Students Getting into the Game Industry with Ian McDonell | 314

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what's up everybody welcome to another episode of Game Dev Unchained the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof I am your host Gremlin fan and with me a dear friend for a while now Ian McDonald how you doing Ian hey Brandon I'm happy to be here with you I'm doing great awesome man we've had a very interesting episode for those who haven't seen the topic but before I got go into that and I I kind of this is kind of the moment where I kind of shut up and let you introduce yourself to the audience and listeners out there who you are where you've been and where you heading sure um yeah me and McDonald um I am a associate environment Artist At Lost Boys interactive um previously I was working freelance and

doing it full-time kind of as my survival jobs and recently got hired at Lost Boys interactive um you know so I've got a ton to learn I'm I'm with a great team and he's planning to stick with environment art for the foreseeable future fantastic man so we have an interesting history at one point you were learning from games go online we've talked ever since like for five years plus uh and um you've always been focused you were a standout you know you've even interacted with each other on go demix you helped intern uh on some uh individual projects that we had at the company uh and you stuck with it man you no matter how difficult no matter whatever viruses that are coming out of

China uh it was so I I can't describe how how amazing it was to kind of read your heading on LinkedIn that this was basically your first full-time job right I know you freelance here and there I know your I.T was your main thing so I want to dive into that a bit if you don't mind um what changed what was the difference that you felt was the key thing in the last year yeah um it's it's been an interesting year for sure um you know I like you said I've been at this for five years plus at this point um like since I started doing 3D as my career path um and you know I I'd say three years ago I I was starting to send out applications

and just try to sneak my way in if I could um but in this past year I've uh from like April to uh when did I get hired like the mid-september so for the four or five months I got three recruiters that reached out to me in that time period interviewed with two of them the third one I had just taken the job at Lost Boys so I had to turn them down um but that's an interesting question I kind of wondered that about that a bit too um I definitely I think the two big things were that I kind of refocused my portfolio um from some advice from a friend who is a very talented artist and just great shout out friend yeah uh that was Dennis Porter

shout out Dennis he yeah he went through my portfolio with me and he said you know you've got a lot of great stuff here you could definitely kind of refocus the way that you're presenting these and some of the changes I made it were they did come up in my interviews as being things that stood out to the people I was interviewing with um for example just like I had a group project where I mostly did textures he was like you really need to just hone in on those textures um so I did that they liked seeing those textures knowing that I could get my feet wet and um substance designer and and do work in there if needed and and stuff like that it was a number of pieces where I did that and then I kind of did two pieces like in a short time my previous pieces had taken me months and

months to where you know getting a couple out in a short time I think also helped just showing I can take something I can work through it in a number of weeks and and have something to show for it um But ultimately so the last recruiter that reached out to me I actually asked them like I'm sorry I have to turn this down um but can I ask like what what stood out like you're the third recruiter to talk to me recently and I was I was actually really surprised she did she was willing to kind of give me a I run down of what stood out um the things that she said which were also things I had changed in the last few months on my LinkedIn um she pointed out my I think the objective or something just like I I had held off on doing this for a while but I kind of just leaned into like what you might call like the cheesy

side um so to say like you know I'm a passionate game developer you know like leaning into just selling myself and like being able to uh like commit to what like seems yeah I think cheesy is the right word like yeah I'm a I'm a passionate artist looking for uh to be part of a collaborative team at AAA Studio she's like that's that's what we look for so um like those things that I had changed specifically like two months before uh ended up helping out a lot in that regard so uh to clarify you mean turning changing it to the cheese helped yeah turning up the trees leaning into the the stuff where you're like I don't want to like you know lean into like crunch culture

but you know I'm willing to do whatever it takes to to get my foot in the door yeah well it's interesting in a number of ways right so foreign great advice the focus do these recruiters come across your LinkedIn or did it come from an application [Music] um that you submitted I didn't apply to any of these so they found you through just recruiting through yeah two of them found me through Linkedin and then the one where I got hired Lost Boys um he found me first on Art station and then looked up my LinkedIn and and contacted me there um but yeah I mean that's the ironic thing right is that I I've applied to probably 100 jobs over the past few years and then out of the blue people are starting to come to me and then still not entirely sure why but yeah something something clicked

when you're not looking is usually when it happens I think that's what they talk about when you fall in love or something yeah uh I was texting my mentor Kevin you know Kevin De bolt shout out okay he he was saying you know when it rains it pours yeah and that that goes in both directions you'll have long dry spells and you'll have a lot of rain from time to time and yeah I mean there's definitely a correlation from what I've been seeing you know um is that the the industry have been growing I mean we're projected I've been seeing these uh charts for 2026 where we're basically going to balloon up to like 300 billion dollars to 500 billion dollars right in a matter of four years covid was actually very good for our industry a lot of Gamers kind of

God went came on board a lot of gaming consumption happened the last few years so in turn if the gaming concession goes up all right more game development is to kind of Meet the supply and and demand for it right so uh it is forcing I think a lot of recruiters kind of pushing and actively looking for people like yourself Ian um just good quality and I think your timing of cleaning up your portfolio um and the extra cheese actually stood out uh in a way just because you know uh the first line of communication is not just whatever you have on our station right it's they do want to kind of hear like a short paragraph of who you are that separates you know personalities I think it is very important for an artist

um for a new job right that's 50 I think or even more sometimes so it's it's really cool to kind of hear that that happened so when you started in the summer then uh so I just passed my one month Mark um I started at the end of September thank you um yeah and the other interesting thing like as I came on um oh well two things so the the last recruiter who I talked to and asked they did they also said the same thing that you were just saying they said how um you know the game industry is advancing and growing so much that's that's a big part of it there's just so much growth right now um like Get Lost Boys um they said that they've they've more than doubled in the past year um so that's that's a huge part of it and the other thing I was going to point out that might have worked to my advantage or at

least where I got hired it did um like my I.T background and just experience in a not like a directly correlating work situation but working in a collaborative field and that kind of thing because I asked them like you know what what was it that you guys liked about me like going into the kind of work that I'm doing I was curious and they're like well your your art speaks for itself but um we were more impressed with like your maturity and your level-headedness and like you know not we could tell you weren't coming into this thinking that you were just going to be doing art all day like some new artists of life experience yeah yeah um so that was good to hear too that my my time in it wasn't a complete waste

other than surviving but um yeah so it'll it all worked out in my favor yeah I always mention this I I really do feel like our industry kind of leans toward the mature groups of people right do you mind me asking your age I forget yeah I'm 31 31 yeah like the unfortunate thing is a lot of people college kids come out of school when they give up and fizzle out after two three years but they're uh I do feel if we are keeping at it keeping the tools Sharp that they're uh their attractiveness in in terms of coming in the industry is actually higher because uh generally I think older people just uh do better uh at least uh at least on paper um I think we

don't want to deal with you're not you're past gen Z but there is a lot of things that I've been hearing not just in our industry about gen Z and this is like every generation right complaining about the younger generation yeah but there are like very alarming things that I do read and and see with younger Generations where uh for example in in China they kind of have this um this trend that's going around where uh basically doing the minimum right and no more and uh I do see that as well there's an entitlement it feels like in our country in U.S particularly where uh Fame and um success is kind of expected and not earned right because it is there are like um a lot of avenues now it feels that you

can get rich and famous pretty quickly through influencing or other means and it looks easy but really it doesn't the most successful ones aren't working pretty hard but it looks obtainable right and so uh low-level jobs or uh regular jobs feel just inadequate to to what their desires are so it is I do feel the concern and it isn't a surprise for me to kind of hear that and Kudos man that's awesome that you were asking for feedback and uh and stuff like that because it is showing a level of maturity and most uh just go on with their lives not wondering well wondering about it but never asking the the questions to kind of know for sure so it is very cool that you that you did that um and and basically uh had something to kind of go forward with in your career

yeah yeah I mean I I'm just kind of like a kind of person who wants to know a lot of stuff like that you know yeah um I think it's a good way to build relationships as well um the first job I interviewed for was with Ubisoft and uh like after I didn't get the job I um connected with the art lead that I interviewed with on LinkedIn and messaged him briefly just to be like you know hey keep the door open kind of thing and he was super cool I love I loved interviewing with him so I mean I think there's um you know Network benefits in that regard too it's just you know it's a way of showing that you're interested in continuing to learn and uh you know growing you're not I'm

not just like okay I got the job I'm I'm set for life you know what what strengths they saw in me so that I can lean into those or maybe bring up my other strengths more too um yeah so I'm I am grateful for the experience I have working in it and um you know I learned a lot there and yeah it's interesting um just like the transformation of work you know being able to make a living as a content creator and um you know it's not a given you know I have I watch a lot of twitch and like I have friends that stream no kidding like eight hours a day almost every single day of the year and then there's you know four or five years into it and they still average like 10 viewers um you know so it's like you can't even say that just like grinding is enough

sometimes it's like you have to have the right combo of of hard work and the extra spice that makes people want to come to you for whatever you're doing yeah it's definitely a combination of grind but constantly evaluating the results like a lot of people just kind of blindly go into it like you said and it's like oh if I just keep hitting the nail on the head with the hammer eventually it'll work right but yeah but and that's the you know it is kind of deceiving right with that kind of Mantra of like hard work pays off right well you know you're missing the whole element of how most successful developers people do things is that they constantly look at the results adjust try something new like scientifically right and um that is something that I feel uh

people who lack Improvement uh fall into is just constantly keep doing the same mistakes uh and then eventually give up you know they might think like um you know why don't why don't they like me or like what's wrong with what's wrong with them like projecting it when uh the more useful thing to say is like okay let me reflect on on what happened here and what I can do differently next time what's wrong with me yeah definitely um I I def I I kind of want to ask you this question I know this past year you made some adjustment timing is a big factor putting yourself out there constantly uh and balancing all that with a full-time job throughout the years and I know you've been at it uh consistently for a long time throughout the years I mean what time on average are you kind of dedicating to

looking for jobs updating portfolio cleaning out your portfolio Etc per week you know even daily if you can kind of give us a glimpse of that sure yeah um so my my scheduling varied a lot over the years um I think the best way to put it is that you know uh certain phases happened in waves um and then yeah the other thing is like the past like three years so I started doing freelance stuff at the beginning of 2020 so it's almost been three years since I started getting paid to do 3D um but you know it's uh every year I've been like this is the year I'm gonna get a job this is the year I'm gonna get a job and uh you know so it's it's taken a

while and and I've I've been at it for it feels like a long time but it's also I'm trying to be generous with myself like you know a University degree is usually like four to five years so like me having been just over five years while like working full-time like I I feel pretty good about that um so in regards to my schedule yeah I definitely had more productive times and then you know Mega burnout here and there uh and that's just like either you know not switching projects fully but being able to just find something interesting about it again because I love learning I love trying to pick up new skills and new approaches and like streamlining my workflow and all that kind of stuff um so if I if I got burnout on a project

I didn't want to let that go to waste so I might just shift my Approach on it like try to work on a different part of it but average daily I would say you know after work I'd be a good day would be two to three hours a day um and that wasn't every day that was sometimes a few days a week and sometimes five or six days a week and I might work on it all day Saturday or all day Sunday and um that was I think that was pretty average for you know four plus years just just really it really was a grind um you know every time my wife and I would travel uh there would just be this like looming burden that I felt of like I should be

doing portfolio work right now um so it's amazing to to be freed from that and you know mentioning my wife it's like I wasn't just working full-time I'm also married and having to keep up relationships having to visit both of our families time to time so um in that regard you know I just had to be patient with myself um patient with my learning patient with uh like the progress that I was making on projects and just trying to one-up myself each time try to find projects that interested me that I knew that I could work on for for months at a time because sometimes a portfolio piece would take me six or eight months on some of them um I know this is going to be tricky but um I want you to go back to one of your low moments and uh be as specific or as general as

you want just to kind of walk through this is kind of a common thing because I imagine there's a a few times a month or so as like this I know you're freelancing and stuff but this period of like nothing's happening besides that can be very draining and toxic uh in your own mental state right and like you said balancing like your family like the priorities always are shifting and I think uh naturally inside your start making excuses basically right of why giving up is okay like you're near death or something so can you uh you need to take a moment kind of talk about one of those moments it could be as recently as the last year or months before that or whatever of walking through that and how how did you eventually get out that funk

yeah for sure um I can do that uh um I'll mention two things on this topic I think the first one this isn't this isn't pointed at anyone in particular but um you know me being a technical technical person working in I.T just loving computers going up on computers um I did hear a lot of you know why don't you just like do a a coding boot camp and you could have a job in three months and and stop like breaking your back trying to do this art thing and you know hearing that from friends and um and people and they you know they meant it in a helpful way but I was I had my heart set on this

and I was like I'm if I don't like do everything I can to make this happen I'll regret it forever um and I I believed in myself and um you know it's a potentially lucrative field but that's not why I'm here if I just wanted to make money I probably would have done a boot camp um but the other time I think of um this one goes both ways because uh my first time going to GDC it's 2018. um so I was I was like a year and a half for almost two years into studying 3D um and I you know I got into some mixers through whatever methods and all kinds of events basically and that was super interesting because on on

the one hand I'm just like I felt so uplifted I was like this is my tribe this is where I need to be like I Love Game Dev like you know you know it was kind of a confirmation of what I had felt like these are my people these this is the kind of stuff I want to be around um but it was also like super humbling um just seeing like the tremendous creativity and hard work that other people have and what they were putting into it and not to say I wasn't doing that but um you know that was like two years into my my studies and I was I was making good progress but I definitely was not hirable um far from it uh and so it was just kind of a wake-up call like you know you I still had a long ways to go and then on top of that

having you know leading up to GDC you you pour a lot of time and effort into your portfolio to to be able to show you your best work when you're there um I did get a lot of feedback but coming out of that number one just like super tired and like I had basically crunched leading up to that you know self-imposed crunch um and then just also feeling like oh man like yeah this is this might still be a while um you know just feeling like okay I gotta I gotta cool off like I can't be going like Full Speed Ahead like or else I'm gonna burn out fully like I knew that um so I I have had times where I I recognize that feeling and like okay I'm I'm stretching myself too thin or I'm overdoing it like you know just chill out a little bit but you know

that's also due to my being married and working full-time you know so much my energy was also going into those things I know I know people who who really can make it happen and a year and a half to three years might get where where you need to be to get a job self-teaching doing online programs and stuff just because um you know and stuff fewer responsibilities in in a work life or a relationship regard uh yeah I think I think that was probably one of the most standout times is being like okay um you know take my time but also like this is these are good people for me to kind of be around yeah be around and compare myself against because you know I've I've heard it a million times I'm sure it's been said a million times on here

but it's like you can't compare yourself to like the other candidates you have to compare yourself to the people in the industry because that's where you gotta be yeah uh it's also one of the things that um we were mentioning before your um you're meant to fortitude to kind of bounce back from low points but also your constant humbling approach to reevaluating what's working and what's not like that is such a key thing to get to reach any goals right and I you obviously have it um I would love to kind of ask this past year did you start feeling things were different like did you kind of ride that wave all the way to your ultimate

higher in September or were there moments that did feel low and were I guess the general question is like where did you kind of feel like this year was something's changing um before all those recruiters start reaching out to you yeah I guess yeah um so I I do owe a lot of credit to to Dennis um art on the online communities he uh um he sat down with me to look over my portfolio and and give me some feedback and he basically was like you're hireable like you could get a job with us like you know most like um like him sitting down and scrutinizing the work and looking past like the way that a recruiter or uh you know somebody looking to hire would glance at it like him sitting down and digging in he's

like yeah that's like this level of work could get you a job um and so him taking the time to kind of you know show me what I could be doing better on on a number of my pieces and um like what kind of approach to carry forward to um kind of continue that trajectory was like a big reset for me not like in work ethic but in like my mentality and my Approach and and definitely in my my hopefulness like that helped me just hearing that and knowing that I was kind of at the the right level or the right Quality Bar was hugely reassuring um he's a he's a tech artist by the way and he started as an environment artist so that's why I was talking to him and why

that feedback was so meaningful um so that was a huge step just um like hearing that from him but then also just having like solid um like notes of what to do going forward and and stuff to change so uh it was like right around the time that I wrapped up the changes that he suggested because that took me two or three months to to work all of that out um was when I heard from the Ubisoft recruiter um and so that gave me a huge boost I I thought I was gonna get the job um I'm pretty sure I should have just the last interview it was a kind of a complicated thing I don't want to bad talk anyone um but things went South at the very end not not by my own regard I'd like to say

uh just things didn't work out there but it aside from that you know it was a huge Boon to my um self-perception just like I felt like I had broken through some barrier of where I knew at that point like okay I'm I have something going here I'm I'm desirable some way as an artist and I think that did come from um Dennis kind of helping me reshift my thinking and my the way I was looking at myself and my you know like really just having to sell myself like that started with me believing in myself and that's where like being able to lean into the cheesiness on my LinkedIn portfolio or profile came from um it was just like being like you know I don't I I don't like talking about myself in this way but like I feel

like I could I could feel it was a thing I had to do to just put everything in my favor um so yeah I didn't I didn't really know it until I heard from Ubisoft and then you know think it felt like the ball was definitely rolling at that point but I did feel differently this year just kind of taking even more of a step back usual than I usually do to work with working with Dennis and getting his feedback um and implementing that and uh you know being really proud of where my portfolio is at that point um and just continuing to work on it in a a healthy way you know not pouring too much of myself into it but feeling like I was making a lot of good meaningful progress as well so but yeah it did it did feel a bit different this year for sure with all

that stuff uh I do have a general question so one of the things that I've been bringing up over and over again at least with my round table with Ray it's just free thinking um you know the pandemic I hate keep repeating it but I I do think there are long-term ramifications for what happened in that year and a half of everyone being at home and trajectory-wise it changed our industry right and um work from home is a huge thing I think eventually it won't be as 50 50 anymore I I think uh more and more bigger companies are leaning towards bringing people in the office you know just they're just waiting for a bigger company to make the jump before it's rational again um but just to kind of give this question a little background

uh people hiring have kind of froze or at least a slow growth in terms of people are slowing down finally on the recruiting for all Industries uh including our own uh we're starting to see layoffs because of the rampant hiring that we did the last two years so now there's too many people in the workplace right um but because our industry is growing it's kind of balancing out a bit my main question is you know um with that I do think there's a lot of value for for for people to be in the office right funny enough um I've always been saying office politics is in the office so let's not be in the office but doing it all at once like this I I have seen kind of development kind of stall right a lot of delays have been happening and a lot of companies are not set up that way and a lot of people are not able to kind of

separate the personal life from work life at home right you've had a lot of practice I think people with your background in particular grinding after hours uh specifically you have a full-time job you're freelancing you're constantly updating your portfolio you're dedicating two three hours a day sometimes three to five times a week right consistently in the last five years that and balancing relationships marriage everything right that have given people like you a lot of uh discipline and practice right uh a lot of people didn't have that uh from our industry and were thrown into this and have been kind of falling apart since so um I know you know I'm guessing you work from home

right now Lost Boys is not are you near them or where are you at right now they're based out of Madison Wisconsin but they're when I was hired I was told to to remote first studio so they plan to always stay remote right and you're instilling yeah Long Beach right we need to meet up man we look too close to get too far we only saw each other once at GDC and we had to be in San Francisco all right let's make a lunch date um let's do it but uh my main question is after all that um as someone new in the industry right I love my experience being in the office I learned a lot by watching people physically right uh how they approach their job going on these breaks together having lunch all this stuff

I created pretty much long life friends from working in the office and I know you're only a month in in everything is still very new uh there's a lot of things to discover as that settles uh I guess this is a question I'll ask you a year from now but do you have any of those concerns I'm missing out on that experience what ways in your office have you been seeing people um making up for that instead and how do you wish things would be differently if of course you're not going to go to Wisconsin Madison but let's say they are opening off an office in Long Beach like what are your um what would you be leaning towards going in the office at this early in your career or still 50 50 hybrid right

um that's I think that's a really interesting question um like the first thing that comes to mind for me I don't think this is generational necessarily but for me uh I grew up in Wyoming and you know it's like snowy like more than half the year you know it's just like you don't really go outside unless you're like doing a snow sport or something so um I bring that up just to say like you know my I'm since then and through my adult life I've always had a lot of online friends I've always felt very comfortable in forums and chat rooms and um Discord you know I have a lot of like online friends so to say um and so in that regard I I do find like a

a lot of social fulfillment through online communities um so like going to work from home um I did a period of that during the pandemic wasn't that hard for me you know partially because I'm married so I have my wife there she's my best friend and just all my existing friends that I had online um so that wasn't like a super difficult thing for me um also like not really having my heart in I.T like I wasn't too like socially dependent on the people that I was working with like we're friends and I have a lot of good friends from there but it's also it was more secondary so to say um but as for like the new job starting now it's been it's been interesting for sure um I'm I'm totally open to working from

home and I like the ease you know there's a lot of things that it makes easier um I'm just not having to commute you know yeah all my I can just walk over to the fridge not worry about having to prepare a meal for the day or whatever [Music] I like those things but I I definitely do sometimes kind of think about the things that you're saying of like uh not necessarily like water cooler chat but like walking over somebody's desk and like hey man what are you working on oh that's cool can you show me how to do that you know I imagine there's a lot of that in studio a lot of like General camaraderie that I feel like would be easier to form in person than it would online um and part of I think part of what um

has been or like felt a little slow starting out for me as um the team I got hired on to is really small I'm the only I'm the only environment artist there's a lead environment art but above me in the art director on our team you know we're kind of a bare bones team early on in this project so we have like a they call it a fireside chat room it's a Google chatters hangouts or whatever Google meet there we go where you know if we wanted to we could go sit in there and and chat together throughout the day um but you know just being the two environment artists there's not a lot of that um I think if the team was bigger I could definitely see that happening um you know I've been in discords where

that's very much the case like art discords where uh people are just sitting in like the the voice chat all day sharing their screen people come in and do exactly what I was saying like hey what is that that looks cool um ask about it or give them advice um so I I kind of I think I would like that um I think I'd like it even if it just was online you know that's not necessarily A Fault of working from home I think there are ways to compensate for that like through the video calls but at the same time that can be tiring as well like for whatever reason when you're on a video call it feels more training like you're under scrutiny or something even if you know people aren't really just like watching you or your screen it's just feels more direct in

some way than you know working across from somebody at another desk does well there is definitely some studies that are this is why the next two three years I've I've been very uh in tune to or just curious about what the Fallout of all this online only work from home post covid stuff because like part of the anxiety that you feel on a zoom call versus hanging out in person is that we're not used to just talking [Music] you know and reading someone from just the shoulder up right and uh to that feels if you're if you're seeing me this close you're in my personal space in the physical world right yeah it's like you're having a very direct very direct requiring all of your attention 10 yeah 1080 HP you know HD version of me

talking right in your face right and usually in person you get the full from the foot to the Head and usually at a pretty safe distance to have a conversation with someone and you catch subtleties um through a lot of the body language and and you know half the conversations just reading someone right so to rely just from the shoulder up it does feel very intimate all right too intimate I think um for a regular hangout right and who knows maybe meta is correct this whole time they'll figure it out and they're trying to solve that with virtual bodies um but yeah there you know that Gap is definitely there um for now it just feels Irreplaceable uh to to kind of hang out with a person and and work with the person in that way

that we do in the office um yeah in a way there's this is the adjustment but there's definitely gonna be uh a cost benefit thing that's going to be analyzed yeah soon um because yeah it's not all good it's definitely not all good you know I I run a remote only company as well and like most game industry cut places it's that's why I always wonder right if I didn't have something to compare it to because I was used to being in the office how do you feel about it right and it feels like again you're kind of the exception to the rule because you you know you've done this before yeah uh and you have like you said a lot of social fulfillment uh through your online community of people that you have yeah

um so I'm always just wondering if do you feel it as bad as I do um probably not yeah for the same reasons like um you know my wife struggled a lot during the pandemic from her separation from her social groups um right I was like all my friends are online anyway we're gaming right now yeah exactly like I'm I'm more social if anything from just being on the computer more um but I like the other thing I think about is like the efficiency cost or efficiency gain of working from home because um you know when I did it not to say I was goofing off all the time but it's like you just have more chances to fit into people and chat and uh you know get distracted or

laughs talk about whatever you know and lose focus but it's also like I'm you know I'm at home my wife works but uh you know she might have a day off and be asking me to go get her something out of the garage or you know have some twitch stream on that pulls my focus away a little too much and I'm like well I guess like it happens in in both Realms of little distractions here and there and I think that's normal and healthy uh but I'd be curious to see like how it's affected work in that regard to like how if people are more or less efficient working from home I don't know no I think overall uh you know there's this whole talk about Universal income and stuff and I think it's the same same conclusion it's like

the people who work hard will continue to work hard the people who are basically eating up work time and avoiding work or gonna continue doing that uh remotely right so it really does come from a personality trait or a workmanship trait um and gets if anything exaggerated a bit right uh in in this type of time so I do see that a lot and I have to say man and the hard workers are are still very a small percentage like I think a lot of people um are even leaning harder the other way right I hear you in terms of like yeah you know I got that I want to do besides work so therefore I will utilize the next three four hours right as hard as I can to complete the assignments but

I think a large percentage are doing the opposite right they're just barely doing the minimum just to get by and uh and there seems to be a domino effect uh kind of like in the background a lot of games are being pushed back delayed missing deadlines uh longer development time right if you thought GTA took too long to make eight years all right and that's everybody in the office 24 7. right we're talking about 80 hour work week at least imagine them trying to do that remotely it's just you know crunch culture is bad right and I'm not here to move on it if anything I spent a lot of years fighting against I mean the podcast was initially kind of made to to to push against that right because we were getting out of control yeah but there's nothing that's gonna deny that the more

you put time into something the more you get done I mean that's just simple um I think a part of gain creativeness DNA like creative-ness DNA I think other jobs when you're punching numbers and kind of going through assembly lines right uh it's pretty much okay to kind of limit it to a certain amount of hours but when the Creative Juice the creative process kind of requires some revving up I think uh like starting an old car you know we don't get to be efficient hour one or minute one of our one right it takes us a while to get into that zone and when you get in that zone uh to stop suddenly because the clock says so and to restart the next day you

kind of I think at a net loss in terms of what work we can could have gotten done if we had continued that momentum right so I know a lot of people hearing this won't like what I just said like I'm endorsing crunch culture but you know I don't think it's completely all bad right it gets a lot of done if we are Humane about it right obviously no one should be dying and coughing up blood at the desk right but for those who want to do it or can't do it um they get things done right if you were to pick a team and there's two of them and the deadline is very clear right who would you choose if the objective is to finish the game right yeah and I do worry right um kind of going off a tangent here but I do worry that if games are taking this

long to make and we're allowing this kind of like we'll get it done when it's done approach especially how everyone's fully remote and kind of like work-life balance is a balance right it should be 50 50 but I think life is kind of taking precedent right now where people are kind of disappearing from their Zoom calls or away from the tests and and basically be unreachable and and then appalled when when their managers just bring it up like what's wrong with this dinosaur uh right that uh that we're we're we're the the the balance of the universe is kind of skilled being skewed again and this isn't good either because you know we're we're a business overall and if we're not shipping games then we're overpaying people at a certain point right and we don't have enough funds to kind of keep paying and I'm very afraid of that Fallout

if there is one uh where in a couple years we're gonna hear especially um newer teams out of nowhere right um going as startup doing their first project together with this kind of mindset right uh it's kind of I think hurt the industry um overall like games not being shipped people taking forever uh and then just no results no results work is kind of being second priority life is first right it's called work-life balance supposed to be 50 50 but I think people are taking advantage of what's going on and emphasizing yeah I think stuff the you know like you said I think the balance is is the important thing like you know for me

I definitely have Ebbs and flows of of productivity and um you know if if I'm not as productive creatively for an hour or two I'm I'm at least trying to uh Focus my energy somewhere else um but it's also like you were saying like me as an artist and like I don't know my my work ethic it's hard for me to end the day and not like have something to show for it or like some sort of meaningful progress like that's that's just who I am you know to be able to check some items off my to-do list or whatever yep um but yeah I mean you know looking back on the other questions you asked me about like burning out like it can go too far too and and it's also I've had periods where if I over extend myself it's like I I have found myself being less productive and yep you know just

forcing myself to sit here 10 hours straight like definitely wouldn't I wouldn't get 10 hours worth of work out of myself doing that so it's like that's part of the importance of like recognizing those natural flows and what your your build up or wind up is like you said of revving up the engine and getting that energy flowing but um yeah you know not not overdoing it to a healthy Point unhealthy point I mean just finding the right balance but yeah it's definitely hard work and have like having that personality of wanting to accomplish things and and see something through um yeah so I I do feel like I think the the biggest thing I felt is if I was in office I think I would feel

more I don't know if committed is the right word but more attached to the project in a way just seeing my teammates and um feeling a bit more of a closeless closeness with them and that kind of thing it's like kind of um it's like the uh the positiveness of peer pressure yeah yeah I mean like you said it can go very bad because you peer pressure on its own is a negative connotation right but like there is positive peer pressure like as if you're in a sports team and you're seeing your teammates putting the extra work in the gym and that motivates you right to to right maybe go another hour or pushing yourself to Sprint harder right yeah like that that that definitely I'm glad you said it is definitely a huge Factor uh working in an office I

mean it's not as watching someone slack uh uh light goes goes green and then red is not as motivating as actually seeing someone physically at their desk like producing awesome art right um or just walking by someone's computer monitor and it's just like amazing that they got accomplished that day yeah and I I do feel like um in the midst of all this to people are kind of throwing the baby out with the bath water right car Crouch was bad crunch is all bad nothing's good comes permanent right but um something about sitting there like today my goal is to finish this my reward is to have this uh screenshot or whatever right and not stopping until that that is accomplished and I feel like people stop Too Short in in hour five of

basically maybe nine ten right where they need to put in the extra work to kind of get that done and that Cascades right we're talking about three to five year development so I'm seeing a lot of that for sure like that mentality of that drive and it's hard to kind of teach that I think it really is hard to teach that and for those who are kind of coming into their own uh figuring out their own process reaching that uh that moment where they want to push through right because we're kind of allowing it's like I wouldn't say babying but we're kind of celebrating like here's the minimum work day right once you hit that your day is your own right and I think that pushes people who are at the very least 50 50 on how oops my

camera died one sec let me switch to you no worries um what was this saying and well I can I can say something while you're thinking um like thinking about people who might benefit from my experience like just barely coming onto a project like the most I think the most interesting thing for me compared to what I was expecting coming into a studio job is like how a little how little time there is in the day to work on stuff like you know when I was doing my portfolio stuff it's like any time that I put into that was just like pure progress basically like you know I did a lot of learning and watching videos and whatever but it's like that that time was always going towards the progress of my project whereas working at a studio you know I might have there are days where I have two or three

hours of meetings in a day and yeah you know those are scattered and so if I've got an hour between meetings like I'm not gonna make a huge progress on on my tasks so you know I've got three or four hours at the end of the day where I can lean into it and um just that side of it was a little surprising uh you know there's there's a lot more to like Studio work of like politics and stuff that you have to kind of deal with um than just doing art for eight hours a day like it's it's not gonna be that and so like I didn't come in expecting that but it's yeah um it's more broken up than I expected and it is difficult in that regard um but I mean at least I'm just clicking on a link right I don't have to like I and I can be working on my project in the background most of the time but I'm not having to walk across the studio to a a

meeting where I'll get in trouble if I'm on my phone or distracted otherwise or something right yeah I will give you some some advice that I wish I had um I know you went this long personal journey of working your personal projects and it was a time where when I was in college in my last few quarters where I was just looking at the carry at the end of the stick and not enjoying the process right I was like I'm doing this to get that job once I get that job I'll be happy right and I spent the next after getting that first job 10 to 12 years of basically finally acknowledging that the my best time and chunk of progress was that last year in my college where I was working on stuff I wanted to work on I had eight hours plus a pure

joy dedicated to my vision right and execution my way right and throughout my career it was it felt off that I didn't have that right I basically had to like learn how to walk again in a way and only own a very small part right a very very small part of the project and then slightly bigger all right and even when I was lead I felt like still very minuscule uh they're still executing someone else's Vision Vision yeah exactly and I wouldn't uh and it's something that not not even until like the past five months where finally I'm back to that place where I was in college where I was like now I can execute on my my vision I'm mature now I'm paying the bills my kids are being fed my wife is happy I'm

home now I can go back to my college day of like I can sit and think about what I want to make and put out there in the world my way right and I guess this is a necessary Journey for anyone that's out there aspiring to be uh a creative Vector basically for their own project right uh and the experience obviously helped right to get to that place but it did it have felt and I know you're at the beginning of it I felt like I turned that part of my brain off you know to grow up a bit and now I'm turning it back on so for those that don't miss it as much I've seen it through what you've been doing you know just constantly doing a little something for yourself um and not have to go completely asleep right because it is tough it gets harder

right you think once you get your first job it gets easier but it gets harder now to grind after the grind and to keep at it and you know if it's a small thing hold on to that do something on the side and build it you know build something on the side up right it could be you know just our station build an audience somehow like I wish I had continued that path in in that way right when I was younger yeah I think I'm fortunate now to be where I'm at the point where I don't have to put on my energy into like higher ability now I can kind of make that pivot and and say okay I I got my foot in the door like now let me find what interests me and and try to follow that um you know like I'm a technical person I

could see myself going like a tech art route or or like a art tools route you know I'm I definitely see that stuff appealing so yeah I think that's I think that's really important what you're saying like where where do I go from here definitely well uh and I do want to uh overall thank you for uh speaking with me I know it's been a long time I'm glad you're healthy you started a kick-ass job um and I know you're gonna do a kick-ass job at it right so this is the part of the podcast where I stood up kind of hand the mic over to you to drop any Social Links or where do people follow you how do they find you etc etc

sure um yeah thanks Brandon um you know you can look me up on artstation it'll probably be my favorite place for you to follow me on artstation.com Ian m i a n m as my URL um yeah I'm on LinkedIn Twitter I'm not the most social media heavy dude um yeah but I'm there you know if you're if anybody wants to reach out with questions or whatever or even my website Ian mcdonald.com I have a contact form on there if you want to pick my brain or just you know be like hey what what are your Discord communities let me in I need that you know we'd love to have you [Music] um is this like uh a time for me to like say thanks I want to thank people too

yeah um you know coming on here and I I appreciate you inviting me on kind of feels full circle because um this kind of was like the the start for me um I was going to college studying computer science and then decided that wasn't for me and I kid you not like uh listening to the podcast was kind of what made me consider a career in the games industry and um you know shout out to Larry he wrote some silly little like 30 I might be under selling it but like 30 or 60 page little intro to Game Dev careers book where you know he said pick up pick a specialty and that's when I picked environment art and props and you know thanks to him thanks to you you

know I I met you guys at uh GDC a couple years in a row before that got cut off for covid um you know you guys have had interaction with with you through it and through game School online and that was a great experience and kind of set up my myself teaching route um I just want to thank my parents and my wife for supporting me sticking with me through it uh and uh shout out to uh uh 3D Fast Track and the lazy boys discords hit me up if anybody wants to join those we'll get you in great communities [Music] um and a huge huge thanks to my mentor Kevin De bolt like I gotta say like I don't know if game School online knew how valuable

mentors were at the time but I think that was the biggest proponent to my gross was having a mentor and you know Kevin was like the biggest support to me through all of this and I think he was as proud of me as anyone as I uh finally found my way in and couldn't have done this without him so thanks Kevin um but yeah I'm just super happy to have you know persevered and I think anyone can do it with the right work ethic and um that I love seeing people's growth and couldn't be happier to made it work for myself so big thanks to you as well Brandon did super proud super awesome to kind of see you succeed um you know the timing was just right uh it's usually how it kind of Falls together right and uh

yeah from your very first piece to your recent portfolio uh you can see it and you had all the right stuff and it's just the timing you know I had to be there as well so this is the beginning of your journey super excited to see where you go from here on out it sounds amazing so far right uh looking forward to kind of hear you from your um first shift right project but uh follow-up we'll do a follow-up for sure but uh I'll reach out so we can meet up in person before then yeah we live close enough said he might be coming out um in a few months so if the three of us should try to get together when he does okay let's do it then yeah I'll I'll self-invite myself yes I haven't seen him for a while I know he moved to Japan for years now right so and he's been there a couple years yep so that would be

awesome yeah I'd love that cool all right at least get a photo out of it I'll buy you guys lunch right that's the least I owe you all right you got it free lunch is good for me uh that is all thank you guys for joining this week's episode as always uh check out the show notes for more information um to how to find Ian but Ian thank you so much for coming on and happy that you're doing great my pleasure thanks Brando [Music] [Music]