spoke very powerfully to like the your internal sense, your internal truth, right? What you put before, but also listening to the world around you to recognize what might be special in relationship to others. Let's bring Anne into the conversation. Anne, cuz I've known you for a lifetime, right? Through a number of through a number of roles and evolutions. However, there is a truth or dare I say it, Transformer spark inside of you. When did you like discover, you know, like the truth like that you were going to be in games and this is what you want to bring to the table? Would that be sort of in your heart, like just in your bones like Brian spoke of, or in your relationship with others? Like your spark that would be true no matter what the role is going forward. I like humans. I always like human interactions

and building something together as a team is always the most important thing. Whatever the role, whatever the position, whatever the project, it's the people you work it at the end that is important. So, the path I had I worked for like over 11 years at Ubisoft Montreal, which is a a very big studio. There's always at least 17 projects going on at the same time. So, the opportunities of doing whatever is there if you have certain skills. Of course, I couldn't claim myself being I want to be a programmer tomorrow, so I I don't have those skills. But in terms of management and you know, like video game development for me is a second career. I went back to school at 30, so if you excuse my age, I'm over 50 now. It's a second career, so before that I managed people, I discovered a lot of things, I worked in music stores and I worked in in survey on the phone and I I did tons of crappy jobs before

this. So, for me game dev, whatever the role, it's like wow, okay, I'm ready to go to Mars or wherever you're going to send me. I'm just happy to be there surrounded by wonderful people working on games, you know? So, for me at the start being a 3D animator, it was the craft itself that I really really enjoyed. I really loved the craft of of animating in 3D. But very rapidly, like the second project, people at Ubisoft Montreal said, you know what? We think you're ready to be a manager about a team of animation. I said, well, okay, I'm going to try it out. So, I kind of stopped animating after only like 2 years. It's this little like sad thing about dropping the the animation, but I discovered so many much more things. And I do I did discover along the way that okay, people are important. Like this is key. It's still true today.

But what do I bring over being able to work with people and being good to work with people? What can I bring to the to the table right now and I want to work on product and I want to I want to invest myself in doing amazing games. So, like I I the question you asked to Jing like, what made it change like 10 years ago? For me at 10 years ago, it's when I took the decision. I actually stopped working in the games industry for about 6 months. I wanted to write a novel, a sci-fi novel and I just stopped working for 6 months. I created this universe, the contacts, the characters about that novel and started talking about it to some friends that most of them are working in the game industry. So, they were telling me, ah, forget about the novel, just do a game about it. We're in if you start your own company, I'm in. And it's like this a year after that we started our own studio and from there it it's I'm I'm way more into gaming than I was like

10 years ago. Wow, that's the spark. If you're not if you're not getting it, you're getting it now. The spark, right? I ask great questions. I want to bring it back to you, Kahlil. You sort of take us down this path as RPG. I want people have specificity, right? So, I want you to take us to the moment, okay? Like what for you was the critical point, okay? When you really were what you wanted changed. Like take us in the detail. We know that you moved, but what was the moment where you're like, this is the change, it's happening going forward. Oh, man. Okay. Uh oof. So, um there is so much in that question and I'm going to try hard not to like tear up on camera because this is a a deeply emotional question for me. Um I think

it's for everyone because we all know being in games is very hard, right? This industry is not always kind to everyone and um uh I mean, okay, so first and foremost, I have I got into this industry because of the people and I stayed here because of the people and I continue to be here because I just love the people in games. I love the people I work with. I love the people that I get to meet. Um and it's just when you when you meet other folks that love to play and make games, there's just this instant connection about problem-solving and creativity and so that is a huge spark for me. Um I've actually tried to leave games at least twice and it's not been entirely successful, but this is sort of a personal story where um so, I lost my first husband to cancer and uh at one point when he was still

fighting his cancer, um we we were we had to fly to Germany to get treatment. It was it's a procedure that's not approved here in the United States. It's like laser resection. There's one hospital in rural Germany, right? Um where they do this and we're sitting there. It's a tiny hospital in the middle of like these woods and um there was a teenage boy from Finland sitting next to us and my husband who was an artist um he was a artist at Blizzard and so he was just sketching different things and this kid looks over and both him and his parents, you know, their English was was was okay, right? And they just go over and this kid, his eyes just light up, right? And him and my husband had the same rare cancer. They bonded, my husband drew things for him and I think that was the moment where I was like, we do more than make games. Absolutely. Yeah. We we we

Sorry. We connect people. We give We give people a shared thing to love. There you go. Well, that's Well, um wow. Thank you Thank you for trusting and sharing with us, Connie. Um that's awesome and meaningful. Thank you. Um I want to I want to also return to what Anne to what you were saying. Because you were sort of alluding to a moment for you. It It felt like when your community rallied around you and said, Anne, we are down, you know, to work with you. That that sort of propelled you forward into the next phase of your career. So, maybe talk about that group, your party, right? That group that you were running those dungeons with who were like who showed up, right? As they could to to be with you. Um Yeah. Talk about that experience when

they came together and then you turned that into professional action. Uh actually, I think that the people I talked to about this project kind of had this similar path and a similar delusion, maybe, about the industry and and working in a big big huge structure to make games. Like when you're like 500, like my artistic director My It's not mine, but the artistic director at Epsilon Games, Nancy, was a great uh character modeler. Uh she was a lead uh character modeler at that time at at Ubisoft, but she was working mainly on Excel sheets, managing the team, making the 3D models. And after a few years, it was that kind of decision that everybody had to make. Like, I'm good at what I'm doing, at the craft. And now I'm becoming only a manager. Is that really what I want to do? Some people, yes, and it's okay to be a

manager. I was a manager for 15 years in the games industry. So, it it it's totally okay. It's not a judgment, but it's just it's just a personal decision at one point saying like, okay, I I I started as a craftswoman or a craftsman. And now what do I do? Do I manage people? Do I become a better HR person because a manager involves a lot managing people, not only tasks and projects. So, it's it's it's a question of, you know, of decision and where you want to go and do I still want to continue on that path for like the next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? So, the people I was talking to were like all over 35 and were in the industry for about 15 years. And the idea of, let's make a game together. We're going to be maximum 10 because we don't have any resources, so we're going to be poor. Are you okay about being poor for the next like 3 years and make the game that we want to make and have

fun at least? And they gave it a shot. And I'm I'm I'm so humbled about that because it it it was a bumpy road. It was not all you know, like it very uh happy people every day, that's for sure. The stress level of having to pay for your mortgage and everything and the not money coming in and you know, all those things. It's kind of the stress was intense, but I would never uh go back and and not redo it. I would redo it like in a heartbeat because this experience actually today, if I'm in this position at Phoenix Lab, it's because I did that. And I do understand what it is to start a studio and to have people and to inspire people and and and going on board and will it's going to work and you're we're going to do it together and we're doing it together. So, for me, this experience is like it's key and and I'm I'm again, I'm really I'm really touched that my associates and the

employees that we had all decided to jump at the same time. We were in the same position, actually, in the same mind space and and they all said and now nobody is working like as a freelancer or they own a studio. We're all back in the in in bigger structure, but what we learned in those years that we went together, it's enormous and nobody regrets and we were all in the same head space at that time saying like, let's try it. We won't try it when we're like 65. 35, 40, it's the Let's do it right now. And just the last thing, I give classes to um university in Montreal, design and animation university, and I tell the students is like, if ever you're feeling a little entrepreneur and you really want to start a game, if you're living at your parents' house house, now is the time. You don't have kids, you don't have anything to pay. Do it. Do it now. Take 2 3 years. Do the game you want to do. It's It's the good

timing. Wow, um Anne, I'm just going to already invite you now because we have a new fine arts program in games at USC. And you're my first invitee, but that's not what we're talking about today. I want to to You were born in this cauldron of development, this hub, in Montreal. Thousands of people making games together. Brian, you were in the heartland of America, okay? In upstate New York. Probably, you know, not a stone's throw from your next developer. How did you find your guild, right? In a very very different setting than where Anne. Yeah, it was really tough. Um I you know, and especially early, it's not like, you know, we're all playing, you know, multiplayer games together. I mean, I guess we were actually to some degree. Um just just older games. Um But uh you know, it's like

I always kind of picture that like little scene from Zelda where it says, "It's dangerous to go it alone." Like you have to have this team. And I think um for me anyway, like slowly kind of over the years, you know, you you meet like-minded people. Um and you know, these days uh you know, I play games with a lot of people online uh that I've just been friends with over the years. Um And you know, I think I think we kind of have this like built-in advantage because like we make things that we love and we love them forever. I mean, you know, something you work on, it's your art. And you know, you kind of want to play it forever. So, you know, Jing and I were talking the other day and I was saying that, you know, I still play games with some of the folks that I used to work with uh at Riot when when her and I first met um because League of Legends is an amazing game and I absolutely love it and we had a lot of fun and it's just like a great way to stay connected. Um but I think yeah, you do kind of collect you know, these folks over the years. And this is another great thing about the gaming industry is once once you kind of like claw your way in a little bit, which I understand sometimes people think it's a little bit hard uh to kind of claw your way in. But once

you're in, it's actually really welcoming. I would I would say like it's just in general it to me anyway, it's always been a really supporting community. So, you know, even those uh folks that I met all those years ago, uh 2005, 6, or whatever it was like Guitar Hero, you know, I still talk with a lot of them. And And like you said, the area is small. I actually still work with a few of them. So, you know, it's it's been that uh all these years. And you know, um earlier you were asking about kind of like route planning and like how people figure out where they want to go. So, like I'm the guy when I play an open world game who gets just com- completely distracted running through the woods, you know, like I I'll never get there because I just I love just going off and exploring. But I think like what makes that fun is, you know, when you're doing it with with other people, right? And then it's really fun. And all those little things just become, you know, fun moments that you're kind of like hanging out together. Um but you know, like more specifically, I think just to give give people some good like specific action items or whatever on this one.

Um there are there are a lot of like gaming slacks, gaming Discords uh of game developers and you know, people in the game industry. And you know, there's a bunch I kind of have joined and left um a bunch over the years, but you know, there's a couple that I'm in right now uh that are are sort of people that are, you know, in in similar similar and really different types of jobs around the industry and around the world. And that that's been really great. Um you know, just being in there, listening to what people are kind of thinking about and working on and you know, watching people talk about news. Um I think you just get more from like a Discord or a Slack than you really do on on Twitter because you don't have that, you know, built-in like megaphone effect that you get on Twitter where everyone's just kind of shouting. So, um you know, like specifically uh you know, some of the the Discords and Slacks I'm in have been, you know, absolutely uh incredible. And when I meet people, um you know, I I just met Connie for the first time last week, but I asked her the same thing, you know, what Where Where do you hang out? You know, when you're online and you're locked in your house,

um you're in your work Slack, you know, do you do you have anything else? And so, we were sort of trading links for stuff like that, but um I definitely would recommend that everybody, you know, find something, whether it's the IGDA, you know, local IGDA group, or colleges have groups. Uh somehow I sneak secretly snuck into the Stanford Games mailing list. I didn't go to Stanford, just to be clear. Uh somehow I snuck on it. So, if anyone's watching, please don't kick me off. But um you know, there's things like that I think that are really good. And definitely recommend everybody uh find a couple of these things and just just kind of join up and try to contribute a little bit. Awesome. It's funny. You you remind me of um Elder Scrolls. I just remember turning it on and just running off into the woods. I didn't know there was a whole game. I just heard you got to play Elder Scrolls. And I just ran off into the woods and never began the original quest for like 2 days because I didn't know 80 hours still with that game. Everyone's talking about this game like what? Are you sure that game is the wiz? But if but I digress before I dig us too far down the side quest of my own. I mean, we're here on this quest because

of Jing. Jing, you brought us together. Right? You will assemble us at this this moment, you know, in your career. Could you maybe just frame how you view networking, trust building paint us a picture. Yeah, absolutely. I actually I kind of have a little bit of an allergic reaction to the word networking because I think that there are so many um more unsavory connotations cuz there's something transactional about the concept of networking. Um but I do think a lot about building relationships, building really authentic connections with folks and how important that is both in our industry as a whole because the games industry is very connected. It's very it can be very welcoming, very supportive. But also if you especially if you're building a an atypical career, one that doesn't look kind of like others that have

already been established. Um having a strong support group of your your guild like you put it earlier, Gordon. Like having your guilds and having those relationships be ones that you have you know, contributed to, grown, cultivated, like really really grown over the years helps be able helps you be able to actually navigate through having a more of a multi-class career because um so much of of being able to move from one role to the other at least from my experience has been uh working from a already established trust with folks. So in the last, you know, whether it was shifting entire disciplines and teams in my time at Riot or starting uh my startup or um uh ending up at Phoenix Labs or even the things I was doing within Phoenix Labs, a lot of those would have been

infinitely harder or not even possible in the first place if I didn't already have established trust with some of the the key folks along the way. And so, you know, I had um I'll I'll give you the example of with my um my co-founders, my two co-founders uh for Bot School, the the three of us had not actually worked directly together with one another until we started our entrepreneurial journey. But we had had years of um friendship that had built up through a combination of just kind of being there for each other, you know, one of uh our CEO at the time, Chris Cobb, he was a one of the engineering leads on a team in League of Legends and I've worked with his team a couple times to help them be able to better tell the story of what what Riot and League was trying to do around player behavior. And through that we just kind of kept in touch and, you know, were a sounding

board for one another and because of that relationship that had built up over the course of years, when time came to want to go on a founding journey, there was already like we had had all those years of established relationships to be able to go back to and understanding how we worked and how we could be helping with each other on this journey. Uh and then when I looked at, you know, putting together this panel, um in in recent years I've had, you know, I do some mentorship and talk with both folks that are in the games industry and outside of it and I've had a lot of folks, you know, reach out when they see kind of the the weird career that I've had and want to know more about what it takes to multi-class and um and the question had come up enough times in the last few years that when time came around for for GDC this year, I thought, hey, maybe it would be it would be good to do a talk around this. Um and uh and you know, in bringing together the

panel, I looked at the really interesting multi-faceted folks that I had encountered in my time in games, which is all of you, and thought about who else have I encountered along the way that I think would have a really interesting perspective, who've had these really fascinating journeys and have navigated their way through so many different kinds of circumstances, teams, and worked on a variety of different types of games, teams, companies, um and you know, I I I was really happy that we were able to bring everyone together. So, yeah, I think I think, you know, like Brian was saying earlier, like when you when you spend time with folks as you encounter them, having those moments of really authentic connection and continuing to like take that seed and and cultivate it by uh just kind of caring about what other folks are working on, wanting to support each other. I think when you have that kind of two-way relationship that

happens again authentically, oh you know, over the course of weeks and months and years, um it just it makes everything so much brighter and better. No, for sure. Um uh thank you for for putting a framework to this. And as like as I sort of think about what you were saying about authenticity and I I think about Anne assembling like these warriors of development in Montreal and Brian talking about the magic of play together, I think about you, Connie. Tell you why. Cuz you're like a paladin. Okay? Because you bring together both the magic of rich game experiences, but also you're deep in the Seattle community. This community of all these studios where everyone's working and spinning off of like, you know, Microsoft and Bungie and all these studios. But you have to to do it all. And especially now in these times, right? Where we've been displaced a little bit, right? You have to maybe lean a little more into the magic

sometimes than into the physical proximity and things we share, you know, as studio experiences. Could you maybe talk about that, Connie? Like the the life of a paladin. Yeah, I'm happy to. Um So, you know, I actually moved to Seattle in late 2015, 2016 and I actually didn't really know anybody up here. I'd come This is my first attempt to leave games. I'd gone to work for like a publisher at some startup and it ended the way most, you know, startups end. Um but to really build on what Jing was saying is I really think that you know, if you're like baby Connie and don't really know what you want to do and you just know that you love games, you want to be part of that magic, right? And you're not quite sure what to do. I think the most important thing is to you know, build authentic relationships, be sincere, right? You you you get to enjoy the flowers in the garden that you

grow and how your garden grows is what do you nurture, right? And I think I went from really not knowing anyone other than like one or two like personal friends up here in Seattle to having a really wonderful network of like professional friends who are also now personal friends, right? And um I think being willing to ask for help, being willing to put yourself out there, um in Seattle I can't tell you how many people that I just ended up becoming good friends with cuz I was like, "Hey, right? Do you want to grab coffee sometime?" Or "Hey, I would really like to chat with you sometime about, you know, some work thing, right? I'm just curious about your thoughts, right?" And I think that's hard there Seattle has a bad rap, you know, the Seattle freeze where people are like cold and, you know, talk a lot about wanting to hang out, but no one ever actually shows up, right? But even though that's a little bit true, sorry Seattle, um I also think that if you really want to put yourself out

there, you need to also be willing to just be resilient, right? I can't tell you how many number of times, right? Like the connections that I built, where did they start? They just started from me asking someone that. And not everybody said yes, not everybody was friendly and welcoming, right? A lot of times, in fact, I would say the majority of times it's not personal. People are busy, people have things that are going on, right? It's not the right time for you two to connect. But um I think having intentionality, having sincerity, wanting to build those authentic relationships and reach out and not being too hard on other people or yourself if somebody, you know, says no or is not there or is not interested in talking, it opens up so many opportunities to like learn, to make new friends, and you know, I really view it's a side benefit where it's like, "Oh, and also we happen to be in the same industry and now I have people I can call if I have questions about things." Or um as is often the case, especially once you get to the

leadership level, right? Having people you can turn to and just go, "Look, I have a really challenging problem and I don't know what the right way forward is and I don't even know that there's a right answer, but I would appreciate um what people's thoughts are." And that's vulnerability. That's opening yourself up, right? That's talking about your mistakes, it's talking about that's saying, "I don't know. I'm in charge and I should know and I don't know." And um you know, it's been true both for rebuilding, right? My professional network in Seattle and I think it's true throughout my career, which is you know, come up and just ask. The worst things The worst thing that someone can say is no. So interesting. I think So, in our careers, um, there've been at least Well, I'd I'd say a third revolution. So, for me, um, the first revolution was online play. Okay, the ability to play from my home and connect with friends, colleagues, so on and so forth from my computer.

Um, the second one was mobile play. And by that I meant that that play could be with me 24/7. Wherever I was, I could be farming or doing or playing, connecting, chatting, so on and so forth. I'd offer that we're in the midst of a third revolution, okay? And that third revolution is around video streaming. And by that I mean that personally, professionally, in both commerce and interaction, video streaming is something now that everyone has been a part of. And so, I'd want to talk to you, Jing. I want to talk to you, Brian, cuz you just two different perspectives. Jing, I want to talk about like how, um, in this age of remote, like what sort of new strategies have been helpful to you to think about navigating professionally? And then, Brian, you know, I queue you up here. I want to talk about it as a profession, like in this craft, like how has it changed your

ability to be a part of games that video streaming has become a thing. So, let me start with you, Jing. So, I think the remote world that we've been in for the last couple of years has come with a lot of It's like interesting tradeoffs. I I think, um, in general, we think about continuing to forge connections and building those authentic relationships and like building that sense of community, in some facets it's gotten harder because, you know, uh, you're not able to spend in-person time. You get kind of like less ambient connection and and magic that happens between people, but at the same time it it closes a distance between folks. So, you know, uh, Anne and I are on, you know, opposite sides of the continent from one another, but she and I got to, I think, have a conversation her first couple of weeks that she was at Phoenix Labs at a time

that worked for both of us, and it was something where we got to talk to one another about our respective journeys, and I got to know her and and became friends with her, and that was a thing that would have been in a time before it became so commonplace to be able to have these, you know, video calls. Um, I think the other thing that's been really interesting is that in, uh, with with video conferencing, you get to work together with people and pair with other folks, uh, and learn from other folks in a way that's just is so much more, uh, so much more deep. You kind of get more slices of those actual day-to-day lives, um, as a result. Uh, but going back to, you know, what I was saying earlier around the tradeoffs, I think the the investment that an individual has to make in be able to forge those connections goes up higher because you can't take for

granted that you can just run into someone and you can like, you know, see them in the office with you, um, uh, that you can swing by someone's desk. You know, I used to do this a lot with, uh, with some of the engineers that I would would work with where, you know, we'd just get those like 15 minutes of time when we look at a thing together because I happen to be next to their desk or walking by an artist's desk and seeing the stuff that they've got, uh, posted up on the wall around them and to be able to have those like 5 minutes, 10 minutes of exchanges, those have to be a lot more deliberate now in our current world than they were a few years prior. Uh, so, I think the if you want to forge those relationships, if you want to cultivate them, you have to put in a lot more direct personal effort, um, and proactiveness toward it. Um, I think the other thing, too, is there uh, in I In the last couple of years, I think it's been really important to think about what kinds of communication,

um, is the best suited for the other folks that you're trying to build a relationship with because not everyone like Some folks take to video calls swimmingly. They're they're fine being on calls all day long, not a problem. And others it's torture to be on a call for even just like 30 minutes to an hour, right? Some folks are really strong when it comes to real-time written communication, and others really need things to be written in longer form with more time to digest, more time to think about their response. And so, um, I think it I think it's really sharpened the need for folks to invest in their communication skills as well as their communication empathy. Wow. Um, that's a lot of food for thought there. There everything to get help by video where we're all experiencing this content right now. Brian, I mean, video streaming became a part of your professional life.

Talk about that. Talk about taking a brief jaunt into this world where we're actually all natively residing right now. Yeah, it's funny. Um, you know, we're talking earlier about like character sheets and sort of like where where you want to end up, and and I mentioned like I had always just like dreamed of being an entrepreneur. Um, but again, Albany, New York, right? It's not Silicon Valley. It's not Seattle. Like like the It's not LA. You guys, you know, grew up with this and understanding things like, you know, how you're seeing this all the time. You know, for us it was like, uh, starting a business was, you know, the tire shop right up the road or somebody going out being an accountant. So, like I I knew I wanted to understand this, and, um, and I had been sort of like growing my my, you know, my my network a little bit, and like Jing said, I I also kind of hate the word networking. Like I met a buddy at a at a game jam hackathon, and we just hit it off, and, uh, it turned out he was doing, you know, some kind of like investing, and he was just complaining that like nobody understands game investing and all this

kind of stuff. And so, we started talking about it, and I said, "Well, if I'm going to be honest, dude, like I don't actually understand this investing thing at all. Like bar none, I don't get it. I don't understand any of the words you're saying. I'm faking it because I just, you know, I don't want to look like I'm dumb." Um, and, uh, and, you know, he he said, "Oh, well, you know, let me let me teach you." So, so, uh, probably one of my best friends still to this day. Um, but anyway, so, yeah, I had this opportunity probably 2015 when kind of like the streaming services were coming out 2014, you know, the the Netflix and the Prime Video that, um, we had we had put this tool set together for games, and we'd sold this like back-end stuff to games where you'd sort of like spin your game up on on our software, and we said, "Well, shoot, like you could kind of like spin a whole video platform up on this software. Let's go see if we could raise some money for this." So, um, I I think of this as like my side quest, you know? Do I like video streaming? I mean, not that much. I like video games. Um, but like I wanted to get this on my

character sheet, you know? Like I knew I wanted to get this, and, um, so we spent a year, you know, pitching venture capital companies and being told no a thousand times. And again, you know, you got to understand like I didn't understand any of this, right? So, you know, I remember pitching one of like the really big VCs now, like, uh, Andreessen Horowitz, and then them just sort of being like, "Who who is this guy? Like he doesn't he doesn't get the slightest what's going on." Um, you know, and it's sort of like funny to look back at, but this is how careers are, you know? Everybody looks back at how naive they were. Nobody's born knowing anything. You have to just learn it and be humble and ask, just like Connie said. So, so, I always think of this as my side quest because I did spend a couple years doing this. Um, the company was not successful, um, but you know, in this weird path of life and like getting lost in the woods and coming back, you know, that friend that I made, we're still, you know, best friends basically to these days. Um, he took some of that. He was able to get kind of a company off the ground. Was it one of these like, you know, venture-backed startups? No. Uh, but he

had a company and and he's been successful, and he's still open, and he's doing a great job, and his company's grown to 40 people, and he took all that work we did 7 years ago into that. And for myself, you know, I had a chance to meet all these VCs, and and honestly, back then there really was nobody investing in gaming, but along the way a couple of them said, "Oh, this guy, you know, doesn't know sh- anything about, uh, VC, but knows a lot about games." And so, you know, I got asked to be a, uh, venture partner with Convoy Ventures, which I work at now. And and that's that's how I met all these folks is by, you know, probably embarrassing myself a couple times. So, I always think of this as my side quest, but it's like any side quest, you know, you sort of complete it, and you go back to the main quest. And that's kind of like where, you know, I I I kind of ended up, but, you know, out of that, you know, my my character sheet at this point has a lot of experience on this, and you know, I've vetted a hundred companies, and I know how these deals work now, and, you know, I've had a chance to see this more than a lot of people have, and and but that's how I picked it up. That's a cool I mean, something that

that, um, all of you share now is that you have the vantage point of career, not just job or role. And now you have a small perspective on on how important it was to take the shots when you took them, but also of how many shots you may have to take, right? Um, and and, uh, perhaps for everyone at home who may be like, "Okay, I came to this talk, right? I don't know if I want to take my next shot now or in 10 years, or I want to get promoted, or I want to heard the troops right now. Um I'll go to you, Jenk, first. Okay? I mean, you have We're on a pretty well-defined career path. Riot Games. Okay? Um externalities aside, why did you decide to risk that stable job

and take your shot, right, with Bot School? Oh, man. Um I've done that actually a couple times. I did it earlier this year when I when I uh decided to say a goodbye for now from Phoenix Labs and spend time on my personal projects. But yeah, like the the experience with with Riot um it was because I had a clear understanding that I wanted to do broader skill acquisition and that there was a pocket of skills that I knew I could only experience if I started my own company. Um I could read all I wanted about you know, fundraising with VCs and setting up a business. And I got to do a little bit of a proxy of the starting a business component with the Riot merch team cuz it was like a It was a separate business unit within Riot Games. And learned a lot of that. But that that was You know, I equated that experience to like

skydiving with a tandem instructor strapped to your back. And I just wanted to jump out of the plane one time at least by myself so I would know what it would feel like to you know, handle that adrenaline, to have to pull the cord. I don't know. I'd only know this much about skydiving. I've only ever been actually tandem skydiving one time. So this this analogy is going to fade away really quickly. Um but essentially I I I knew I wanted to do it at least once so that I would be able to learn all those things and really experience them because uh knowing that you know, I would look at what I would regret if I didn't do it versus what I would regret if I did do it. And if I did do it, the thing I might regret is uh loss of uh of financial security for a chunk of time, my pride in not being able to build a company. Um but the amount that I Both those things were things that I could

overcome. And I knew that I would learn so much that you just can't get out of a textbook, that you can't get by going to school, by just going through and experiencing it. Um and whereas if I flipped it around and I thought about, "What would I regret if I stayed?" It's like I just I would give up a chance to really learn and flush out this entire portion of uh this entire branch of my skill tree um that I can't I I wouldn't be able to uh earn in some other way by staying at the company. And I also, you know, like Anne was saying earlier, there is uh there are some things that are easier to be able to do at certain points in your life. And it's in in my life circumstance at the time was I did not have to think about a mortgage and I did not have to think about kids. And And so I could have I had a higher appetite for taking on some of the financial risks. And um I also just said to myself I I thought of it as like as if I were doing a uh

self-study MBA. Like that was the equivalent, right? I'm going to go learn some of this stuff. Um and when I have looked at any of these kinds of decisions, one of the frameworks I I typically use is like I really list out all the different things that I care about um uh from a value standpoint and the things that I'm you know, fearful about or excited about as I'm looking at the opportunity. And then I try to prioritize between what are these things in in terms of priority and importance to me. And if I stay versus if I go, how would I actually, you know, rate how true or how present or um uh you know, what I what would I score each of these different options? And then that doesn't necessarily give me a final answer, but it prompts a lot of good introspection and internal conversation. And I came up the other end of that exercise like, yeah. And just that, you know, I have so much more to lose if I don't try

this right now than if I do. Um Yeah, that's how I got there. What I love about what all of you talked about and that all of you are acting on the world. You're all having a plan. You're assessing, developing skills, taking side quests. Um but all of you taught me about your agency. Um So I want to ask you, you know, now, like I'll go to you first, Anne. Right? Are you where you want to be right now? And um if yes or if no, like what is the planning you're doing now? What are the skills you're developing now for your next phase? Currently, I'm not even looking at the next phase because I'm really happy where I'm at. Okay. It's really I I I

I'm really happy. It's uh every day I wake up and I'm happy to work with the team I'm working with, within the company I'm working in. And it's it's I'm just grateful. So right now it's just I want to do the best. And one thing that Connie, I think you're the first one that mentioned it, that how much we have to show us as vulnerable because this is what we are, everybody, as humans. And I'm sure it's the same for for you guys also, but at every changes it's it's really scary. It's a leap of faith and it's it's only you. And sometimes the faith you have in yourself is not at the highest point, you know? So it's it's really uncomfortable. But I would just suggest to everybody just do it because the all the things that you learn and the things that you have as a baggage, as a background, is not going to go away. Like when I moved to my first associate producer in narrative

for Far Cry 3, I was a animation trade director at Ubisoft uh stuffed as a in the HR department, which was far away from the associate producer for narratives. But then I did a a study about the the the state of animation and cinematics and scripted event at Ubisoft Montreal. And I became, after the presentation, kind of a specialist about narrative at Ubisoft. And I was like, "No, I'm not." It's like, "Yeah, I No, I was not in production doing narratives or cinematics and what not." It's like, "Yeah, but you have that perspective now that nobody has. So there you go and do the job and help us ship Far Cry 3." And it's like, "Okay." And it was scary, but I learned so much in that process. And we all learn so much in that process doing these things. So it's always it it's really different than somebody that is

becoming an expert. So the knowledge is accumulating in one or multiple areas, but it's really bland and it's really bold. When you change course, it's like, "Oh, I'm I'm kind of losing something." No, you're gaining. It's just not in the same area. It's just widening. And we have to to see this to to be able to to make that step actually because, like I said, it's a scary thing. It's like starting a new job. Very often it it's a new adventure. So it's a lot of things that you don't know. And you have to ask all the time to everybody, "I don't know. I'm new to that. Can you help me?" Yes, all right. Everybody's there to help. Well, speaking of, right, the people in this crowd who are watching this talk, um they're finding their own paths. And they're going to want to hopefully continue to connect with us, right? Cuz all of us agree, you know, that we're here to help and to lift each other up and lift up our crap. And I actually

want to start with you, Anne, cuz we're right cuz now we know where you are and people want to vibe like you're vibing, how do people stay in touch with you? Uh Anne Gibeault my Twitter key is uh Anne Gibeault. Uh you can join me uh on Am I on a Discord channel? Aside from the job, I have my personal server, but I think that Twitter would be the best way to uh to uh to link with me. Perfect. Um Connie, I'll ask you the same thing. Same thing for all the mad smack talk we've said about Twitter, right? I love it, right? Like I don't use it that much. Well, okay, I'm I'm casually active. So absolutely um I believe that our Twitter handles are in our bios, our speaker bios. So please feel free to reach out. Um I'm always happy to answer questions and and chat with folks and share my dog pics.

Amazing. Brian, same question. Yeah, I said I don't like Twitter, but probably the same thing. Um also like I I'm I'm on LinkedIn a lot even though, you know, I think nobody sort of loves LinkedIn, but you sort of have to be there. You definitely have to be there. So I'm there, too. And um I'm working on building I bought a firehouse and I'm working on building a training center here for people who want to get into games so that future Brians of the world don't have the same trouble networking as anyone else. So if you want to move to the great Mecca Upstate New York, come hang out with me and uh the training center when it's done in like six or eight months and you too uh can be sitting in -15° weather on on a on an afternoon on a Tuesday. So, yeah. We actually also have a gaming firehouse in LA, but I digress. Nice. Who brought us together? How can people keep this going? If they're like, "I want to be on this train." How do they connect with you? Yeah, hit me up on Twitter. Uh I'm also on LinkedIn as well. I'm on uh I'm on Twitter infrequently, but I'm I'm always open to to chatting with

folks who are interested in learning more about the industry or navigating their careers in it. I'm on Twitter, too. Thank you for joining us for our panel. Yeah.