State of the Industry Address with Brandon & Larry | GduX.me

[Music] good morning ladies and gentlemen this is Larry Charles here this is the third attempt at day three third time's the charm right as they say I'm one half of the gamedev Unchained podcast team the team behind the scenes that is putting together this conference for you please let us know in twitch chat if we're stream is good let us know if you see any freezing or audio issues we depend on you guys because this is live and there's only two of us so anything that you can do to confirm everyone say I'm looking good looking great and you're not just talking about me right you're talking about the stream I'm not here by myself obviously helping me make sure that this conference goes well biggest tech support and co-host of everything that we're doing today 1/2 the team best friend mr. Branagh fam I want to hit this button bring them on in everybody it's not a live stream until we mess up we do that to just prove that it's live yes because people think we pre record this and like we're just off somewhere of course

Counting Mar the fun I see perfect streaming people are hearing it's just fine welcome to day three out of three days of live streaming what are you saying it's gonna clog it's probably because the sweat what we've been trying to stream the last two times I sweat is destroy the process right nervousness yeah the nervousness now the nervousness has decided so this is a brand new fam of course Larry and I have been doing this the podcast last few years last three days we've been talking to you interesting enough a lot of new viewers old viewers listening in to try to win as a game developer yeah and that's that's what's important to us there's a lot of places out there that you know that you can go and get great education there's a lot of places out there where you can connect with great people and then there's a lot of very big conferences out there that are gonna give you access to top-level developers watch speaker talks be able to make connections things like that but there is one thing that we noticed with all

those things is you know you got to have the ticket price you got to have the hotel you got to have the airfare you got to have the food and you have to have the time to actually be able to do all those things and unfortunately for many of our game development brothers and sisters around the world that's just not the case so in looking at our own schedules and saying like dang it would be really great to try to replicate that in a way that more people around the world would be able to take advantage of that was the main driving force behind what we're doing here with the game Doyle Unchained Expo we said we've got friends we've got contacts we've been doing this podcast we can get people to show up let's put on a free conference for three days just have it jam-packed with top-level talent giving us wisdom and knowledge to pass down and share with each other and I see people making friends in the twitch chat people getting friendly being real supportive telling jokes back and forth laughing at us every now and then all good and fair but we're happy to see that there's a community behind this and exactly what we wanted to do is being achieved so yeah I can't be upset about that what I can't be upset about is there's no fan I'm just joking all right

guys so this is day three we've been through this for two days now we had a great first day the kickoff was awesome we followed it up with a great second day I've been learning so much whenever we go off camera so that it's just the speaker I'm taking a ton of notes for myself to help my own self improve and learn like that's half the reason why we actually started the podcast in the first place is we ask the questions that we wanted to know to learn and grow as game developers and we figured we would let everyone be a fly on the wall and learn about it as well yeah I mean selfishly I think a lot of what we did the last few days and setting it up the last few months is to kind of provide an educational seminar for ourselves yeah yeah these are speakers with all types of skills from all over the industry coming to us to you to kind of teach on various topics and they're very specific topics so we looked at all conferences we've been to all conferences and I feel like a lot of conferences now the talks are kind of taking a backseat the focus

is all over the place and we have ranging from tutorial Eisley making better games of course that's important but these besides that besides how to how to get into the industry I think there's a bigger issue at hand the overhead of but you're not really going yeah where are we going and once we're here right I'm talking to any veterans out that's been industry who's sitting right now watching this you've been in there for a long time and you want to improve yourself but you feel trapped right these are the the game industry people that we're talking to and we're arranging this first judex about yeah right we want to make sure that yes it's great and Danny it's a fun industry to get into but the people in it are really struggling right now there's a lot of uncertainty a lot of uncertainty I'm not talking about people who's been in it for twenty years or thirty years and looking at you know looking to retire at 65 right that to me it's a silly thought like I laugh hahaha at that idea of

retiring doing exactly what I'm doing nine-to-five like the impossibility of staying at a job and saying to myself to my wife to my children is like I'm probably gonna be staying here until 65 I have it that good well what scares me is as a designer I I can probably name maybe one or two people that I know that are 65 ish in the game industry in the design field yeah right it's not it's it's quite a pyramid there's a lot of fall-off for my for my career path right and as a career path it is a pyramid any place that you go to you have a lead a lead for what 20 plus people per group so you know give or take or even sometimes much much more like 20 or 30 as a team per discipline yeah and so unless you don't care about climbing the ladder which I congratulate I actually push for them because there are not enough rooms for multiple leads and it's

kind of redundant when there are multiple leads right we don't want that issue either but it is a place where at a certain point there isn't much growth right where do you go after five ten years yeah I mean and how far can you go because you're very limited especially if you're senior lead at a very big place it's a very coveted job there's a very few of those around at a high position at a good place at a place that you like in terms of location and where you're living right so you're vying for that place everybody is vying for that role and it's just truthfully very limited stuff so as you're growing older you're getting more experience there's actually less and less room for you as a developer yeah there's a lot of people that burn out which helps but listen to what I just said yeah there's people burning out yeah

which helps yeah it's basically you're waiting for the old man was it the Senate seat what none of the cinema in Congress but no no that the up Supreme Court right with those guys stay there for a very long time and you can't have to show them off the chair to kind of claim that role and that's basically what it is unless you are completely comfortable being a senior for the remainder of your 20 years of your life which you have to most be able to do and it's completely fine I mean there are like roles that they try to kind of puff up right a super experienced senior a principal you know these are these are recent in recent years basically made-up titles to kind of to kind of justify your experience well see that you've been here for eight years yes we know that you like me I completely understand there's a hierarchy right you have to be able to differentiate from a senior that's been

you know maybe six seven years to this is your 1 year to senior 3 and your salary has to reflect that in some way right and unfortunately our industry I don't think it's much different from other industries where salary rise there is a limitation I think the only thing that differs with ours is that our industry is actually really profiting every year it are we rolling every year so excited new ventures to get and be part of the game industry is growing every year I'm talking about streamers people who play games that wasn't a thing and earning a good living out of that esports you know and in what else like a ton of different ways to actually get and be part of the game history and make money yeah yeah it cons I got that that's huge for me she's just seeing like hey this game or this company or this type of thing is so beloved yeah

that we have tons of passionate people just showing up not even to really play but just to be around each other to celebrate news to celebrate updates and to celebrate the fandom right to dress up as characters that they loved and that they enjoyed and so whenever I see that kind of thing that always makes me feel great about what I do personally and what we do as developers but kind of starting to tie up everything that we were getting into earlier it's not so much that we're trying to tell people out there like hey you know you're gonna keep working you're gonna get older so have to have some sort of way to climb that pyramid it's not so much that it's that we're saying that like it is gonna get competitive it is gonna be harder to find more senior level jobs because there are less of them so make sure that you're keeping your options open but also looking for other ways to be valuable that might be outside of the industry so yes this is game dev Unchained where we're talking about being a game developer but what we're really trying to tell and what we're really trying to push in the narrative that we're developing here is understand that you are valuable not just as a game developer right you can be an educator we both have taught college classes for

what we do we share that information we share that knowledge we started this podcast this podcast has created opportunities for us we just want people to understand that we personally think that it's dangerous to be stagnant if your industry is volatile right that's that's really the main message that we try to push that's why we always want to come with new knowledge with new education with new opportunities with new ideas with new concepts that you might not have known or heard of that you can explore to better yourself to refine yourself or to better prepare yourself for a longevity in what we do so I'm gonna come back to the group camp and what time do you get there Brendon we should probably go over the day 3 schedules to let people know what's going on right let's go over the debut schedule actually before doing that let's talk about how we made this possible where sponsors so I'm gonna switch okay the camera on you and you go ahead and do this all right so Larry cam we made this possible because I woke up one day was like Brandon this is what we needed to do and he was like cool let's do it

it was that so now I'm kidding we've been at this for three years during the game dev Unchained podcast but G ducks this webseries this web conference actually had a lot of help beyond Brandon and myself and primarily I'm talking about the sponsors who have made it possible for us to be able to do this for three days straight and actually have the equipment and technology to make sure that you guys can see it for three days straight so top the list we're gonna start with perforce perforce is our first primary responsive so perforce thank you from the bottom of my heart and Brandon's heart we appreciate you guys believing in us and giving us an opportunity to do something with ourselves other than twiddle our thumbs all day as we try to be independent developers and games media people so perforce thank you for your contribution to what we do here anybody who's in the industry has a job probably already knows perforce but anybody out there in the small team perforce is a great way to make sure that as you develop and work on your project especially if you have multiple collaborators you can have a great source control pipeline that allows multiple people to work on the same files without stepping on each other's work you can merge and integrate you can

do so many things that allow your game to be developed with hopefully the least amount of user error in regards to sharing and managing files and backups of files etc perforce has great options even if you're a small team of one to five people and you don't necessarily think you have money perforce actually has a free option for teams of that size so if you're hearing me say this you're an indie team you're a small team working on something and you have less than five people or five people or less is what I should have said why not go check out perforce it's free for you so and then teams bigger than that obviously they have a solution in place for you second primary sponsor I want to thank pixologic pixologic not only are they helping us make this show possible but they sprinkle a little bit of a little bit of ZBrush on top of that offering and they said hey we also want to give away two free copies of ZBrush to your viewers we did give away one copy successfully yesterday we've got another copy of ZBrush absolutely free no strings attached not that timeshare presentation free but that actual free that we're gonna be giving away a copy

of ZBrush the latest copy of zeros no strings attached to a lucky viewer today and mr. Branton fam you always do a better job of explaining how people win stuff so please let the people know how they can get a free copy brush computer upgrade King is a peripheral PC sorry rush so what how they get a free copy of ZBrush Oh before I even go I was so excited about talking about their sponsor so you go ahead and if you are subscribed to our mailing list we will pick someone at the end of the day and announced it on air and email them about a free copy of ZBrush we did that just last night and congratulations to that winner so today is your chance to win does you copy of ZBrush and those don't come cheap man but it's cheap now yeah for one person it's cheap for one person so if you want to be a part of that please be that on our mailing list is on GDU x dot m e our third the response and my third sponsor over here oh yeah all right sponsored by

Larry a computer after King of course to run the stream all right all those lags all this thing that is internet was invited all right that it was not the hardware Comcast refused unless Comcast wants to fix it next time but of computer upgrade King it provides the PC hardware right where you're using their PC hardware we went through the process it took a week only a week from me clicking two by two for it to ship and it was one of the easiest process I ever had for a custom PC built and I have the latest and greatest RT x 2080 put into that with the latest processor I'm just naming numbers here but we know game developers out there gamers out there you need the best computer upgrade King is the best they get you the best the fastest yes and if you are willing and if you are ready and to upgrade your PC go over to computer upgrade keen to go ahead and start buying and then you can use our key code GDU x 3 to get 3

percent off and just like that you get a new PC in a week 3% off just because you typed in a couple of letters yes like especially when you're spending thousands yes we're upgrading PC I don't know about you man every two three years I got an upgrade mine yeah and if you're looking for other type of peripherals to to kind of add to your computer hardware you want to go over there and check them out yeah so thank you guys for listening through our sponsorship roll call if any of that information sounds juicier to you or applies to your situation go check those guys out because if it wasn't for them we and all these people would likely be doing other things right now right right and this is of course coming to you free right if you are alarmed and you think you're kind of being snarky and pirating missus we have news for you right we actually are aligned conferencing the last few days for free all our speakers are volunteering their time to talk about real issues that we started off with to talk about things that to help you improve out there as a game developer

and so to say thanks a small token of thanks if you look at the bar right here go to GD x mb or if you're on Twitch there's a donate icon down there just click on that and if you want to see little cards and dance on our table at any point of the prop program the next seven hours you just donate any dollar that counts and 100% of that will go to all our speakers we've even really do a resume and I don't think anyone has ever done that yeah but I'm gonna say that we are the first we're all about being the first we wanted to be the first free for everyone three-day livestream with seven hours of content absolutely free we then said like hey if we're gonna be taking donations it'd be a great way to make sure that the speakers at least know that the audience that came to participate in watch definitely appreciated their time and actually valued their time so again donations help the speakers so anything that you guys do contribute we really appreciate on the speaker's behalf who may not be here to say thank you any more especially day one and day two folks we promised you you saw the

cats that the our speakers have Cassidy cat food giving cats cat food helping them you know pay a couple bills or whatever ends up going to them after we do all the even splits I'm just sayin on their behalf thank you very much thanks for being a supporter thanks for being a twitch technical adviser I think we should make like a badge that we can send if you have saved us from an embarrassing moment we want to just adopt you as a twitch technical adviser so thanks to all our TTA is out there we really appreciate it thanks to the sentinels and all the chats who are making sure that we get the best questions asked and moderating and you know just making sure that when we go on camera we're asking a question that's valid and valuable so you know a lot of people to think before we really get this thing going well it's true I mean this is a two-man operation we talk a lot in developers this is as indie as it gets when it comes to conventions but it is very important stuff I think anybody with a mic in this day and age if they have a message it's it's great you have the internet you have people who are willing to listen out there and it actually

makes a lot of waves and we are thinking all our speakers and our viewers out there to be a part of this because it is these are very serious issues and to kind of kind of go over serious issues let's kind of talk about today's event all right so on my screen right here I'm gonna I'm gonna full screen this real quick or throw it at the screen there oh look at that alright so we are at the 10:30 mark and so we have to share ah unfortunately our first speaker had to drop out because of emergency we wish him the best Teddy but we are gonna move on with the show and I think Larry nice so we have we have an emergency format idea so basically look we know that there are circumstances that happened in other people's lives we have 21 different sets of well Matt sets but we have 21 different speakers or presenters who are supposed to be taking time out to help us do this and you know we were 20 out of 21 yeah as far as success rate goes so that's really cool we appreciate everyone who was able to make it unfortunately we did lose Teddy

and qixels as our kickoff so instead of saying come back later we actually are gonna put ourselves in the hot seat we wanted to go through and break down how we ourselves got into the game industry some of the things that we overcame but most importantly we're gonna pull the laptop on the table and do an AMA ask me anything live on Twitch and as long as this video game related for the most part we should be unadulterated unfiltered and incredibly honest about our responses I gotta let's say so thank you alright so Brad is gonna do it I'll do it ask me anything but before doing that let's kind of go through the whole schedule so 11:30 we have Tanya that's ready to go talking about the diversity talk you need to know but don't want to meet want to hear on words is at 12:30 with Lucas Gonzalez overcoming the fear of challenge a changing survivor the fittest 130 an hour after that is with Joel hackle axe game designer how to make games until we're 80 2:30 p.m. Pacific time with DES Kyle rightfully so no country for old

devs man this is just like going through my life right now 330 PS Pacific time obviously if you're watching this we're in the West Coast redefining success with Jody eggs our CEO at T's no cat games and finally anchoring tonight would be at 4:30 p.m. with Nina Freeman from Fulbright's ways to put off starting your next big project for self-improvement and sanity safe so according to our TTA's our dancing carlton donation button is not working properly so that means that people have been donating so thanks to everyone who's been donating I really appreciate that and like I said I'm gonna get the gerbils bigger carrots let's see if that helps I've brain is gonna take a look at it right now so but yeah we are gonna start off with a bit of an emergency segment again filling time and understandably so if you do want to take off and come back for the later content but you might want to stick around and hear this very interesting story how two guys from nowhere became best friends started working on their own media and games and grew to become this and then

just to prove that we know what the hell we're talking about you can get check us and ask us anything you want about game development get our opinions our honest honest opinions there's no lawyers like there's no like you know publish this now we're on our own right gonna be no work okay the first time for the of three years we're finally doing this full-time yeah so I'm gonna ask the first question right no you know how sure okay speaker to speaker wanna speaker to for the next hour brother so Larry okay me a picture right one let's give me a full global picture of Larry Charles the geek walking through the industries of it before you when would did you first get interested in games where did you go sure and let's talk about when you first got in alright so anybody around my age this might be nostalgia for you so I'll take you through I've always been interested in games the game design but I just didn't know it so whenever we played hide-and-seek I was the guy I was like you know this

is cool but like what if we turn out all the lights and play hide-and-go-seek in the dark right like oh you know sure we can we can play water gun war but what if we added this extra thing or like I was always the guy who was trying to you know just tweak whatever the base experience was to try to just make it more fun more interesting or more dangerous more exciting and so going up through my whole life I've always spent a lot of time drawing and creating my own worlds creating my own stories my own characters and I had a lot of fun doing that I initially thought I was actually gonna be an animator I saw a Toy Story for the first time in my life I forget how old that was but whatever Toy Story came out that inspired me to get into 3d and I immediately went to like I was at a boarding school at the time some are like a summer boarding school and they had like this huge incredible 3d arts program for that according to someone who comes from the inner city Hartford Connecticut the ghetto like the best computer maybe had like minesweeper or chips adventurous um you know Oregon Trail type thing then I get to a place that has like 3d studio

this was before was 3d studio max they had 3d studio and I had a teacher actually showing me how to do and develop 3d so I knew for a fact like there was nothing that was gonna stop me from being an animator after I saw Toy Story I would say fast-forward the next summer I come back to the same place and I'm back in those same computer labs trying to further what I had learned previously about 3d and I and it hit me that I really love telling stories and I love the worlds that I was creating but with an animated movie with a book with any sort of like linear type of experience the best experience is like usually the first time you know I don't ever feel like the surprises obviously don't hold up the same way the jokes don't hold up the same way you I don't think that you'll ever get you know a better experience past that first one but what I loved about playing video games was a lot of the games that I was playing my adventure changed based on the decisions I was making based on going the left past versus the right path not getting the pizza and letting Michelangelo get the pizza and I'll just try to play a little more defense or not be as

aggressive with my hero or my turtle there are so many things that I saw in game development and video games in general as a medium then I got more excited about I said I can create these worlds that live breathe and respond and that started to take me left far away from animation where I was like I'm actually going to create people I'm gonna create worlds I'm gonna create environments I'm gonna create challenges I'm gonna create moments that players get to experience interact with and I get to anticipate what they're gonna do and try to challenge them at every step of the way I fell in love with game design because I already was in love with game design I just hadn't been introduced to the idea of being a game designer as a career so I'll say let's fast-forward to high school I go to Penn State for two years I'm studying I think it was business marketing because I do have an entrepreneurial side but I was not fulfilling my creativity I didn't feel like I was contributing to the world things that I actually wanted to be a part of which are things that make people smile things that make people feel things that make people think think that things that make people react things that make people stop whatever

they're doing in their you know regular day-to-day life and and do something that uplifts their spirit uplifts their internal energy because they're having fun they're they're thinking they're expressing themselves or they're they're sharing adventures with random strangers online that can go like to a dark place but you know what I mean so I left Penn State I go to the Art Institute of Orange County and I say I want to be a full-time video game developer so I found a school that actually taught game development in 2005 and that pretty much solidified it for me all those games I've been playing all those times where I changed the rules to whatever game that I was playing with friends or you know just trying to up the ante whenever I could ended up actually I found a job that allows me to do the same thing and I've had 30 40 well 30 years of practice so that is that's my story on how I got excited or got into video game development and what about you mr. Brandon Pham if you could take me through your same version but environment our style what would you say

was yeah where was your inception date for being a session is like I want to shout out to today okay Jim I know you're watching the metal gear everybody has a game that got them really interested in hooking to into games in general right and so I I was at that point where was playing games a lot I was I grew up the ps2 era I didn't know it was viable as a career until I was flipping through a game magazine to to kind of just browse but I saw like a clipping for college arts - whole Art Institute of California in particular and I was already a junior in high school so fortunately I knew right away that this is something I wanted to do I was really already dabbling in 3d a little bit I was you know playing with counter-strike modding for fun but I never knew that it could be a career right I think if anything the last 12 years have taught us is that

people know now people on Twitch everything everybody respects game development even when I talk to parents at schools I tell them what I am and they're like oh that's actually pretty cool versus like what do you do exactly you just play games all day no no no so I would say going into my career five years then it was a lot of conversations like that like what do you do like I do this is like does that mean II play games a lot so it's kind of nice to see this the change and not any have to over explain myself on what I do but that that was the start of my career in the college days and that's where Larry and I met is I think looking back that it was a preview of a lot what the game history is like so uh don't get me wrong the game history is fun but you know we were really rushing through like it was

a three year program still expecting to do five classes every semester kind of battling with three hours of homework content every day which doesn't sound much now but looking back you know you have a full day of class you're going back you're trying to get A's and everything but a lot of those classes don't really have anything to do with what I want to do oh yeah so it's a lot of BS that like after your tuition goes to the class tuition so the first time like getting out of college dealing with debt and everybody can relate to dent right but like school didn't teach me like all honestly when you do come out of college you're mostly going to deal with a really competitive industry along with the debt on your back and guess what you're not gonna have like that much money to start paying your debt back it's gonna be you know if you're lucky you start with 40 right give you six months to get on this next month yeah well most likely it's a

contract yeah and to get your feet wet and it is expected I think even with young developers now it is expected that they would over perform under pay but also put in and be passionate right put in the time to show them that they really want it I I can't say you can't really shake that off yet because of the sentiment of what the industry is like because if you are clocking in at 8:00 and leaving like a 5 like the senior and you're just this new kid on the block though it's I I hate to say it but it can still be a bad luck right I I wish for the day where it's like hey he's clocking and clocking out like any normal human being would do when they go to work get the night's rest and come back the next day but it is actually asked and actually unfortunately in schools caught to kind of crunch have a mentality like that to succeed

and I feel like anybody that's watching in anybody that's been a part of the industry that doesn't really stop and I think the last year and a half have taught us that we look at the biggest game companies yeah like like epic like Ryan's like right like a lot of these companies everyone's going through this even with a crazy success it is expected to keep that ball rolling because we want to keep the the money train going yeah right there's if you stop now we're going to miss this wave of influx of people that is constantly hungry for content and that's where the free-to-play model gets really dangerous right if you're not a team that's ready to support that and honestly there is really no way to kind of prepare for that right you know if you even expect success you can't really gauge the level of success and do you have the people around to kind of support that you just

go on a mat hiring spree so we actually you know the last year and a half has been very volatile and I don't think it's maybe it's a part of how the Internet is becoming more and more open with these type of things journalists are finally putting putting the issues on the table because uh it is actually trendy to kind of write about these expose things has has always been but there has been like I would say a gate where people were a lot more shy even back three five years ago where you know talking about the industry was very taboo yeah and I think as a game developer even I'm scared because like we're technically uh-huh right we're not working for anyone so we can pretty much express our opinion openly not working worrying about the repercussions right but even then it's like you know there's a hesitation like as you saw before there's a hesitation is like do I need but this already out

there but imagine if you're working for these companies and you're trying to voice your concerns and you're ready in the middle of nowhere right not nowhere but like you're very far away from family or your you're not willing to your mates that'll readily dependent upon the work very dependent on the work you're already settled where you were are and you have a bunch of friends kids you got kid and with you know we talked about this a little bit you know I to kind of paint a really specific picture I've been in history for twelve years I worked at six seven different companies I've moved six to seven different times yeah and I'm not talking about across the street I'm talking about laser up the major up down up down California go yes and um it is very tiring because I could get new friends in some cases I'm glad I have new friends but in most cases you know it is very tough and you're you're constantly

now I'm a family of four and I have two kids and a wife and you're constantly turning to them every time you like this job ain't working out I got to do something or stop stop talking to your current friends we got to get some new friends we're gonna go to a new school and how much of that can I take as a person in my position how much do I want to keep doing that to to my loved ones and expect them to be okay with it every single time and this is the last twelve years and half my career has been moving around and meeting new people and thankfully the pro of that is that you know I have a big network of friends and industry vets that I can lean on and talk to you in conversate but the downside is of course it's very unstable you know I'm constantly in fear of I'm taught I'm talk to constantly look at

the next opportunity never be comfortable and and just be ready to to adapt and there's only a certain point where it starts to break you as a game developer you mean you still enjoy making gains but you start looking at other options it's like is there anything else that I can just state your quality of life is important as a person I think that you just we all have this I want to say this instinctual need for some sort of comfort right like a lot of people can stay that especially ambitious or entrepreneurial people you're usually very good at you know I'm gonna step outside of my comfort zones and I'm gonna bust through but it's not so that they can stay in that hustle mode it's because they want to get to a bigger or better comfort zone in my opinion right like I don't think anybody out there is like I just want to work hard work hard work hard work hard work hard every day of my life because being a hard worker is the best thing that's ever happened to me I hope that that's not the case because I could see that as

a very taxing kind of lifestyle that would probably put you in the grave earlier then you might likely have if you had a little more comforts in your life but when I see entrepreneurs when I see people who are like super driven they're usually driven towards the goal and that goal is like some sort of new lifestyle or new ability to experience like a better comfort zone yeah like we want to go from comfort zone to comfort zone to comfort zone that's what I usually see in life yeah and so when I think about the game industry right now I feel like the game industry for a lot of people is still a gig based industry right much like Hollywood when you think of people making movies like up I had a job for the last 11 months that movie stopped I have two months to try to find the next movie and then I jump on that but lucky for people in Hollywood a lot of those jobs exists like you can literally move to Hollywood and be in films work on 40 films in your life and never move your house right in the game industry you can work in 40 games you might move I mean depending on who you are you might move 20 times yeah by the time it's all said and done yeah it's very exhibiting moves yeah all these

let's just say relocation relocation these studios are very concentrated for that reason I mean it's hard to justify this it's it's a trend that Silicon Valley created right it's like have all the tech companies in the same place all the talent if they need to circulate they can write the same thing with game industry a lot of these game companies need that talent to stick around and so they just build these companies around each other what unfortunately that what happens is that you know a lot of these cities get very expensive very soon everybody's moving there because of the tech boom and you're talking about one hour plus commutes or just you know it's just not a place that you want to be because it's too expensive or other reasons right it's not where you grew up it's not where your friends are you just have to keep adjusting to what the industry is doing but worse than that you're not even dealing with stability even though I move through these cities and I'm fully committed to my job I can

get my pink slip the next day and I'm like yeah day one signed the contract showed up day three oh man sorry we gotta let you go yeah yeah and we're trying we're not trying to paint a terrible big picture but we're just kind of sharing our personal stories and we've been podcasting we're not scaring we're preparing we're preparing right a last three years with individuals like our speakers today about their story and it's dig into like what's going on is there something else out there and yes thankfully there are obviously we're putting together key ducks to kind of kind of highlight the things that you can do using your skillset that you have built in the industry to kind of be free and be completely on your own and be able to succeed this is what all 2021 speakers are here to talk about and the reason why we started the podcast is to selfishly learn from the best and it's

done it right obviously there are people in our positions that have achieved a relative good success being on good titles but that wasn't enough overnight it was for sure but I do want to jump in like not to rub or to our own hard work or not the Tudor oh yeah don't be cheating when I think like when we tell people that we were selfish in the idea of saying like hey let's bring in people and ask them things that we want to know the sharing or the benefit that everyone gets is like everyone gets to that conversation so the same tips and advice that we get you get yeah you know the same like hey look this is how you structure your business this is why you would want to go with this versus that man well they talk to game industry lawyers whether we talk to people who have run the game companies and they're telling us like what the things you should be preparing for how to align yourself with your goals and goals of your other company everyone gets to learn that right so it's even if we had a self-serving interest of like learning as much as we could we also have a Robin

Hood effect because we're giving it away right I will give you a pro tip it does help to talk to these guys with a mic because suddenly you look professional as soon as you start walking up to these people at like a conference and like hey tell me everything that you know they've kind of shoo you away but you come with the mic well it doesn't have to be on it suddenly suddenly you have a conversation going but thankfully everyone liked us enough to kind of stay on talk with us kept in touch and obviously return for an expose such as this G ducks to share the knowledge and you know make some noise like it is obvious Oh Carlton's working Carlton is working thank you guys so I'm gonna pull some questions sure while we go back to our our theme for this can we do one thing just like I always say drop your portfolio on the best game Brandon what cool games have you worked on in your career for the people listening well obviously we work together on Call of Duty advanced warfare I worked on Bioshock 2 we worked on Lost Planet 3 together we worked at

section studios with Cecil which was like a day one speaker go and those rival provides losses Noble gave us yes and then I also worked on a digital main for a little while on Borderlands 2 cinematic hulking and so I've been around it's been a long long journey I think my last half of my last half of my career has really aged transics dress but like I think it's worth also saying and talking about I know listeners long listeners of the podcast knows a little bit of our back story we kind of pepper it and over 180 episodes so I think it's awful we're worth bringing up why a sudden change our hearts about the industry and I think the best way to start is all start right should I start I'll kind of relay my my story my first layoff my first layoff okay it's the title of my story my first layoff was was something that I it's one

of those things that you felt like the atmosphere of the studio being a little off you even talked to your friends you kind of joke about it but even when the day happens you're still very shocked and surprised because for me when I came in the office and said only HR treats me an email I've been at the company for like eight months to a year now right no reason or no opportunity ever did I talk to each hour that they shot me an email for and suddenly if she shot me my I open it up and elected it it's like hey if you have any time let's talk at lunch it's like I you know I never sure but in the back of my mind at least with my infinite limited wisdom I knew like all right I think I'm gonna get laid off I even walked around my little cubicle to to everybody and it's like hey man I just want to shake your hand and say I think today's my last day and I just got a weird email ominous email I think this is it I just wanted to just hang out with you guys one last time before they

X Courtney all right I've heard stories throughout at that point it was my five-year mark coincidentally they say three does five years one of her speakers yesterday highlighted that there's a burning up mark and then the through Network yeah it was my throw out mark and even though I STIs and they make fun and I cackle about the idea that I'm probably you know were presumably a big layoff the company I was completely unprepared because then I walked in the office at lunch my lead was ready standing there and I was like oh even though I prepared for this I did feel like a stab at betrayal but you know in retrospect as a company if you got a deal a layoff you got to do a layoff you know that means there's no finance to the bank there's no way to pay you I totally understand that the good thing is that girls I think the good thing is interrupting my time getting real with you here all you see is money I went

into that room and I saw my leap and I kind of knew what was going on obviously I sat down and even though I understand in retrospect the company stance that some things just don't go well obviously financially they can't keep supporting you you got to get cut off I was the only one laid off so thank you for wasn't personal it's me just a room full of mirrors so yeah they just told me a thank you for all your work but unfortunately we got to lay you off so this is your two weeks severance and all this stuff I felt like thank you large clocks or medium box what do you need I had a bucket box basically basically I didn't care at that moment but I said obviously you feel emotionally a sense of betrayal it's like why couldn't you guys tell me like a month earlier give me two weeks

to kind of get back on my feet that's not nearly enough right III Decker I definitely if you're gonna do a giveaways two months because that takes that amount of time to gather all your materials and try again and pick up your spirits and everything right I think two months is actually an appropriate time if you have to do something like that but I came home told the wife not even before coming online I had to call up the wife teller and thankfully she was very supportive and helpful but sure that's all the supportive significant others in the game yes and but at that moment I felt there was two ways to take something like that one is to completely obviously be devastated and question yourself worth and and everything or the next thing to do is to kind of just take a moment and think about the next thing I think so I had a mixture of that obviously I'm the breadwinner of my family so I have to be like I don't have that much time to sulk

I got to think about the next steps but beyond of looking for the next job you know I swore to myself that I will never ever have just one basket right uh Becca Saltzman yesterday was talking about part of her talk it's like have multiple baskets multiple eggs and that really hit home for me out of my dreams yeah streams of income and it's very true and it it began my my dual my dual professional services so aside from obviously laying back on my feet getting an industry job I completely started teaching two times a week for like four hours in session and I did that for five straight years at multiple campuses and I did not stop because I was constantly in fear and in some cases I had three different two different campuses with a day job and it's always teaching four or five four times a week at different campuses and and I'm doing my day job 996 Ram so

obviously less and less time to spend with the family but I feeling more secure but that was when it opened up the doors to me is like there's so much I can do as a professional game developer to either share the knowledge or start meeting new people to open up opportunities and that started the hustle that started give school online shout out to keep school in mind for all the students that are watching which is uh and gamedev unchain our podcast and then all our business ventures on the side and this is pretty much a very personal at least to me and I know for Larry to kind of bring G ducks to - to the plate because I feel every time I talk to developers who are either been through a few rounds of these layoffs and slowly chipping away as a person because every layoff does hit you really hard and I think anybody that has

survived two or three of those are really playing with fates a bit because how much more can you take before you really give up right and that's one at least one of the big reasons why G ducks to me is very important and very personal every speaker has a strategy that can be applied to anybody that's watching right now to apply to themselves and even if you're at a stable job I congratulate you yeah but think about what if that job just suddenly implodes right yeah so it's it's always good to just every now and then just ask yourself what if it was today Yeah right what if it was today what if today is the primary source of income just yeah as you're watching this stream of it series now it just flies into your screen and say can I see you at lunch yeah so you know I asked myself that all the time but I'll just randomly be

listening to a song and if I don't think I've thought about it or laid out or updated my plan in awhile I'll say well what if it was today yeah what do I do yeah even though it's not right like you're in a safety bubble so at least try to take some steps to figure that out like you said teaching like okay do I have an opportunity to teach yeah do I have an opportunity to maybe create some udemy classes or something like that or do I have things of high value that I could let go of or do i yeah networking with friends get a project going exactly you don't get a part of that indie business yeah just having an answer to that question will make you feel so much better when that day potentially does come hopefully it doesn't but let's say it does but that's the key word it's a matter of when now we're not matter than if I think you're not a game developer unless you get laid off once I think that's the rule now the status quo and that's why we brought you know a game you knew zation on board to kind of talk about like what are other choices but most importantly a lot of like a lot of other developers are already doing things to be proactive about this issue yeah and well I mean I'm gonna look at

questions but I also want to switch scamper to you Larry like talk well your personal story your first layoff I think at this point we can kill us too dramatic music it'd be perfect time well I want to save some time for the AMA so I can make mine pretty quick my first layoff actually came from my first job I was an assistant producer at obsidian entertainment and I remember exactly when it happened and how it happened and what went down it's like burned in my memory so I had it was like an interdepartmental meeting where I had engineers I had sound and might have had like one or two other departments all represented in this meeting because there were scheduling conflicts for almost two weeks straight and I couldn't get this meeting to happen and I finally did and even in the meeting I was trying to make sure that each segment that we talked about had a specific amount of time because there was so much we needed to cover totally in experienced I should have just let us talk so that we could achieve stuff anyway long story short the producer above me comes in as like hey Larry you know we need to borrow you really quick and I said hey I get it I

understand but this meeting is very important like it's I'm protecting this meeting like my job depends on it right and so I fought back I was like no I'm sorry I can't right now I'll come after and then so he doubled down and said no Larry you don't understand like we really need you but then I doubled down saying no you don't understand I was like I need to make sure that for the betterment of this project that this meeting happens because lord knows when all these schedules will align again and we can get this major problem solved then he tripled down and said something he said Larry it's about the saiga decision and to me I said well there's no such thing as the saiga decision right so like I'm thinking that that's code to like let me know that it's important but it's something over the heads of the people in the room he didn't just say Larry you've been laid off right like you need to come now he said it's about the safety decision technically though that was true because Sega didn't make a decision but no one in the room knew of the Sega decision right so I was like all right the fact that you've tripled down and then you've said this ominous thing to me I'm pretty sure that something is up so I leave the

room he tells me where to go what to do and then I walk into the main room and I look around I see like 23 other people just looking along the wall like not knowing what's up and I knew right away I was like what caught me slipping yeah gotta walk it off I know yeah that's that's so that was uh that was how I was told I was getting laid off and yeah I get I think I got like a you know whatever pay I was owed probably like a little bit like a two-week thing yeah and then that was it it was off to the races yes experiencing is even though you're mentally prepared like all your senses are telling you that you're about to get laid off until they speak those words it doesn't really hit you like it it really does your life does flash a little bit in front of your eyes it's like alright what do i do how do I survive two weeks from now I don't paycheck like all these thoughts you're constantly uh what did you call it fight-or-flight mode sure at that point and you don't have time to really kind of gather your feelings until later yeah that day yeah that day to worry

about everything it's like the next day the clock is like investable tomorrow but all your bills are doing this once a month right they don't care about the story yes oh that's so sad okay so anyway how about that rent like I said like as soon as you get through one of those moments like at least for me the way I read the Act is is like I'm never gonna depend on my employer for anything like it is it's it's it's gonna be strictly business from now on it's an at-will employment right this is like for both of us so I pay more attention to that office politics becomes less personal for me right it's more like a job I'm here to do and professionally I will improve whatever you need me to do but other than that you know after eight hours I'm gone yeah alright because you can lay me off at any moment you don't get my extra eight hours I'm gonna live my life and at that 5-yard five-year mark fortunately it's

one of those things bittersweet right if I carried on without being laid off I would have been not I would not be here yeah my past was nothing my desk and and in some cases great if you guys are out there been in a company for 10 plus years Alma your unicorn we are so thankful for developers out there that are able to remain stable and still do what they love we completely support that we want that to keep happening and we want that to keep happening to everybody everybody more frequently right so I'm gonna pull up a question all right everybody begin I can take over for the next seven hours okay we get all the way to brain you're talking about war stores I'm sure you want to never see two veterans at a bar like they just see this is pretty much how it is on our late-night calls to each other to kind of pep each other a pillow talk so are praveen 760 and shout out to our Praveen he's been helping us moderate all the questions out there how do you guys take a break from work like back

when you were in triple-a and when you were faced with extreme crunch and stuff like how do you stay fit oh thank you for being for noticing and don't let the strenuous efforts that goes into making gains from spoiling your health do you really have time to play the games you work on this is very popular I can jump in because my answer would be super quick so every company gives you a lunch period I got really good at understanding that like you know in one hours time I could probably scarf down a meal real quick and then have maybe about 40 minutes to enjoy something that will give me like a long period of mental reset whether that was play a game for 40 minutes whether that was just watching youtube videos whether that was just walk and talk with other people hey I hate to say this but like I looked at that hour of time as my time to do whatever so long as I also made sure that I had food and a lot of companies actually if you're at your desk and you're working and munching they don't care yeah so like if you took that whole hour for personal and then let's say you get back to your desk and you're working and like you take your bite of your Subway sandwich and keep working and take a bite of your sandwich usually you're eating your actual food

after that hour you're probably won't get in trouble you know I've done that before you know I've made sure that I took that hour for workout or play games and you have the same work day like I still go home at the same time but I feel like I had an extra hour of just like peace for myself because I had to reclaim it in a way that just worked for me yeah and to me it's a very similar answer every day you got really treat yourself respectfully because for me health comes first even before my children because hey if you go yeah I mean that's the what is that the airplane roll when you put your oxygen this is yourself before holding and I take that very literally I'm gonna fighting the kids off your wife with my awesome yes but it's very first brief yes it's a very strenuous job obviously most people are still sitters right I know we have fancy standing desk now and that's actually a step forward to kind of take care of your health but it's very strenuous on your back and all these stuff everything that you're doing at the computer is telling you like

you're gonna slowly age and break apart right so health-wise it's the first thing I do the last thing I do every day it's very important and not just health it's just like a better just having a life earlier in my career it was all about the industry it was all about working hard it's all about the game putting out in the satisfaction at some point at least for me that stopped like I you know the quiet part of the question was do you guys even play games no I haven't played my own game that I've launched all right and I'm being very real because you part of is because you play tests while you're in development in law you play levels over and over but it's been a long time where after shipping a game working on it for three plus years and finally like super excited to unwrap your little professional edition right and that's something to like not every game place give you for your game right but the places that do are kind of didn't get a copy box playing three little there

Gilligan I was a little slower that but I got a buy that coffee office thing I had to buy up your own game but I it's been a while since I actually appreciated my work because a lot of it harks back to that period and after that first layoffs I just viewed the industry very differently not in a totally negative way but more being proactive about all right self-improvement what we're gonna do what can I secure myself with so of course I have accomplished working with great people very proud of the games we put out together but truthfully you know desire to kind of review my success I view it a very different way now you know we're working on our own game like the III feel more comfortable working in smaller teams because now the things that I take the most pride to is are our projects that if I didn't have a part of it it would not exist yeah that's like

my my faina so yes you know all the begins that we worked on are great but I could have taken myself out of that equation and the game would it still exist without me right sure and so I look at the level of success and pride a very different way it's like you know if we're in a room full of 1,000 podcasters and we're just both having a mic it doesn't feel the same as now I'm talking to you you're talking to me I'm listening to you listen to me so it's very much the same way and so to do and be able to juggle a lot of things health is very important you got to make time and tighted so you're saying you have to make time right like that is the one thing I do want to like stress to the audience who if anyone is saying like aw man how do you do so many things it's really because every moment of your life that you are conscious you are making decisions where you're putting your time regardless of it being an obligation or not you're still deciding to fulfill the obligation Yeah right so if you go home

and you veg out for an hour and a half before you try to start doing some work or let's just say you needed that rest time that's fine it's okay to acknowledge that you were very tired and you need an hour half worth of rest but if that day goes by those 24 hours let's say you're conscious for 16 17 of it and you didn't do anything to progress one of the things that you're interested in you can't tell me that there wasn't something that you could have done differently even for 30 minutes to just say you know what instead of doing X I'm gonna do Y because Y is important to me even though Y may take a lot of time and I only see myself having little bits of time over all those little bits of time still add up if you feel like you literally don't have enough time then where your priorities balanced what is taking up the time that you wish you were doing something else with is there any way that you could multitask while doing that thing or is there any way that you could delegate while doing that thing or more or less just get rid of that thing because it's not as important as why it's very so remember you're making decisions with your time and you know whenever you look back in career if I look back personally right and I look at

the highlights you know I don't remember the times that's stayed in the office and was really hard on something like I I appreciate the time with my family my friends and you know the the little networking that I do with the friends from work and everything those are the highlights and those are the things going forward that I want to kind of hark to everybody those are the important things right I've seen friends they've just been crunching forever and I'd go back to visit their health is to right or they're not really happy because chasing titles is a high right you there's never enough before he gets outdated most Triple A games you know sounds great now but in a couple years it kind of fades back in the background it's the same on your resume it's great to see it there but a few years passes like okay that's nice but it's just like that and so it's never-ending if you just fast forward like how many tiles does it take before he says like every career it's like to me at least for us there was a turning point where I'm like

I'm so sick of working on these big games I want to work on smaller intimate games things that do matter to me and that you know gives me the credibility to kind of say like I had a big part in that and if it wasn't for me this is what this game wouldn't be the way it would be and it's a very different turning point for me because I never thought before we were started with our college years never thought that I would hit that point because ever since college so I want to work on the biggest game that everybody knows so that when I go on the streets it is a nice feeling is like I worked on this game so y'all kids play that no that's great and that was that right but never thought never thought like past my ten years that um but that's not that's the opposite of what I want now and that's done personal journey right and not to hate on anybody that's working on a huge games right now I appreciate it I still love playing those big games or even worse somebody has to do it but I think if anything G ducks is about like we can do this pretty healthily right we talked about

there's no denying all right I'm gonna give a shout out to Rockstar with Red Dead - right there's no denying look at that game that is the epitome of triple-a development right that is exactly what chobo development in terms of quality in terms of time and in terms of development you know it's it's it's great a hard strip the key impossible - to try to even duplicate that the process of it it's one-of-a-kind but the sacrifice is those developers made to make that game it's like do I really need it in eight years is like it's 12 years still too late you think if a game like that gets released and and everybody actually worked like normal hours if it came out a year later it would still be white okay to me if they work like normal be 12 years to me of probably 12 years but people I feel will still line up for a game like that and still if anything will respect you as a developer as a team that fosters

talent and respects talent right Colin I'll call people out but these are things that it's not like I went in there and started this is open secrets sure sure now well we got a couple more minutes before I say it's more question on you guys one more question in here okay for twitch like a band exists all right let me get one more question in here so loaded up real quick again thanks through everyone in twitch thanks everyone in YouTube thank you for watching this wherever you are watching this we appreciate you yeah as you can tell Larry and I can talk for seven hours but huh pity Pittock boss J I'm hope I'm saying that right I'm sorry would you super serious felt to be a game in your free time oh I could say yes with a pat like I love love video games I will never I don't see myself ever not enjoying video games and video game experiences and I keep a healthy healthy kDa ratio in every sort of competitive game I play

big into MOBAs right now if you want to see me in heroes of the storm and you like dying you know feel free hop in the game with me I'll show you what's that boy Wow classic right now also I would like to see the same but I can obviously Larry's the designer of the grid on the artist so he has to stay on top of things to kind of be relevant for for me like I can just concentrate in the art and still be good at my job and unfortunately that also means that if I can skip the game I would and being a family man being able to having the juggle everything I'm hope that's the one thing I'm very excited about now that we're doing all this full-time sir his app could finally play games that I've been missing the last four or five years and it's very important because that's how I came to love the industry where I played games night and day and that's how I learned right that's how I learned to appreciate the the process in the art form so yes I am slowly climbing out into being a gamer again and so uh I

still considered me you know I love the process but I just also looked at the medium I think it's the future um what will be the next game that you play when you start playing right now I'm going through metal gear okay so you'd like to kind of circle back you know motor gear was a reason why I stepped in go but uh I'm a huge fan of hideo kojima and to say that i'm playing this game that's been out for like four years my favorite franchise is say a lot right it's like man i really missed out on a lot of stuff well now you didn't miss out it's paying $60 for it and I hate to say like this but I'm assuming you'd say like cheaper in 2015 yeah yeah so I got to prep myself up for the death stranding games but uh we'll take one more question I think Tania is waiting patiently for us our next speaker let me take one more and let's see here because like lightning fast pretty a yes or no question all right

let's end it on a good note right we talked about a lot of negativity sir but let's end it on a good note and this comes from let's be awkward so what are your favorite parts of your job role specific or broadly favorite parts of my job real specific I'll say sure two things one is I would say being the creative I have to make sure that I understand and can like speak the lingo of all the people contributing to making my ideas come to life and I love that right like I may not be the animator I may not be the sound designer I may not be the technical artist I may not be the programmer but I have to know enough about all of those lanes so that when I construct my ideas I can communicate to all those departments and break down but also be able to verify that when they do something it is either towards the goal or if it's off from the goal so I feel like as a designer I'm incredibly agile I have to make sure that you know that I can I can roll with any any pack and get in there and have a great conversation about development and that's just always

fun for me I love seeing other people do incredible things knowing that it's going to push for the design vision so call me selfish but that's my favorite thing about my specific job Brennan how about yourself I love having to always be on top of things like being an environment artist myself we're constantly learning new programs to improve I don't want to toot my own horn like you said before but we are pretty pretty important we designed the whole world to make me run through it and so only seeing one successful 3d game without environment artist knows minecraft and so obviously every disciplines but uh it's just like I enjoy just learning new programs because seeing how things work and improving my workflow that's what I look forward to everyday like what can I do to improve myself and make my art look better because obviously anything that I do will be represented right away and people will judge that so I can't really kind of skirt around ugly polygons there

but it's but it's part of fun it's demanding [Music] you [Music]